The Fountains of Paradise

This book won the Hugo and the Nebula awards for the year 1979/80. It is an idea novel. The building of a space elevator. First the site that it had to be built on is home to a monastery for an ancient religion. The all the technology issues that ensued. As a side bar an alien space probe is passing through our neck of the galaxy and we learn first hand that we are not alone, but this is a minor side bar of this novel. I would have liked a bit more action and maybe tackle the alien aspect.