[RightWingAtheist]

Neither this news report nor the current issue of Discover (which seems to be recapturing some of its old magic) whose cover article is on the space elevator mention that the late Chalres Sheffield published The Web Between Worlds the same year as Clarke published The Fountains of Paradise. James Blish had written a story called "Beanstalk" years before but I don't know if it was about a space elevator.

[Junior]

Just skimmed through the Discover article. The "ribbon/crawler" architecture looks a lot cheaper and more feasible than the traditional "beanstalk" architecture.