The Tower of Zanid is a science fiction novel by American writer L. Sprague de Camp, the sixth book of his Viagens Interplanetarias series and the fourth of its subseries of stories set on the fictional planet Krishna. Chronologically it is the seventh Krishna novel. It was first published in the magazine Science Fiction Stories for May 1958. It was first published in book form in hardcover by Avalon Books, also in 1958, and in paperback by Airmont Books in 1963. It has been reissued a number of times since by various publishers. For the later standard edition of Krishna novels it was published together with The Virgin of Zesh in the paperback collection The Virgin of Zesh & The Tower of Zanid by Ace Books in 1983. An E-book edition was published by Gollancz's SF Gateway imprint on September 29, 2011 as part of a general release of de Camp's works in electronic form. The novel has also been translated into Italian and German. The Tower of Zanid was de Camp's last Krishna novel for a quarter century, the next one (The Hostage of Zir) not appearing until 1977. As with all of the "Krishna" novels, the title of The Tower of Zanid has a "Z" in it, a practice de Camp claimed to have devised to keep track of them. Short stories in the series do not follow the practice, nor do Viagens Interplanetarias works not set on Krishna. Plot summary Anthony Fallon, the Terran deposed as king of the Krishnan island of Zamba in the earlier novel The Queen of Zamba, has fallen on hard times, having failed to regain his throne and lost his second wife Julnar as well. Currently he resides in Zanid, capital of the kingdom of Balhib, where he makes a precarious living as a city guardsman and spy for the nomad realm of Qaath. Fallon's life is made more complicated when Terran consul Percy Mjipa enlists him to help archaeologist Julian Fredro study the Safq, an ancient snail-shaped tower forbidden to all but members of the native Yeshite cult. Fallon is also to look into recent disappearances of Terran scientists in the region. Mjipa, introduced in this novel as a secondary character, would go on to appear in three other Krishna novels; the chronologically earlier The Hostage of Zir and The Prisoner of Zhamanak (the latter as the protagonist), and the chronologically