Science fiction novel help?

Invictus

My partner is trying to remember a novel she read part of some time ago, and this is all the information she has:

"It's set on earth in the far future. People live forever (although I can't recall if everyone does, or just most people), and this is integral to the plot and to the characters. Almost the only specific detail I recall is that the repository of the world's knowledge is held in Tibet, perhaps controlled by a secret cabal.

It was not particularly good, but neither was it particularly bad, and I wish I had finished it to see how it ended.

This probably came out in the very early 2000s, and either the author or maybe a main character's name might be Michael."

Any ideas?

captaink

Was there a monster in a space station named Caliban? I'm feeling like I know this.

captaink

Was it Ilium, by Dan Simmons?

Invictus

Caliban in a space station is from the Ilium books by Dan Simmons, which I am pretty confident she doesn't mean. We talk about Simmons' books all the time; I think this is something different.

captaink

Ok. I think I am gettting wires crossed. I think I read Ilium near the same time. Was there a crawler/elevator thing that sort of spidered its way around the world? It carried the main character to Tibet to get this knowledge, I think.

captaink

I think I'm still thinking of Olympos.

Invictus

She is very confident it is set entirely on Earth; in response to the proposal of Ilium/Olympos, she said "Absolutely not; this is an Earth society, still living on Earth."

Elin

The only thing that comes to mind is Old Man's War, and it's most likely not that.

dresdenphile

Is it Altered Carbon, maybe?

DumpShock

Lost Horizon maybe?
Not from the early 2000's though......

Invictus

Altered Carbon seems the best bet so far, but we are still taking help.

Quoth

This sounds like something by Heinlein. Does she remember whether the people had evolved to have no body hair and like... Retractable genitalia?

V1m

Invictus wrote: »

My partner is trying to remember a novel she read part of some time ago, and this is all the information she has:

"It's set on earth in the far future. People live forever (although I can't recall if everyone does, or just most people), and this is integral to the plot and to the characters. Almost the only specific detail I recall is that the repository of the world's knowledge is held in Tibet, perhaps controlled by a secret cabal.

It was not particularly good, but neither was it particularly bad, and I wish I had finished it to see how it ended.

This probably came out in the very early 2000s, and either the author or maybe a main character's name might be Michael."

Any ideas?

Dan Simmons, Olympus.

EDIT: Apparently not. Sorry

Quoth

I was wrong, the one I was thinking of was Clarke. Probably not this, but here it is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_and_the_Stars