Timescape: A Novel

A lot of the reviewers of this book obviously read it not expecting hard SF. Another big chunk did not expect character developments approaching what one would expect from non-SF. This book is full of details on the science that are highly believable, and as exact as feasible without messing up the plot. That's the point of hard SF, and it succeeds marvellously. For those of the reviewers that expected "mainstream" SF or a non-SF fiction it is a major distraction. It also spends a lot of time on character development, which is unusual for hard-SF, and many reviewers seem to have expected traditional hard-SF. On the other hand if you do love hard SF but find most hard SF to have two dimensional characters, this is a book for you. The book juxtaposes 1963 and 1998. In '63 America had survived the missile crisis, and there appeared to be progress all around - the test ban treaty was being signed, the economy was booming, and the centers of education in California were seeing a massive growth, with a bustling research establishment. Kennedy was pushing the space race. In '63, Gordon (one of the main characters) were assistant professor, had a sexy,sexually liberated girlfriend and was frantically working on a problem that could make his career. It was all good. The books 1998 is a world in crisis, mostly described via the impacts it has on the main characters - a research team at Cambridge and the rather unsympathetic Mr Peterson - responsible though tough at work, but an chronic womanizer outside of it. The ecology is badly messed up, and we get to see it not just in terms of headlines, as you might in more typical hard SF (i.e. food production is down, fish is dying off, blah. blah.) but in terms of how it changes social structures and the daily lives of these characters. The two are tied together by the experiments of Gordon and the group at Cambridge and the groups attempts at telling Gordon how to solve the problems they are facing, while attempting to avoid a paradox. The group succeeds in communicating through time, but does it succeed in fixing the problems of the now they live in? How do you avoid a paradox? What happens if you create a paradox? These ideas and their resolutions are fairly routine in science fiction now, but I have not previously seen anyone handle them so thoroughly and in such a believable way. Some complain about lack of character development, but I would claim that anyone who does so does it because they would not normally read hard SF. Some complain about too much character development because they are looking exactly for the hard SF. It's perhaps an awkward combination. I too found myself wanting to skip ahead at various points, but not because I found parts boring, but because the development of the problem kept me in a lot of suspense. But I'm glad I didn't skip ahead - the "filler" material some have complained about was vital to the feel of this book. It was "filler" material that provided the tie in wit

This is certainly Gregory Benford's most famous novel, a classic, and deservedly so. It won the Nebula Award, the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, the British Science Fiction Award, and Australia's Ditmar Award for "Best International Long Fiction." It is one of the greatest and most disturbing warning tales in the science fiction field, and even though 1998 came and went without an ocean bloom, the dates don't really matter. It was a tale of warning, and it will be a tale of warning; just because a premature date has come and gone does not invalidate the points a piece of fiction is trying to make. Science fiction is not about prediction, nor is it entirely about the era in which it was written. "Science fiction is not predictive; it is descriptive. [...] Prediction is the business of prophets, clairvoyants, and futurologists. It is not the business of novelists. A novelist's business is lying," as Ursula K. Le Guin once said. The novel describes the lives of scientists; human emotion, fear, failure. All this is mixed in with the work, the science; science is supposedly set in stone, rigid and unmovable, and Benford does his best to crush this myth to a certain extent. Benford shows that scientists are human, with the same foibles and fallacies of every man or woman, and he seems to contrast this idea with science on a larger scale, the idea of the ocean bloom. Science gone bad, contrasted with relationships gone bad. Benford brings these two elements to their peak, straining the science and the scientists beyond their previous limits, and in this novel he showcases what a grand thing is science. Recommended to all.

A Nebula winner, and one of a handful of hard SF books considered a classic. I`ll admit that hard SF doesn't gel well with my personal reading tastes with its emphasis on scientific explanation and frequently stock characters; however, I have enjoyed some immensely, such as _The Forge of God_, and this novel only proves that Hard SF CAN be both technically fascinating and be superby piece of literature and characterization as well. Initially, Timescape caught my attention with its central premise of a dying future (well, 1998, the future when the book was written) finding a way through tachyon messages of contacting the past (1962). But the book does tend to tread water for a long time, and some of the character conflicts get a bit tiresome. But in the finale, which contains a stunning surprise, the strange science at last coalesces into a emotionally stirring vision of time as a landscape. It was at this moment that I saw the book itself become a whole-and an admirable whole. As the thoughtful afterward points out, the book tackles many different types of stories, not all of which will appeal to every reader. Give it shot, even if Hard SF insn't your thing.

It is one of my favourite books (it explains my e-mail) since i discovered it in 1982, in a paperback edition. It is not a common SF novel, nearly a main stream one. That's why it could, as some other reviews show it, disappoint a few readers. It is in fact a hard SF novel but which doesn't shy on caracter developpement. It is also a fine novel in its structure opposing two area, one full of promises (the sixties), the other dark full of fear (1999, the present of the novel). It is quite an original novel with its attempt of realistic description of scientists at work and their intercine rivalry bu with their very humane private life. It exploits cleverly scientific speculation about time travel communication by Faster than Light Particles and parallel universes. It is also a complex novel as its protagonists slowly realise the truth. In brief one of the finest Benford novel, close to the more recent "Cosm".

There are no weird aliens or laser blasters in Gregory Benford's brilliant work of science fiction. Instead, what we have here is a story of physicists at opposite ends of a time tunnel (reminiscent of the tunnel technology we use to secure Internet communications today). From this dry base, with these dull-sounding characters, Benford has created a story which is so absorbing that the reader is hard pressed to put it down all the way to the terrific ending. As the ultimate test, I lent the book to my wife (no science fiction reader) while we were on vacation. She would not put the book down until she had finished it