Customer Reviews

Beyond Infinity

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Beyond Infinity (2004) is a science fiction novel of the very far future. Based on Clarke's Against the Fall of Night, it was initially written as a novella, Beyond the Fall of Night, but has been greatly extended and modified for this version.

In this novel, Cley is an Ur-human, a form of Original and the oldest extant version of humanity (the Originals were reconstructed by the Supras during the rejuvenation of Earth). She grows up in her Meta Family knowing only her current MOM - Mother Of the Moment -- and imagining her father. She knows that her mother is probably someone living within the Meta, but her father left the Meta when she was three. Cley yearns for his return.

When she is old enough, Cley starts work at the Library of Life, where various species of Mankind catalog and rerecord the DNA and other data of Earth's history. She has a passionate attraction toward Kurani, a Supra who lives in the present as well as within the realm of abstraction. They are working together when agents of the Malign attack the Library and kill Kurani. They also try to kill Cley, but fail; her body slowly mends itself.

Seeker After Patterns, a highly modified and intelligent raccoon, finds her body and helps restore her to health. For some time they dwell in the forest, amidst ancient networks of life, while Cley recovers in body and mind. Then Rin, another Supra, discovers them and takes them back to the Library of Life.

Cley is told about the attack and learns something of the Malign and other human encounters with higher dimensions. While working outside one day, Cley and Seeker encounter Morphs, manifestations of higher dimensional beings within normal spacetime. They try to capture one, but are transported to the Tubeworld, a sort of bridge between the tri-dimensional world and higher dimensions. After attracting the attention of a higher dimensional being, they are returned to normal spacetime.

This novel starts slowly, lingering over Cley's childhood thoughts and behaviors, but abruptly speeds up with the attack of the Malign agents and the introduction of Seeker. After that, the pace increases to the point of giddiness, taking Cley offplanet and into the Solar System.

As can be expected from a working physicist, the author inserts various concepts from speculative physics into the plotline, everything from multiple dimensions to electromagnetic lifeforms. The novel terminates with a glimpse of the universe well beyond our ordinary viewpoint and leaves room for an even more exotic sequel.

Highly recommended for Benford fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of speculative physics and the far future.

-Arthur W. Jordin

There is always a problem with stories set so far in the future that they have little or no connection to anything or anyone living today. _Beyond Infinity_ is takes place more than a billion years in Earths future, where so many races and have risen and died that nobody is close to even knowing the names of all of them even though the current race, the Supras" live more many centuries.

The scale of time is such that the sun has gone around the galaxy four times, and the continents are no longer recognizable.

Enter Cley, the heroine. She is an "Original" or one of the "Ur-Humans" which is close to our kind. Close as is desirable, since Supras in resurrecting our species added to the basic gene type telepathic abilities and the ability to live several centuries. It is so hard to latch on to her motivations that the author had to resort to more-extensive-than-necessary explorations of her sexual development. Her first affair is with a Supra, who dies in an attack that nearly kills Cley as well. It does kill off her entire tribe and she is the only one left.

The rest of the story is about the journey Cley has in the battle against the thing that attacked. In this she is saved, then abetted, then led by a raccoon-type creature that turns out to be another higher intelligence. Through all this she is understandably but frustratingly passive, doing little other than surviving while events unfold around her. Through it all she has obscure and occasionally enlightening conversations with Supras and her raccoon friend, centered around Benford's well-founded ideas of astrophysics, biology, and sociology.

Only if you are interested in these topics will you get anything out of this book. I give it four stars because I think Benford rises to much of the challenges of his topic, even though the resulting story will confuse the average reader and leave them unsatisfied.

Favorite line: "Cley could not help but smile. `I think I prefer my lust in smaller doses.'".

Gregory Benford has been, and remains, a terrific writer, as well as a real scientist, but this is not a good book. For a hard s.f. enthusiast, the language is fuzzy and verbose although the book has less than 300 pages. The technology (mostly biological) seems not to be well thought out, although perhaps, in the far distant future, it's so fabulous as to be beyond contemporary description. In any case, some of it seems to make little sense such as a forested O'Neill cylinder that somehow is an inter-dimensional portal. The idea that the villain, or someone, exists in more dimensions than our usual 3, or even 4 (perhaps with more than one time dimension), is not exploited in an interesting way. For those looking for psychology and motivation, the primary character, Cley, is moderately interesting, but her evolved raccoon companion is just enigmatic. The highly advanced descendants of current humans, the Supras, are mostly snooty and rather boring; considering how smart they are, they don't do much. Finally, once underway, the plot is purely linear with few digressions or new characters: the protagonist and her companion have an adventure with a beginning, middle, and end; that's not so bad, but for someone as talented and clever as Professor Benford, I had hoped for more.

I normally wouldn't spend the time to write a review. This time, I am compelled to warn others not to waste their time.

Beyond Infinity begins as a great idea, and ends with an author so full of his supposed vision, that mere language fails him. In other words, his images don't come together and the plot explodes. Trying to find any redeeming value in the last half of his book is extremely difficult. He creates a world of such strangeness that all "science" is abandoned. It becomes very much like reading someone doing some serious mind-altering chemicals (e.g. racoon-lke creatures whose intellect spans galaxies - which are all alive and aware - and whose mission to is share their uber-world-view of the pre-eminence of evolution and the failure of the human dream, etc. etc. etc.). I would quote the book here, but I would probably get slapped with violating some copyright rule.

Please, find another book to spend your time with. I read a book a week, and I had to struggle to convince myself to not just put it down about once a day and go on to my next book.

Cley, the last Original human, and her non-human friend Seeker set out on a mind-bending adventure in this far-out sci-fi novel of the distant future. In a world dominated by "Supras" (genetically engineered supermen) Cley and her tribe are assigned as caretakers of the natural environment which was so badly subverted in the past. An intelligent and engaging girl, Cley develops a crush on a Supra, and a romance develops, until a tragic attack from the entity known as "the Malign" shatters her idyll. Fearing for her life, and feeling trapped by the over-protective Supras, Cley and the raccoon-like Seeker undertake a desperate flight for freedom. In the course of their journey, they employ a wild variety of biological technologies, which ultimately lead to a climactic battle.

Unfortunately, Benford fails to integrate the novel's dissonant parts; the heroine's coming-of-age, the Supra-human races, the inter-dimensional menace, the re-terraforming of the Earth, the mysterious companion, and the bizarre means of travel - you certainly can't fault Benford for a shortage of ideas. Yet this reviewer found the novel just painfully tedious. The whole second half is one long chase that gets bogged down in the complex machinations of Benford's visionary technologies while the story just refuses to move forward. No time for character development - the Malign is after us! Even though we can't see it, or really understand what it is, exactly. And after all this delay, the conclusion is a serious letdown. Never having been a huge fan of Benford's, this book shows why: despite his mastery of science, he's just not a great storyteller.

Really, the only problem this book has besides not being written for "Average Joe" is lack of character development. Many of the background characters recieve little to no description, and the main characters are sparsly described in places. It would seem that Benford concentrated on the locations and technology in the story more then the characters.

This isn't a book for your everyday reader. It takes a lot of work and time to understand the details of why things work like they do, especially because most of the technology used in the book is based on cutting edge theoretical physics. In spite of these shortcomings, this is a well written book, but not one that can be simply picked up and read. If you want to read this book, be prepared to set aside a substantial amount of time.

The idea is brilliant: a billion years into the future, many successive species of Homo have evolved, made their mark on the galaxy, then passed into extinction. Now humanity is represented by an effete, geneticly engineered species which have cloned an earlier species called "Originals" (possibly Homo Sap)to restore the ecology of Earth. In space, huge organic ships ply the space lanes while the Earth and the Solar System plunge toward an orbit of the galactic core (these orbital mechanics were achieved by a much earlier species). Now comes a multi-dimensional bad guy that wants to destroy all of the Originals.

Why? Who knows.

This is where the book begins to struggle. Benford's ideas are moving too rapidly,like the ideas we get just before sleep, ideas that we urgently write down before we forget. I can imagine his brain in overdrive as he tries to put this stuff on paper, however, his vision doesn't translate well and he leaves the reader lost in multi-dimensional confusion. His vision is vast, too vast for most of us. I could imagine a series of more compact books within this universe.

I give this book 2 stars for its incredible concepts; subtract three stars for its confusing plot and jumbled narrative.

It is seldom that an author truly upsets me with their writing. Benford has become one of those with this book. The story had its good moments, however those moments can be summed up in fifty pages or less. I do appreciate a good descriptive author, but in this book there were too many that didn't truly related to the story and dragged on for 'beyond infinity.' If I am to compare this book to a movie, I would compare it to a pornographic film without sex.

Lots of interesting ideas but an extremely weak plot. Barely worth reading for the ideas. Supposedly happens a billion years in the future, but the changes are weakly justified and, except for the scale of the Earth's having been moved closer to the center of the galaxy, could have taken place in a few thousand years from now. The climax is rushed and silly - Life as super-duper all-powerful force.

As a long-time fan of Gregory Benford (I even had the opportunity to speak briefly over the phone with him once) I was somewhat disappointed with this novel. The idea was good, and there were some exciting and interesting parts to it. But it was not up to the standards set by his best work. Granted, I read an advance copy, not the final version. Still, character development was lacking, and the main protagonist, Cley, seemed to move from adventure to adventure without any real purpose or feel of reality. And the final conflict with the Malign, when it came, was somewhat anti-climactic.
I realize that when you are writing about events a billion years hence, virtually anything goes. Still, this tale could have been more believable, and more gripping than it was. If you are new to Benford, read Great Sky River, Tides of Light, Furious Gulf, or other excellent works by this author. If you try to judge his work by Beyond Infinity, you may be disappointed, and will miss some great writing.