Timescape [Paperback]

Gregory Benford (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1981

Detecting strange patterns of interference in a lab experiment, Gordon Bernstein, an assistant researcher at a California university, investigates and begins to uncover something that will change his life forever. Reprint. Nebula Award winner.

--This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Suspense builds in this novel about scientists, physics, time travel, and saving the Earth. It's 1998, and a physicist in Cambridge, England, attempts to send a message backward in time. Earth is falling apart, and a government faction supports the project in hopes of diverting or avoiding the environmental disasters beginning to tear at the edges of civilization. It's 1962, and a physicist in California struggles with his new life on the West Coast, office politics, and the irregularities of data that plague his experiments. The story's perspective toggles between time lines, physicists, and their communities. Timescape presents the subculture and world of scientists in microcosm: the lab, the loves, the grappling for grants, the pressures from university and government, the rewards and trials of relationships with spouses, the pressures of the scientific race, and the thrill of discovery.

Timescape merits the tag "hard science fiction"; it tells the story of scientists, and readers can't help but learn something about tachyons and physics while reading it. Yet much of the story is about humanity: the men John Renfrew and Gordon Bernstein and their relationships--between husband and wife, lover and lover, English working class and upper class, professor and student, and academician and colleagues.

Winner of the Nebula Award in 1980 and the John W. Clark Award in 1981, Timescape offers readers a great yarn, in terms of both humanity and science. --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

From the Back Cover

1998. Earth is falling apart, on the brink of ecological disaster. But in England a tachyon scientist is attempting to contact the past, to somehow warn them of the misery and death their actions and experiments have visited upon a ravaged planet.

1962. JFK is still president, rock 'n' roll is king, and the Vietnam War hardly merits front-page news. A young assistant researcher at a California university, Gordon Bernstein, notices strange patterns of interference in a lab experiment. Against all odds, facing ridicule and opposition, Bernstein begins to uncover the incredible truth... a truth that will change his life and alter history... the truth behind time itself. --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 367 pages
• Publisher: Pocket Books (July 1981)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671506323
• ISBN-13: 978-0671506322
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (75 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,416,130 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Know what you go to, January 15, 2005

By 

V. Hokstad (Croydon, UK) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Timescape (Mass Market Paperback)

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 with the Kennedy assassination that provide answers to several major questions of the book. It was filler material that demonstrated the mood of the respective time periods and give you the basis for judging the time after the "turning point". "Filler material" expanding on the characters explained much of their motivations for acting the way they did instead of always doing what might have been the logical way to behave for a typical cardboard scientist in typical hard SF.

And the end is stunning in terms of the way it describes time. Only one other time have I had a similar reaction to the end of an SF book, and that was with Arthur C. Clarkes "The City And the Stars" (read it!) which sent chills down my spine (I don't think any piece of fiction have ever done that with me before) for it's haunting image of how limited our view of time is by our viewpoint and our physical existence.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not really hard sci-fi..., March 14, 2006

By 

Adelina Cavanagh "saxa82" (NYS) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Timescape (Mass Market Paperback)

but a lot of people expected it to be and thus the wildly conflicting reviews posted by customers. The sci-fi in this book is really light and anyone who has even a modicum of interest/knowledge of the genre will understand the basic concepts (tachyons, time travel, etc.). The novel is really about PEOPLE, not the sci-fi, and how they deal with implications of time-travel, ecological disaster, and competition for resources. The main characters are likable and somewhat tragic, people muddling through their careers, fumbling toward meaning in their lives amidst chaos around them. Though the novel is dated (having been published in 1980), it still has relevant topics for our time. I would suggest reading this book if you are interested in the human side of sci-fi, but personally, I thought the time-travel aspect was well done and not over the top, with just enough mystery there to make it real. It reminded me somewhat of The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov in which communication between a whole other dimension and humans was tricky at best.

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best Hard Science Fiction novels ever written, January 17, 2004

By 

Claude Avary "West Coast Reader" (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Timescape (Mass Market Paperback)

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.