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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Great science, woeful story, 26 Jul 2001
As with many books in this area of SF, characterisation is not the strongest point of Artefact. In fact, most of the characters are little more than cartoons, and I found myself empathising with none of them. This, however, is equally true of many of the writers in the field, and it hasn't stopped me from enjoying the books of (for example) Greg Bear. The science, too, is impeccable. Benford clearly knows his physics, as you'd expect from a professional physicist. Pacing and plot development, essential features of any book like this, are also well done.Unfortunately, that's where the good points end. For Artefact is also an example of the worst kind of American xenophobia and cliché mongering about Europeans in general, and Greeks in particular. The "bad guys" are Greek. The fact that you can talk so easily about "the bad guys" in the book gives you a clue about how simplistic the characterisations are, but we'll let that pass. In particular, the baddest of the bad is a former friend of our American heroes, now devoted to authoritarian Marxism and wearing tight jackboots rather than his previous love, archaeology. In virtually the first scene our baddy (Kontos) is in, he turns into every cliché of Mediterranean people out there: Sexist to the point of misogyny (and later sexually assaulting our all-American heroine), dogmatic, stupid, and lazy. Other Greek characters are either rabidly anti-American (for no real reason), lazy and stupid (if they're workers), or - in the most hilarious scenes - a combative woman soldier in the style of James Bonds' Rosa Klebb. If I were Greek, I'd be very offended by this. But at least Benford is fair: Other Europeans aren't exempt from this cheery cliché mongering. The single Italian character is fond of speaking very quickly and waving his arms around a lot. You almost expect him to start pinching the behinds of all the women who walk past. One senses that if any Britons were to appear, they would be Bertie Wooster-style nincompoops, waiting for the Americans to save them. And that is the undercurrent of this book: Only Americans can act bravely and decisively to save the day. The Europeans aren't to be trusted, because they are almost certainly prone to Marxism. Even a scene about Britain's theft of the Elgin Marbles tries to leave you with the conclusion that the Greeks can't be trusted to look after their own heritage. Just as the British Empire was right to rob the Greeks in the 18th century, so the American Empire is right to do so again in the 21st. This anti-European attitude is so bad that I was almost tempted to believe this was satire: That Benford was, in fact, trying to show the parallels between the British and American empires, and how they share a culture that reinforces the idea that only the British/Americans are capable of looking after the really important issues of the world... Unsurprisingly, the day is saved by American gunboat diplomacy. One wishes that this book were equally salvageable, or that Benford's undoubted knowledge of physics were matched by an understanding of Europe, politics, or even the true state of human nature...
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