- Mass Market Paperback: 512 pages
- Publisher: Bantam USA; Reissue edition (Sep 1996)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0553297090
- ISBN-13: 978-0553297096
- Product Dimensions: 10.6 x 2.7 x 17.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,352,789 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Timescape (S.F. Masterworks)
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Product Description
Product Description
1962: A young Californian scientist finds his experiments spoiled by mysterious interference. Gradually his suspicions lead him to a shattering truth: scientists from the end of the century are using subatomic particles to send a message into the past, in the hope that history can be changed and a world-threatening catastrophe averted.
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
From the Author
Great to see a 20 year old novel still read!
I'm grateful to UK & other readers who have reacted to a novel that now lies 20 years in my past... To the Toronto fellow: I felt Peterson had to eventually reach completion (polite word) with Marjorie, to complete the plot arc. It's a sign of things falling apart/center cannot hold in that gloomy 1999. (Whoosh, glad we're not on that timeline here!)
I'm grateful to UK & other readers who have reacted to a novel that now lies 20 years in my past... To the Toronto fellow: I felt Peterson had to eventually reach completion (polite word) with Marjorie, to complete the plot arc. It's a sign of things falling apart/center cannot hold in that gloomy 1999. (Whoosh, glad we're not on that timeline here!)
As one reader noted, my more recent COSM is like TIMESCAPE on speed, and my next two, THE MARTIAN RACE (December) and EATER (April) will have the same solid scientific background...
Gregory Benford
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I read reviews before buying this book and thought the story line sounded an interesting concept.
Passing warnings back through time of a environmental disaster and hoping someone finds and understand the message.
In reality I found the story was more an every day story of two men and their problems in life with the small
additional problem of sending and receiving the message.
I read it though to the end but still never found anything to keep me interested in the actual problem of the message.
As a novel with fully developed characters it is very good but not a Sci-fi in my book.
I would have preferred more about the message and the outcome than the boring lives of the characters.
I have read other books of this author and enjoyed them but not this one
Passing warnings back through time of a environmental disaster and hoping someone finds and understand the message.
In reality I found the story was more an every day story of two men and their problems in life with the small
additional problem of sending and receiving the message.
I read it though to the end but still never found anything to keep me interested in the actual problem of the message.
As a novel with fully developed characters it is very good but not a Sci-fi in my book.
I would have preferred more about the message and the outcome than the boring lives of the characters.
I have read other books of this author and enjoyed them but not this one
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Timescape's plot centres around an ecological disaster in the late 1990's. Scientists and a British government official, Peterson, are working with tachyons (particles which move faster than the speed of light) in an attempt to send a morse code message to another scientist, Gordon Bernstein, who is working on a similar project in 1963.
The structure of the book is pleasing: chapters flit between past and present, emphasising Benford's move away from a Newtonian concept of time as a "flux" .
These ideas are developed further within the plot and to Benford's credit his use of physics is very clearly explained. I am not a scientist, and I found his ideas clear cut and thought provoking.
Timescape's faults lie in its length: it should have been edited by 50 pages to make it tighter. Although Benford spends ample time developing his characters they are from government or academic backgrounds. To his credit Benford places the character of Renfrew in the 1998 chapters and Bernstein in the 1963 sections. Amidst the world of the self-centered Peterson and the academic jealousy of Lakin, Renfrew and Bernstein emerge as credible heroes: the very subtlety of their characters (the understated theme in the book of both being outsiders,both having had to earn their places at their universities rather than gain them through favouritism) lends them realism.
Benford's book is good but slightly overlong: an excellent example of the diversity of style inherent in intelligent science fiction. It is also a good advertisement for the excellent Millenium Masterworks SF series. I wonder if the publishers would consider the long out of print "A for Andromeda" as a companion piece to Benford's book?
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I'm a big fan of Arthur C. Clarke, mainly because I prefer realistic sci-fi to the kinds of major imaginative flights seen in much of the genre: and this is why I enjoyed Timescape. The story is completely believable - the idea of using the tachyon particles to signal back in time is wonderfully original and grounded in credibility, and there is (for once) an intelligent discussion about the normal problems associated with time travel - the creation of a paradox. The characters are also refreshingly well-developed for a sci-fi novel, and the ecological disasters that threaten the earth of the future (actually the past now - the book was written in 1980) is also totally believable. This doesn't have the obvious excitement of travelling to meet Attila the Hun, or of a cyborg trying to assassinate a man whilst still a child - but the moment when one of the investigators discovers for certain that the message has been received in the past is totally thrilling. Only word of warning - the physics can be hard to follow at times (I got lost more then once) although the gist of what he is saying is always clear. Well worth a read - and may well appeal to those who aren't big sci-fi fans. If you like Clarke, or Contact, you'll enjoy this one.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Dissappointing
This was in the recommended reading list of a book on quantum physics recently re-read. I was very disappointed. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Paul Belino
Boring
A story about scientists in the future sending messages back in time to warn us about a great danger to Earth? What could go wrong?
A lot it seems. Read more
A lot it seems. Read more
Published 10 months ago by Shantnu Tiwari
Takes an age to get going, and just when something interesting...
There was a Japanese gameshow I remember watching when I was young, 'Endurance' I think it was called. Well this book felt like the text equivalent of this. Read more
Published on 23 Sep 2009 by Andy Dufresne
not bad - maybe a great short story rather than a novel.
For me this book was nearer standard fiction than sci-fi. It happens to be about scientists - with a small element of "sci-fi" in the quantum physics side to allow the plotline to... Read more
Published on 15 Sep 2008 by discerningreader
hostage to fortune
Sci-fi writers make themselves hostages to fortune by setting their stories in the near future. Quite apart from the fact that no one predicted the internet or mobile phones, Greg... Read more
Published on 17 May 2008 by Michael Scuffil
Very boring - stopped reading halfway through
The plot is a catch, but what a disappointment when you start reading: you cope with stereotypical figures, unnecessary descriptions of moments in life and a painful stretching... Read more
Published on 7 Jan 2008 by Rupf Peter
Hardest of the hard SF
Having been a physicist at the very same Cavendish Lab that is described in the book, I can assure you that the descriptions of life in a creaking English institution are 100%... Read more
Published on 19 Oct 2007 by sam
A delight - though a bit too long
This book was recommended to me, but, as I began to read the first chapter, I began to wonder why. The story starts with an unconvincing British family breakfast scene straight... Read more
Published on 22 Mar 2006
Avoid This Book
Not long ago I was lucky enough to read Time and Again by Jack Finney, a wonderfully realised and wholly satisfying book which I would recommend to anyone. Read more
Published on 15 Jun 2004
A great read, just not a brilliant one.
I'd read a lot of negative reviews of "Timescape" beforehand, but I went ahead with it anyway and I have to say it was pretty damn good. Read more
Published on 31 Jan 2004 by Butler
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