Gregory Benford

[Dave]

Gregory Benford

born Mobile, Alabama: 30 January 1941

Gregory Benford is an American author known for his works in science fiction, particularly hard science fiction, and non-fiction. He has a background as an astrophysicist and professor of plasma physics and astronomy. Additionally, he serves as a contributing editor of Reason magazine and provides advice to a biotech group researching genetic factors related to human ageing.

Benford's involvement with science fiction began when he edited a fanzine called Void. His first published science fiction story was titled Stand-In (1965), appearing in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. In 1969, he wrote The Scarred Man about a computer virus, inspired by an actual virus he had spread, which was published in 1970.

He collaborated on stories and non-fiction with his identical twin brother, James Benford, who is an experimental physicist. Some of their work appeared in Amazing Stories. He also co-wrote the fix-up story If the Stars Are Gods (1977) with Gordon Eklund.

Benford is known for the Galactic Centre Saga series of science fiction novels, beginning with In the Ocean of Night (1977). This series explores a galaxy where organic sentient beings are continuously at war with electromechanical sentient beings.

The Adventures of Viktor & Julia series includes The Martian Race (1999) and The Sunborn (2005), featuring characters involved in a privately funded race to Mars competing against a European Chinese project.

He is probably best known for his novel Timescape (1980) which concerns an attempt to change history by transmitting a tachyonic message across time.

Other works include Artifact (1985), concerning archaeologists who discover evidence of an Alien visitation with almost catastrophic consequences; Against Infinity (1983) which concerns the search for an enigmatic alien machine on Ganymede; and Eater (2000).

He collaborated with Larry Niven on The Bowl of Heaven series comprising Bowl of Heaven (2012), Shipstar (2014) and Glorious (2020). He has also written in Niven’s Known Space: Man-Kzin Wars shared universe, the H. G. Well’s War of the Worlds universe, and Asimov’s Foundation universe.

He is an authors whose short story work has very frequently appeared in the queries in our SFF Chronicles Book Search forum, an indication that it is remembered with some fondness.

A list of his works is to be found here: Summary Bibliography: Gregory Benford

Wikipedia page: Gregory Benford - Wikipedia

 

[Rodders]

I have CoSM on my shelves, but i cannot say whether i ever read it.

 

[Orcadian]

Not sure how to respond to this post. Are you inviting opinions? Inviting us to read GB? I've always been attracted to the titles of his books but have only actually read one: In the Ocean of Night. And I remember feeling so, so disappointed. I wote: "In the ocean of Night has a very promising premise ... but as the novel wore on ... more & more intrusive, preposterous stuff was introduced ... Examples: we have to contend with crazed religious types, a ménage à trois, some very sticky sex, a few Yeti's, and the dark side of the American military machine. The moments where we actually learn something about aliens are like rare glints of gold in a huge pile of tailings". So yeah, just not my tasse de thé.

 

[Dave]

Are you inviting opinions? Inviting us to read GB? I've always been attracted to the titles of his books but have only actually read one

Initially, after finishing tagging all the Book forum and Review threads with author tags and going through the all book search threads, I found that there were a number of authors tagged but without any biography or bibliography, and who were really very little discussed here. I thought that by doing this series of posts it might spur on some discussion of them and their works. Also, only the top 300 tagged authors appear on the list shown, so another thread bumps them higher. There was then a suggestion made that we don't discuss science fiction and fantasy enough on these forums, so I continued onto other authors too, some that are less well known, some that are more well known and already had discussions, even if they were a while ago. I've begun to include a few that I'm not very familiar with myself.

So yes, opinions are invited, and they don't necessarily have to be good opinions, or even bad opinions (it could be "generally uninspiring and unexciting" or "do not read this!".) I have read Timescape by Gregory Benfold. I found the story's concept was exceptional, but his characters a little wooden. That can often be true of much Hard SF though. Several reviews I read, say that it is one of the few books that show how groups of scientists really work together, but if so, then it doesn't do that in a way that would motivate anyone to take up a career as a scientist. It is, however, part of the SF Masterworks series, and always in lists of 'must read' SF books, so maybe I'm wrong.

I have also read his short stories in the Man-Kzin Wars collections, and they weren't the stories that I would recommend from that series.

I haven't read In the Ocean of Night but I was under the impression that series got him established, so your experience make me wonder why.

 

[Orcadian]

Initially, after finishing tagging all the Book forum and Review threads with author tags and going through the all book search threads, I found that there were a number of authors tagged ... who were really very little discussed here

Wow Dave; what a labour! From time to time I've been through a few score of the old book search threads but w/o any hits, alas. After a while you think, I'm really not helping here.

... There was then a suggestion made that we don't discuss science fiction and fantasy enough on these forums, so I continued onto other authors too, some that are less well known, some that are more well known and already had discussions, even if they were a while ago.

Good idea; should stir folk to pick up authors some of us enjoy but others have never found.

I found ... [Gregory Benford's] characters a little wooden. That can often be true of much Hard SF though. Several reviews I read, say that it is one of the few books that show how groups of scientists really work together, but if so, then it doesn't do that in a way that would motivate anyone to take up a career as a scientist.

As a retired scientist, I need to look at that, see if do feel that's how scientists work! I agree that the characters in some 'hard' SF are unformed, merely props to a story that's really about battles, high-tech kit or a novel political situtation. But this is also true of some 'soft' SF, e.g. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness. And some hard SF has excellent characterisation, e.g. the Chanur and Foreigner series of CJ Cherryh.