Books by Gregory Benford
Find Gregory Benford’s books on AMAZON,BARNES & NOBLE and your favorite bookstores.
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Chiller (1993) (Revised edition 2011) Publishers Weekly says: Written in an expansive, easygoing style that fleshes out each character… the novel has snappy dialogue, believable science and the required plot twist that will prompt readers to exclaim, “Of course!” Blake does a good job of tying everything together, as well as putting forward the intriguing proposition that people are just as afraid of those who have the power to give life as they are of those who take it away. …This science-based thriller set in contemporary Southern California challenges the idea that death as we know it is final. Available in EBOOK formats! See links in the sidebar. Or in Print. Click here for a fine paperback version.
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Galactic Center Series
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In the Ocean of Night (1977)Volume 1 of the Galactic Center Series, In the Ocean of Night was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1977, and for the Locus Award the following year.
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Across the Sea of Suns (1984)The second novel in his Galactic Center Saga continues to follow the scientist Nigel Walmsley, who encountered a machine extraterrestrial in the previous book,aboard an expeditionary spaceflight to find other life. Nigel soon discovers evidence of major conflict in the galaxy.
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Great Sky River (1987)Great Sky River is the third novel in the Galactic Center series. “A challenging, pacesetting work of hard science fiction that should not be missed.”–Los Angeles Times.
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Tides of Light (1989)Library Journal says: Fleeing the mech civilization that has decimated the human population of the planet Snowglade, Cap’n Killeen leads Family Bishop to a distant world only to become embroiled in another human-alien conflict in which the sides are not so neatly drawn. This sequel to Great Sky River continues the adventures of a courageous group of survivors. Quick pacing and startling imagery produce a welcome mixture of action and speculation. Recommended.
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Find Gregory Benford’s books on AMAZON,BARNES & NOBLE and your favorite bookstores.
Non-Fiction:
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Deep Time: How Humanity Communicates Across MillenniaPublishers Weekly says: In his first foray into book-length nonfiction, acclaimed science fiction writer and physics professor Benford (Timescape, Cosm etc.) combines a scientist’s perspective and a novelist’s imagination to produce a provocative and disturbing look into “deep time,” the far future that may be beyond the limits of our civilization and our species, but not beyond the reach of our technology. He begins with tales of the messages we have purposefully left for the intelligent beings who may exist thousands or millions of years in the future…. Illustrations throughout.
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The Wonderful Future That Never Was: Flying Cars, Mail Delivery by Parachute, and Other Predictions from the Past (Popular Mechanics)Between 1903 and 1969, scientists and other experts made hundreds of predictions in Popular Mechanics magazine about what the future would hold. Their forecasts ranged from ruefully funny to eerily prescient and optimistically utopian. Here are the very best of them, culled from hundreds of articles, complete with the original, visually stunning retro art. They will capture the imagination of futurists in the same way Jules Verne’s writing did a century earlier. Every chapter features an introduction by astrophysics professor, science-fiction author, and former NASA advisor Gregory Benford. |
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Beyond Human: Living with Robots and Cyborgs
“Interviews with pioneers and participants in enhancement research, robotics and engineering, and informed perspectives on the theory, economics, and actuality of life extension, give Beyond Human the flavor of a tourist guide to the future, conducted by natives…. Serve[s] up a feast.”
–Nature“The simple title of this book belies its profundity—and its sense of humor. Besides an up-to-date, comprehensive overview of developments in the field of robotics and artificial intelligence, physicist Benford and biologist Malartre also address deeper questions about the relationship between the brain and the mind, as well as humankind’s nervous relationship with increasingly sophisticated machines.”
–Publishers Weekly |
Fiction
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Find Gregory Benford’s books on AMAZON,BARNES & NOBLE and your favorite bookstores.
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Timescape (1980)Winner of the 1980 Nebula and British Science Fiction Awards, and the 1981 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, Timescape was widely hailed by both critics of science fiction and mainstream literature for its fusion of detailed character development and interpersonal drama with more standard science fiction fare such as time travel and ecological issues. |
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Eater (2001)Library School Journal says: (YA-Young Adult fiction) Long before there was time, a black hole became a wandering entity, feeding on asteroids, planets, and remnants of the Big Bang. … Basing the foundation of the story on scientific knowledge in the fields of physics and astronomy, Benford gives enough background in both areas to elucidate concepts without overstating the obvious. He develops the main characters as the story unfolds, paralleling their personal changes, their shared history, and their heroic interactions with the increasing malevolence of the Eater. Deftly weaving scientific procedure around an exciting plot of adventure and destruction, and inserting the interpersonal relationships of three intense personalities, Benford creates scientific fiction that sounds very real. |
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The Martian Race (1999)Publishers Weekly says: With so many Mars novels having been published in recent years, including award-winning fiction by Kim Stanley Robinson and others, it’s hard to believe that even a talented writer like Benford (Cosm) could pull off another successful retelling of humanity’s first expedition to the Red Planet, but he does. In the early 21st century, after NASA’s Mars program has been grounded because of a Challenger-like catastrophe, a $30 billion prize is announced to be awarded to the first private organization that can land a spaceship on Mars, do serious science and return in one piece. Enter John Axelrod, eccentric billionaire and space aficionado. His Consortium launches a bare-bones Mars expedition … and the race for Mars is on. Landing on the Red Planet, veteran astronaut Julia Barth and her comrades run into difficulties. … Benford is a solid prose stylist who creates full-toned characters.
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Cosm (1999)Library Journal says: Avon launches Eos, its new sf/fantasy imprint, with a bang: a physics professor creates a new universe in her laboratory. Benford, himself a physics professor, has also won the United Nations Medal in Literature.
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Artifact (1998)“A major book by a major author and highly recommended.” — BooklistA small cube of black rock has been unearthed in a 3500-year-old Mycenaean tomb. An incomprehensible object in an impossible place; its age,its purpose, and its origins are unknown. Its discovery has unleashed a global storm of intrigue, theft andespionage, and is pushing nations to the brink of war… |
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Furious Gulf (1994)School Library Journal says: (YA-Young Adult fiction) This science-fiction novel is the fifth in a series that began with In the Ocean of Night (Bantam, 1987). Except for the cliff-hanger ending, it stands on its own, with the background story filled in smoothly and mostly unobtrusively. In a future tens of millennia away, humans have been driven nearly to extinction by the metal-and-steel “mechs” The last humans live aboard an ancient spaceship, speeding toward the monster black hole at the center of the galaxy. This book focuses on Toby, 18, son of the ship’s increasingly unstable “Cap’n.” …. packed with enough excitement and strange concepts to bend the minds of curious YAs.
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Sailing Bright Eternity (1995)Booklist says: In the sixth novel of his Galactic Center epic, Benford brings the series to a dramatic close with a peek into humanity’s future 37,000 years hence. Nigel Walmsley, twentieth-century Earth’s first starship traveler, who figured in the saga’s first installment, In the Ocean of Night (1977), returns to recount recent adventures inside the Esty, an anomalous shelter of space-time existing outside a black hole near the galaxy’s true center. Walmsley’s listener is Toby Bishop, the adolescent protagonist of Furious Gulf , whose family and fellow humans have been decimated by an insidious, machine-based life-form known as the mechs. Together, Walmsley, Toby, and the remnants of Toby’s family must find the means to outwit the mechs before they penetrate the Esty and destroy all trace of humanity.
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Alternate Empires (What Might Have Been, Vol. 1) (2004)Startling alternative history has been a popular sub-genre of military history and science fiction for years and has recently reached new heights of popularity with Harry Turtledove’s epic alternative histories of WWII and the American Civil War. Gregory Benford, Hugo and Nebula Award winning author, here collects original stories by such luminaries as Poul Anderson, Larry Niven, Frederik Pohl, Kim Stanley Robinson and Robert Silverberg in alternative histories from ancient times to the 20th century.
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Beyond Infinity (2004)Publishers Weekly says: Expanded from his 1990 novella, “Beyond the Fall of Night,” this dense, lively, far-future SF novel from Benford (The Martian Race) sweeps readers away in a taut adventure that examines humanity’s role in steering the fate of the universe. Young Cley is an Original, a genetically pure example of the oldest species of humans on Earth. Though the genetically reengineered Supras regard her as limited in intelligence, Cley’s precocious nature lands her a job helping to recover scientific and historical data from the immense caches called the Library of Life. When a vicious attack by transdimensional life forms leaves Cley the last Original alive….With its thoughtful extrapolation and mind-bending physics, this book reinforces Benford’s position as one of today’s foremost writers of hard SF.
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A Darker Geometry: A Man-Kzin Novel (1996)At the heart of Known Space lies mystery: How did so anarchic and violent a species as the Kzin ever learn to cooperate sufficiently to develop the technology to conquer an interstellar empire? The answer to this and other questions have been hinted at before, but now Gregory Benford, a renowned high-energy physicist, and molecular biologist Mark O. Martin bring their formidable talents and extraordinarily broad range of expertise to bear on all the mysteries of Known Space.
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Amazing Stories No 7 (1992) with J.R. Dunn and James Alan Gardner and Kim Mohan |
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Beyond the Fall of Night (1990)with Arthur C. ClarkeGregory Benford expands Arthur C. Clarke’s novella, Against the Fall of Night, into a novel-length adventure set billions of years in the future about human destiny among the stars. |
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Iceborn (1989)with Paul A. CarterPluto was the last place anyone expected to find life. That’s why it was the last place they looked… |
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Heart of the Comet (1986)with David BrinPublishers Weekly says: … An ambitious expedition uses the iceball as a natural spaceship but their discoveries soon include a deadly viral lifeform that decimates the crew. Then, the already volatile conflicts between factions explode into violent confrontation as the Orthos attack the genetically enhanced Percells. Against this background, the novel highlights the love affair of biologist Saul Lintz… |
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| Find Gregory Benford’s books on AMAZON,BARNES & NOBLE and your favorite bookstores. |
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Time’s Rub (1984) |
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Against Infinity (1983)A gripping, masterfully written adventure set against the violent beauty of a planet in the throes of cataclymic transformation, Against Infinity is Gregory Benford’s timeless portrait of a young man’s comming of age. ”A must for the SF collection.” – Booklist
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| Find Gregory Benford’s books on AMAZON,BARNES & NOBLE and your favorite bookstores. |
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Shiva Descending (1980)with William RotslerThe first strikes destroyed Cleveland, Tunis, and parts of Alaska, Canada, and Australia. That was barely the beginning. The swarm– a cloud of meteors and asteroids 50,000 miles across–was coming. Hundred of missiles put Earth under siege forcing the world in a panicked hell of anarchy and catastrophe. Riots and orgies rampaged in the rubble. And worse waited…. |
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The Sunborn (2005) Booklist says: With their death-defying exploration of Mars and groundbreaking discovery of primitive Martian life, Viktor and Julia have become history’s most famous astronauts. Now, after a series of exploits deemed reckless by space agency bureaucrats, they are being pressured to retire and spend their remaining days handling agency publicity. Fortunately, the Mars mission’s primary financier, billionaire John Axelrod, has the political muscle to reassign them to an ongoing Pluto mission before it’s too late; but the trip has a price tag…. |
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If the Stars Are Gods (1977)with Gordon EklundThe unforgettable masterpiece that went from Nebula Award-winner to timeless classic… |
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Jupiter Project (1975)The Jovian Astronautical-Biological Orbital Laboratory circles Jupiter and its moons–a metal shell bathed in lethal radiation, held in tenuous place by the gravity of the massive gas giant like a fragile glass ornament in a monstrous fist. For seventeen-year-old Matt Bohles and his friends, “the Can” is home. Life onboard the aging space station is cramped, spartan, and dangerous. Its mission–to monitor incoming signals and transmissions in search of alien life–has so far proven fruitless. It is the only world Matt has ever known. But now… |
