TIMESCAPE by GREGORY BENFORD
Bantam books paperback, USA Sep 1992, 500 pages
(First edition by Simon & Schuster published 1980)
Cover art by Pamela Lee
Including a new critical afterword by Susan Stone Blackburn

Gregory Benford Timescape Book coverText on the backside of the book

Winner of the 1980 Nebula Award, Timescape has since become a classic of the science fiction genre, combining hard science, bold speculation, and human drama - a challenging and triumphant tale told by a master storyteller.

"AN EXEPTIONAL AND STUNNING ACHIEVMENT" -Michael Bishop

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.

 

My review

We can send messages from the past to the future and thus alter our future, but what if there are possibilities to alter history by sending messages from the future to the past? Then what will happen? In the book there is a temporal communication between the year 1998 and the years 1962 and 1963, and the topic (warning for coming environmental crisis) is STILL very actual. And yes, the tragic day of November 22, 1963 with the death of JFK is slowly but surely approaching - can THAT too be altered?

There are no time machines in this book a person can travel with, but the physics about time travel is explained very interestingly, pinpointing the infamous grandfather paradox. There are no great adventures, but the feeling is very realistic with the messages from the future, often distorted by time and space, and also with its characters who could be you or me, but living in separate realities that are subtly related.

I found the book somewhat dry in places with a lot of scientific explanations, but I was not able to put the book down until its very end which is BRILLIANT, and afterwards I thought a lot about it. Read it if you like films as Frequency (2000), Deja Vu (2006), Primer (2004) and The Lake House (2006) ...
As a time travel opera:

As a hard science fiction novel:

Sandra Petojevic, Master of Arts in Art History and Visual studies, November 17, 2013


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