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Timescape Audiobook
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(3.00) - 3,847 listener ratings
Publisher Description
Winner of both the Nebula Award and the John W. Campbell Award for best science fiction novel, Timescape is an enduring classic that examines the ways that science interacts with everyday life to create the many strange worlds in which we live. In a future wracked by environmental catastrophe and social instability, physicist John Renfrew devises a longshot plan to use tachyons--strange, time-traveling particles--to send a warning to the past. In 1962, Gordon Bernstein, a California researcher, gets Renfrew's message as a strange pattern of interference in an experiment he's conducting. As the two men struggle to overcome both the limitations of scientific knowledge and the politics of scientific research, a larger question looms: can a new future arise from the paradox of a forewarned past? With multiple plot lines and diverse characters, Timescape offers something for all lovers of fascinating science and great fiction. Simon Prebble and Peter Bradbury combine for a narration that skillfully uncovers the mysteries beneath our understanding of the universe.
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"It's interesting to read the mixed reviews on this book. Surprising that of those who liked it many felt it was long, dense, too much detail, too much science, or science that was hard to understand. Oddly, my recollection of reading it multiple times back when it first came out was that both the writing and plot development were remarkably elegant and spare. And that surely is one reason it won the Nebula. There was just enough science in my view, described as was fitting for the advancement of the plot since key plot lines in the future and the past revolved around understanding what was possible and what it meant. I was gripped by the desperate and uncertain efforts to communicate something to the past that might prevent the ecological disaster in the present. And, by the slow, uncertain process of discovery, efforts to interpret and understand and finally communicate its import--the slow poignant unraveling of the truth. Benford's evocations of past and future academic settings was dead-on and sobering to those of us who've worked in those environments as I was when I read the book. Characterizations were PERFECT, deeply human without a scrap of unnecessary detail. You felt equally for the people who cared and thought deeply and for those who had lost their way following their ambitions in a fatally materialistic world. Today we face multiple potentially world-killing ecological causal chains, and have the processing ability to tease them out and predict their outcomes much more accurately and chillingly then back in 1980 when this book was first published. And that makes it particularly compelling for me now - because what might have seemed like deep cynicism about human culture and society and technology back then now seems especially prescient. I definitely want to read it again."
— Connie (5 out of 5 stars)
Awards
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Winner of the 1980 Nebula Award for Best Novel
Timescape Listener Reviews
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James D Wilde, 11/11/2022
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" One of the few books ever that I didn't finish. Scientists in the future trying to send a message to the past with tachyons. I never got into it. Basically, I didn't care if the message was ever received. Waste of time. "
— Leanna, 2/17/2014 -
" I loved this book but it took a while to develop the plot and characters. I loved this book but I have a hunch that not many people will agree with me. The reason I say this is that this book is dense with hard physics and leaps of non-intuitive logic. It can be hard to fully enjoy the book if one doesn't take the time necessary to think things through. Add to that characters that are mostly unsympathetic and a vague and probably relatively depressing ending, it is not a fun summer read. But if you do enjoy science and time travel paradoxes, and you do enjoy reading about people who are real in both their strengths and their failings, and you're willing to put the time and effort to immerse yourself in the language of the book, I think it's definitely worth your while. "
— Christina, 1/26/2014 -
" Raises all sorts of interesting questions, but leaves them mostly unresolved, disappointingly. "
— Duncan, 1/19/2014 -
" Latero. Latero. MUY latero. "
— Speedy, 1/18/2014 -
" Interesting. I liked the concept and I loved the unique take on time paradoxes, but I had a lot of trouble getting through this book for some reason. Anyway, read it if you're as in to time travel as I am, otherwise I'd probably skip it. "
— Gabe, 1/9/2014 -
" Overly long, with nuggets of forward motion buried in pages of prose. Still, a masterpiece of ideas. "
— Raleigh, 12/28/2013 -
" This tale of future (at the time the book was published) scientists struggling to prevent an environmental disaster spoke to my idealist, liberal, college girl heart while at the same time scratching my time travel itch. Fun stuff, although I'm not sure it would hold up well if I re-read it now. "
— Misha, 12/5/2013 -
" The first book I read by Benford. A very clever conceit at the heart of it all. "
— Retarius, 12/4/2013 -
" an interesting book, trying to show how the world evolves day by day. scientists are trying to communicate with future&past which should explain technology as it is. "
— Andrei, 11/29/2013 -
" Did not care for it at all...interesting concept but misogynistic writing and weak characters. Nearly threw it across the airplane when it ended rather like James Joyce's "The Dead." Review at blog.juliebihn.com "
— Julie, 7/27/2013 -
" An interesting read if you like the Arthur Clarke style of hard sci-fi. The book shows its age, since it was written in 1980 about a future 1998. "
— Vamshidhar, 5/13/2013 -
" This is a recommendation. I'm going off into time again! This has a very (albeit dated - sorry) plot. Two time dimensions are discussed. A bit too much character development, for me, however. But, it all resolves in the end. "
— Tomw, 2/2/2013 -
" Couldn't finish it. Life is too short. I've read other stuff by Benford and enjoyed it, but not this one. "
— David, 1/12/2013 -
" I'm sure I read this book. I'm almost sure I finished it. I can tell you very little about it, as it was not very memorable. "
— Erin, 11/11/2012 -
" Hard science mixed with time travel. "Good Read." "
— Scott, 9/13/2012 -
" above-average, if ultimately forgettable fiction "
— Jon, 8/27/2012 -
" Captures the feel of an experimental physics lab very well. Not that every day is this exciting of course :-) "
— Mattijs, 2/21/2012 -
" Hard Science Fiction. I love learning something about current scientific theory at the same time as reading a great story. This was a dense tome, but worth the read. "
— Brent, 3/18/2011 -
" Couldn't finish it. Life is too short. I've read other stuff by Benford and enjoyed it, but not this one. "
— David, 2/3/2011 -
" Though slow in parts I thought it was fascinating and I loved the little twists in our history as we know it. "
— Jolene, 7/31/2010 -
" typical "hard sci fi" fare: interesting ideas delivered with all the literary flair of a hefty lump of 2x4. "
— Gekko, 7/28/2010 -
" If this is the book I'm thinking of, it was interesting -- I still remember the "red sea" and the struggle to communicate over time. "
— Ginny, 6/4/2010 -
" One of the few books I didn't finish. Never got into the plot. "
— Dean, 12/20/2009 -
" One of the few books ever that I didn't finish. Scientists in the future trying to send a message to the past with tachyons. I never got into it. Basically, I didn't care if the message was ever received. Waste of time. "
— Leanna, 12/20/2009 -
" An interesting read if you like the Arthur Clarke style of hard sci-fi. The book shows its age, since it was written in 1980 about a future 1998. "
— Vamshidhar, 7/30/2009
About Gregory Benford
Gregory Benford is a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California, Irvine. A Woodrow Wilson Fellow and a member of Phi Beta Kappa, he received the Lord Prize for contributions to science in 1995 and the Asimov Memorial Award for popularizing science in 2007. He has written numerous works of science fiction, receiving a Nebula Award and a John W. Campbell Memorial Award for his novel Timescape.
About the Narrators
Simon Prebble, a British-born performer, is a stage and television actor and veteran narrator of some three hundred audiobooks. As one of AudioFile’s Golden Voices, he has received thirty-seven Earphones Awards and won the prestigious Audie in 2010. He lives in New York.
Pete Bradbury has appeared both on and off-Broadway and at many of the leading regional theaters across the country in plays ranging from Shakespeare and Molière to Edward Albee and David Mamet. He has also been seen on the CBS miniseries Sally Hemings. A former company member of the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, Bradbury received his training in their three-year advanced program. He lives in New York City with his family.