Timescape merits the tag "hard science fiction"; it tells the story of scientists, and readers can't help but learn something about tachyons and physics while reading it. Yet much of the story is about humanity: the men John Renfrew and Gordon Bernstein and their relationships--between husband and wife, lover and lover, English working class and upper class, professor and student, and academician and colleagues.

Winner of the Nebula Award in 1980 and the John W. Clark Award in 1981, Timescape offers readers a great yarn, in terms of both humanity and science.

Product Description
Detecting strange patterns of interference in a lab experiment, Gordon Bernstein, an assistant researcher at a California university, investigates and begins to uncover something that will change his life forever. Reprint. Nebula Award winner.

I liked `Timescape' and I'm sure many out there will enjoy it. After reading so much science fiction without real-life characters, this novel was refreshing, however, I can't really recommend it as a must read. Between 1 and 10, `Timescape' gets a marginal 6.


One of the best Hard Science Fiction novels ever written   January 17, 2004
 12 out of 15 found this review helpful

A Nebula winner, and one of a handful of hard SF books considered a classic. I`ll admit that hard SF doesn't gel well with my personal reading tastes with its emphasis on scientific explanation and frequently stock characters; however, I have enjoyed some immensely, such as _The Forge of God_, and this novel only proves that Hard SF CAN be both technically fascinating and be superby piece of literature and characterization as well.

Initially, Timescape caught my attention with its central premise of a dying future (well, 1998, the future when the book was written) finding a way through tachyon messages of contacting the past (1962). But the book does tend to tread water for a long time, and some of the character conflicts get a bit tiresome. But in the finale, which contains a stunning surprise, the strange science at last coalesces into a emotionally stirring vision of time as a landscape. It was at this moment that I saw the book itself become a whole-and an admirable whole. As the thoughtful afterward points out, the book tackles many different types of stories, not all of which will appeal to every reader. Give it shot, even if Hard SF insn't your thing.


Know what you go to   January 16, 2005
 12 out of 12 found this review helpful

A lot of the reviewers of this book obviously read it not expecting hard SF. Another big chunk did not expect character developments approaching what one would expect from non-SF.

This book is full of details on the science that are highly believable, and as exact as feasible without messing up the plot. That's the point of hard SF, and it succeeds marvellously. For those of the reviewers that expected "mainstream" SF or a non-SF fiction it is a major distraction.

It also spends a lot of time on character development, which is unusual for hard-SF, and many reviewers seem to have expected traditional hard-SF.

On the other hand if you do love hard SF but find most hard SF to have two dimensional characters, this is a book for you.

The book juxtaposes 1963 and 1998. In '63 America had survived the missile crisis, and there appeared to be progress all around - the test ban treaty was being signed, the economy was booming, and the centers of education in California were seeing a massive growth, with a bustling research establishment. Kennedy was pushing the space race. In '63, Gordon (one of the main characters) were assistant professor, had a sexy,sexually liberated girlfriend and was frantically working on a problem that could make his career. It was all good.

The books 1998 is a world in crisis, mostly described via the impacts it has on the main characters - a research team at Cambridge and the rather unsympathetic Mr Peterson - responsible though tough at work, but an chronic womanizer outside of it. The ecology is badly messed up, and we get to see it not just in terms of headlines, as you might in more typical hard SF (i.e. food production is down, fish is dying off, blah. blah.) but in terms of how it changes social structures and the daily lives of these characters.

The two are tied together by the experiments of Gordon and the group at Cambridge and the groups attempts at telling Gordon how to solve the problems they are facing, while attempting to avoid a paradox.

The group succeeds in communicating through time, but does it succeed in fixing the problems of the now they live in? How do you avoid a paradox? What happens if you create a paradox? These ideas and their resolutions are fairly routine in science fiction now, but I have not previously seen anyone handle them so thoroughly and in such a believable way.

Some complain about lack of character development, but I would claim that anyone who does so does it because they would not normally read hard SF. Some complain about too much character development because they are looking exactly for the hard SF. It's perhaps an awkward combination.

I too found myself wanting to skip ahead at various points, but not because I found parts boring, but because the development of the problem kept me in a lot of suspense. But I'm glad I didn't skip ahead - the "filler" material some have complained about was vital to the feel of this book.

It was "filler" material that provided the tie in with the Kennedy assassination that provide answers to several major questions of the book. It was filler material that demonstrated the mood of the respective time periods and give you the basis for judging the time after the "turning point". "Filler material" expanding on the characters explained much of their motivations for acting the way they did instead of always doing what might have been the logical way to behave for a typical cardboard scientist in typical hard SF.

And the end is stunning in terms of the way it describes time. Only one other time have I had a similar reaction to the end of an SF book, and that was with Arthur C. Clarkes "The City And the Stars" (read it!) which sent chills down my spine (I don't think any piece of fiction have ever done that with me before) for it's haunting image of how limited our view of time is by our viewpoint and our physical existence.


Politically Archaic   July 3, 2005
 10 out of 37 found this review helpful

If you are still mired in the 1960's, wear a tie-dyed bandana over your balding pate and spout Dan Rather as your authenticating news source, this book is for you.

Full of dated cliches about the earth dieing a slow, tortuous polluted death in the advanced future of 1998, this thriller (yawn) is full of it in every aspect imaginable. Picture a world totally without fossil fuels in the 90's when all of the oil wells dried up and blew away just like liberal scientists predicted in the 60's. Since there is no power from fossil fuels, electricity is supplied for just 2-hours a day - rotating between social classes (just to be fair). Imagine a time when the only relief imaginable for mankind's suffering and slow death is to send a message to the past (the 60's of course) and tell them to give up their cars so that they can switch to ever-reliable horses and bicycles.

By the way, where is the future they predicted anyway. I don't see the disasters here in 2005 that were predicted for the turn of the century. We still have lots of cheap (though over-taxed) oil. International trade is at its highest rate in history. Peace and democracy is breaking out everywhere (even in 14th century mired Middle-East). The only thing I don't see that should have happened is the oft predicted flying car. (But then, that is my own private gripe.)

This poorly worded claptrap is not only intellectually insulting, it is also extremely boring. Going on for pages and pages describing how desiccated the soil has become and how hard life is in the once moist world of a London suburb, is a chore to read even for one, such as myself, who was sentenced to read uncountable n-versions of this stuff innumerably and inexorably in college.

If you really want to be tortured and insulted, read this book. Or, you could sport for some very nice third century thumb-screws.