The world in 1998 seems caught in a spiral of deterioration. Food is in short supply and power must be rationed. Dwindling resources are concentrated on preventing the worst disasters. People carry on, but the horizon is dark.

Cambridge physicist John Renfrew is convinced he can do something about it. In theory, tachyons--particles that move faster than light--produce a wave that moves through time in both directions. Renfrew's hope is to use focused tachyon bursts to tell scientists in 1962 how to prevent the ills the world suffers in 1998.

Renfrew's plan interests Ian Peterson, a high-ranking bureaucrat, and Greg Markham, a far-sighted American colleague, but chronic shortages hamper progress. Renfrew grows cross, spending too much time at the lab while his wife sits home alone, angry and afraid.

Meanwhile, in 1962, the tachyons are causing problems for Gordon Bernstein, a rising star at the University of California at La Jolla. While examining noise in his resonance measurements of indium antimonide, Bernstein is startled to recognize Morse code. The deciphered results, however--partially garbled phrases about man-made chemicals--make little sense to him. Worse still, sensational publicity brought on by an indiscreet colleague damages his reputation. Bernstein obsesses on the experiment, estranging his free-spirited girlfriend and endangering his career.

In 1998 things are getting worse. A mysterious and poisonous red bloom in the South Atlantic is spreading exponentially. Peterson learns the bloom is generating deadly yellow clouds that will devastate the Earth. Soon thereafter he falls ill from a new plague. In 1963 unexpected confirmation of Bernstein's readings from an old mentor doesn't solve his central worry: What do the messages mean?

As the toxic clouds spread, Renfrew desperately sends warnings into the past, wondering for the first time whether there is any hope of saving his world from its fatal, self-inflicted wounds.

Science and sensibilities

The story of Timescape hinges on two interdependent components: Author Gregory Benford employs his expertise as a physicist to propound a detailed, viable model for communication through time. Simultaneously, he develops real characters who are deeply involved in this system, but as only one aspect of their own complex lives. The synthesis of these components, each ringing with authenticity, creates a powerful and accessible novel. Readers are drawn not into a sterile tale of blackboards and molecular diagrams, but into a vital world charged with scientific potential.

Each of the main characters, while flawed, is stimulating. Bernstein, the transplanted New York Jew, avoids issues and grapples with California lifestyles; later he succeeds by retracing his steps. His differences from Penny, his bohemian girlfriend, resonate with the underlying notion of parallel but overlapping universes. Renfrew, impatient and confrontational, is wrenched by the scientific crisis as Marjorie, his neglected wife, experiences the raw realities of the regressing society. Peterson, the womanizing bureaucrat, seems unsympathetic, yet in some ways he's the center of the novel. He's the bridge, the non-scientist who becomes part of the experiment. Greg Markham gets his flash of insight too late; his life merges with the outflow of the experiment, as if a simple tachyon beam had become the thread held by the three Fates.

Benford strives for social and scientific verisimilitude, keeping up a background of current events in both areas. One event, an irresistible lure to those who write fiction about time, crops up briefly but is handled with integrity. However, Timescape is less about events than about possibilities. This book demonstrates that the best speculative fiction can lead to a better understanding of both the universe and the people who live in it.