he 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.
