Greg Benford
http://gregorybenford.com
By A.M. Dellamonica
Nebula award-winning writer Gregory Benford is one of those rare SF authors who is also a working scientist. A physicist at the University of California, Irvine, he may be best known for his 1980 SF novel Timescape; his more recent works include What Might Have Been and the second work in the new Adventures of Viktor and Julia series, The Sunborn. What is certain is that 30 years after the publication of his first book, Benford is still astounding and challenging SF audiences.  Benford's official Web page is a no-nonsense gathering of facts about this writer and his fiction. Like many an author site, it includes a personal biography and a bibliography, as well as photos and a guestbook. An as-yet-empty section has been set aside for poetry; in the meantime, visitors can look at book covers, read about Benford's newest novels and check out a few choice essays about both his fiction and his scientific writing.
One interesting offshoot of this site is its link to a short-lived blog that Benford shared with Dr. Michael R. Rose, a fellow U.C. scientist, wherein the two discuss issues surrounding the science-fiction genre and modern society. While the rest of Benford's site tends to be dry, even businesslike in tone, this secondary site is where the gloves come off. He argues that the SF genre has been taken over by fiction more properly labeled as fantasy—referencing the fact that the Hugo Award has recently been won by a number of novels featuring magic rather than science (including a Harry Potter book)—and goes on to express concern for a U.S. reading audience that prefers to spend its reading time fighting dragons rather than exploring the galaxy.
For dedicated hard-SF fans or any reader hungry to see some plausible science brewed into his fiction, Benford's site makes an ideal launch pad for discovering—or rediscovering—the work of a passionate, articulate and prolific author. |
