Most Popular Books by Gregory Benford

The second volume in the classic hard sci-fi series by the renowned physicist and Nebula Award–winning author: "So good it hurts" ( Washington Post Book World ). 2076. Technology has propelled the world into a new age of enlightenment. Nigel has left Earth to explore space and search for alien life. But while on this captivating mission, humanity''s birthplace has fallen prey to attack and its seas are seeded with alien lifeforms. Now, Nigel is left to search for the only savior he knows—the one who saved him once before—the alien machine called the "Snark." Having left the solar system and turned traitor to its alien masters, Nigel is unsure of the Snark''s new allegiance. Is the Snark a friend? Or will it also turn on Nigel . . . proving to be a deadly foe?

A classic novel of man''s future and fate, written by the eminent American physicist and award-winning author of Timescape. 2034. An indistinguishable sound is heard from the depths of space and one member of the search and survey team, Nigel, believes he knows its origins. 15 years earlier, he was the astronaut sent to implode a firey comet as it hurtled toward the Asian subcontinent. Once inside the fissure he made an unlikely discovery: an abandoned alien ship. Against his better judgment, Nigel carried out his mission, destroying the vessel-but not before clandestinely removing alien data and technology from on board. Now, as the team sets forth on a new adventure of discovery, Nigel''s past will collide with the present, introducing him to wonders beyond human comprehension.

In 1962, a young Californian scientist finds his experiments spoiled by mysterious interference. Gradually his investigations lead him to the shattering truth that scientists from the end of the century are using subatomic particles to send a message into the past to try and avert disaster.

The third novel in the Nebula Award–winning author''s classic series: "A challenging, pacesetting work of hard science fiction that should not be missed" ( Los Angeles Times ). Nearly 100,000 years after first contact with the machines that dominate the universe, a few hundred humans survive. Trapped on Snowglade, a barren world near the center of the galaxy, people like Killeen of Family Bishop and his child Toby are primitive scavengers, homeless and hunted by the ruling "mechs." Then suddenly, a strange cosmic entity—neither organic nor cybernetic nor living matter—reaches out from a black hole to speak with Killeen. But can this fallen descendant of starfarers understand this alien being in time . . . and seize the only chance to save his family and mankind from final annihilation?

The classic sci-fi saga continues in this “intriguing and engrossing” first installment of a new trilogy that “extends and embellishes Asimov’s vision” (Kirkus). Isaac Asimov''s Foundation Trilogy is one of the high-water marks of science fiction. It is the monumental story of a Galactic Empire in decline, and the secret society of scientists who seek to shorten the inevitable Dark Age with the science of psychohistory. Now, with the permission—and blessing—of the Asimov estate, the epic saga continues. Fate—and a cruel Emperor''s arbitrary power—have thrust Hari Seldon into the First Ministership of the Empire against his will. As the story opens, Hari is about to leave his quiet professorship and take on the nearly impossible task of administering 25 million inhabited worlds from the all-steel planet of Trantor. With the help of his beautiful bio-engineered "wife" Dors and his alien companion Yugo, Seldon is still developing the science that will transform history, never dreaming that it will ultimately pit him against future history''s most awesome threat.

The complete version of the unforgettable masterpiece that went from Nebula Award-winner to a timeless classic. Aliens have come to Earth in search of a man who knows the stars, and that man is Bradley Reynolds. They want to know whether the sun loves us. And what Reynolds finds in the end is a transformation so glorious as to be far beyond his capacity to dream--a universe where beings are collected like songs.

The Jovian Astronautical-Biological Orbital Laboratory, a.k.a. "the Can", is the only home 17-year-old Matt Bohles has ever known. Concerned about the aging space station''s failure to find evidence of alien life on Jupiter or its moon, the cost-conscious powers back home have determined that all non-essential personnel must be evacuated. Now, unless Matt can somehow prove himself to be an invaluable member of the scientific team, he faces exile to a dangerous, frightening, and unfamiliar place: Earth.

Now in a new, revised edition, the fourth book of the Nebula Award-winning author''s Galactic Center series is a classic tale of man''s future and fate--and the greatest mystery from outer space that humanity has ever encountered. Piloting an ancient starship, Killeen and the Bishop tribe escape the mech-ruled world of Snowglade. Seeking refuge on a far away planet, they discover vast wonders-an organic life-form as large as a world, a planet-coring cosmic string, a community of humans ruled by a brutal tyrant, and ultimately an alien race more awesome than any they have encountered. As they battle for survival against these myriad dangers, Killeen and his crew will gain an unforeseen ally-one that may determine humanity''s true destiny...

Glorious continues the hard science fiction Bowl of Heaven series from multi-award-winning authors Gregory Benford and Larry Niven. Audacious astronauts encounter bizarre, sometimes deadly life forms, and strange, exotic, cosmic phenomena, including miniature black holes, dense fields of interstellar plasma, powerful gravity-emitters, and spectacularly massive space-based, alien-built labyrinths. Tasked with exploring this brave, new, highly dangerous world, they must also deal with their own personal triumphs and conflicts. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

A scientist facing personal tragedy discovers a sentient black hole targeting humanity in this hard sci-fi thriller from “a superb storyteller” (Houston Post). Dr. Benjamin Knowlton’s private world is crumbling around him. On the threshold of their greatest achievement, the renowned astrophysicist learns that his beloved wife and partner, Channing—an ex-astronaut-turned astronomer—is dying of cancer. Meanwhile, something looms alarmingly on the far edge of the solar system: at once a scientific find of unparalleled importance that could ensure the Knowltons’ immortality, and a potential earth-shattering cataclysm that dwarfs their private one. For Benjamin and Channing have discovered “Eater,” an eons-old black hole anomaly that devours stars and worlds. Yet its most awesome and devasting secrets are still to be revealed . . . and feared. “A celestial horror tale, a cosmological adventure, a literate end-of-the-world epic, and a story bursting with old-fashioned ‘sense of wonder.’” —Orlando Sentinel “Benford spins poetry from textbook phenomena . . . [His] novel proves that scientific wisdom involves the heart and soul as well as the mind.” —The Washington Post Book World “The scientific equivalent of a taut police procedural . . . Benford’s deft, suspenseful weaving of the struggle between Eater and humanity blends two threads with maximal impact.” —Newark Star Ledger “Even in the face of huge events and special effects sequences, Benford manages to keep the characters and the human-scale issues important . . . It’s just this kind of juggling that characterizes the best of Benford’s work . . . Eater is Benford’s most Benfordesque book in quite a while.” —Locus

The final volume in the Nebula Award–winning author''s classic hard SF series—"as at the end of any great symphony, one can only stand and applaud" ( Asimov''s Science Fiction ). Humanity''s final chapter has begun, and three men hold the key to survival. As the fierce, artificially intelligent mechs pursue their savage and unstoppable destruction of the human race, it soon becomes apparent that three men—three generations in a family of voyagers—are their targets. Toby Bishop, his father Kileen, and his long-dead grandfather each carry a piece of the lethal secret that can destroy their relentless pursuers. To make matters worse, they have no idea they possess the only weapon that can save humanity. Sailing Bright Eternity concludes the genre-defining Galactic Center series by by the eminent physicist and award-winning author Gregory Benford. This edition contains a teaser chapter from Benford''s novel The Sunborn.

After an accident in a brilliant young physicist''s most ambitious experiment, it appears: a wondrous sphere the size of a basketball, made of nothing known to science. Before long, it will be clear that this object has opened a vista on an entirely different universe, a newborn cosmos whose existence will rock this world and test one woman to the limit: the physicist who has ignited this thrilling adventure. Only the author of the landmark novel Timescape could so plausibly take the reader behind the scenes of major scientific research, so boldly speculate about the consequences of paradigm-shifting discovery, and so vividly capture the intense human drama as the forces of academia, government, theology, and the mass media battle for control of a mysterious new reality. COSM is Gregory Benford at his provocative best, exploring ideas at the frontier of mankind''s understanding, and posing profound questions about Creation, human destiny, and the riddle of godhood.

SHAPESHIFTER The Changeling could become anyone or anything--man, woman, child, animal. It was endowed with an inborn lust for disorder and destruction. Now it had chosen the plague-ridden planet of Alvea for its next mission--to throw an entire world into eternal chaos and madness. The Earth Consortium could send only an embittered killer and an untrained anthropologist to hunt down the Changeling. Yet, dangerous though it was, the Changeling was not the only peril the Earthmen faced on Alvea, or the worst--for the Alveans feared and hated Earth. Even a hint of the hunters'' identities would leave them dead and dismembered within minutes.... Gregory Benford and Gordon Eklund, authors of the Nebula-winning "If the Stars Are Gods," have crafted a taut, memorable SF thriller.

"Humanity has established a SETI library on the moon to decipher and interpret the many messages from alien societies we have discovered. The most intriguing messages are from complete artificial intelligences. Ruth, a beginner Librarian, must talk to alien minds who have aggressive agendas of their own. She opens doors into strangeness beyond imagination and in her quest for understanding nearly gets killed doing it"--

The Nebula Award–winning author''s classic hard SF thriller of a race to Mars—and the "strange and beautiful" things encountered on the Red Planet ( Publishers Weekly ). In the early twenty-first century, a $30 billion dollar prize will be awarded to the private organization that successfully lands a spaceship on Mars. Eccentric billionaire John Axelrod believes he can accomplish the impossible challenge. But following closely behind his Consortium is a joint venture mounted by China and Europe. The race to the Red Planet is on . . . but getting there is just the beginning.

A gripping, masterfully written adventure set against the violent beauty of a planet in the throes of cataclymic transformation, "Against Infinity" is Gregory Benford''s timeless portrait of a young man''s comming of age. On the poisonous, icy surface of Ganymede, a man and a boy are on a deadly hunt.Their prey is the "Aleph"--an unknowable alien artifact that roamed and ruled Ganymede for countless millennia. Indescribable, infinitely dangerous, the Aleph haunts men''s dreams and destroys all efforts to terraform Ganymede into a habitable planet. Now in a modern world ancient struggle is joined, as a boy seeks manhood, a man seeks enlightenment, and a society seeks the power to rule the universe. On the poisonous, icy surface of Ganymede, a man and a boy are on a hunt for the Aleph--an alien artifact that ruled Ganymede for countless millenia, Infinitely dangerous, the Aleph haunts men''s dreams and destroys all efforts to terraform Ganymede into an habitable planet. Now an ancient struggle is joined, as a boy seeks manhood, a man seeks enlightenment, and a society seeks the power to rule the universe.

A spaceship flees killer machines in this hard science fiction adventure classic, the fifth in the Galactic Center series by a Nebula Award–winning author. "[An] adventure-packed, swiftly paced story line. . . . Drawing on his expertise as a professor of theoretical physics, Benford once again dazzles with his skill at turning well-grounded science into riveting science fiction." — Booklist Trying to escape the relentless mechs, the last humans from planet Snowglade take their ancient starship on a dangerous course straight into the Eater, the black hole at the galactic center. Hungry and desperate, the refugees begin to question the leadership of Captain Killeen, who believes the center holds their one hope of survival. Meanwhile, Killeen''s son Toby struggles with the microchips that were implanted in his spine-a technology that now threatens his sanity. Caught between their genocidal pursuers and peril in the galactic center, Killeen and Toby bring humanity to its final destiny. Features a teaser chapter from The Sunborn . Don''t miss the thrilling conclusion of the Galactic Center series, Sailing Bright Eternity . "The author''s fans won''t be disappointed with this tautly plotted entry in the series, which by now has eclipsed even Asimov''s Foundation saga in ambition, and which still has one more book to go." — Publishers Weekly

In this thematic sequel to Gregory Benford’s award-winning bestseller Timescape, a history professor finds that he is able travel back to 1968, the year he was sixteen—here, he finds a slew of mentors with the same ability, including Robert Heinlein, Albert Einstein, and Philip K. Dick and becomes a successful Hollywood screenwriter until some wicked time travelers try to subvert him. It’s 2002, and Charlie, in his late forties, is a bit of a sad-sack professor of history going through an unpleasant divorce. While flipping the cassette of an audiobook he gets into a car accident with a truck, and wakes up, fully aware as his adult mind, in his sixteen-year-old body in 1968. Charlie does the thing we all imagine: he takes what he remembers of the future and uses it for himself in his present, the past. He becomes a screenwriter, anticipating the careers of Francis Ford Coppola and Steven Spielberg. Charlie realizes that there are others like him, like Albert Einstein, Philip K. Dick, Robert Heinlein. In fact, there is a society of folks who loop through time to change the world for their agenda. Now, Charlie knows he has to do something other than be self-indulgent and he tries to change one of the events of 1968 in this clever thriller.

Combining the logical rigor with the lyrical finesse of a novelist, award-winning author Gregory Benford explores these and other fascinating questions in this provocative analysis of humanity''s attempts to make its culture immortal. In "Deep Time" he confronts our growing influence on events hundreds of thousands of years into the future and explores the possible "messeges" we may transmit to our distant descendants in the language of the planet itself, from nuclear waste to global warming to the extinction of species. As we begin our incredible journey down the path of eternity, Gregory Benford masterfully calls forth some of the intriguing, astounding, undreamed-of futures which may await us in deep time.

"A taut adventure that examines humanity''s role in steering the fate of the universe [by] one of today''s foremost writers of hard SF." In Beyond Infinity, physicist and Nebula Award-winning author Gregory Benford takes his scientific imagination to the outer limits of time itself. Set more than a billion years in the future, it begins with a young woman named Cley, one of the few genetically unaltered humans left on Earth. Cley yearns to escape the rigid, timeless world she knows. So she flees in the company of an intelligent beast wise beyond recognition. But there are mysterious forces at work among the planets that she never foresaw. Alien agencies have learned to span parallel universes, ones that lie only a millimeter away but are invisible to humankind. When these beings confront the travelers, an epic struggle beyond imagining begins.

An archaeologist discovers a mysterious ancient object in Greece that could destroy the world in this science fiction adventure. A small cube of black rock has been unearthed in a 3,500-year-old Mycenaean tomb. An incomprehensible object in an impossible place; its age, its purpose, and its origins are unknown. Its discovery has unleashed a global storm of intrigue, theft, and espionage, and is pushing nations to the brink of war. Its substance has scientists baffled. And the miracle it contains does not belong on this Earth. It is mystery and madness—an enigma with no equal in recorded history. It is mankind''s greatest discovery . . . and worst nightmare. It may have already obliterated a world. Ours is next. Praise for Artifact "What do you get if you cross a James Bond movie with an Indiana Jones movie? A Gregory Benford novel. That seems to be a pretty accurate description of the pace and theme of Artifact. It''s an engaging tale. . . . Artifact skillfully blends physics and archeology with a fast-paced plot worthy of any blockbuster action flick." —SF Site

A fictional "alternate history of the creation of the atom bomb that explores what could have happened if the bomb was ready to be used by June 6, 1944"--

"Based on the 2011 100 Year Starship Symposium."

Examines recent developments in the fields of robotics and artificial intelligence, and explores the moral and ethical questions that are arising as a result of those developments and their potential applications.

A human expedition to another star system is jeopardized by an encounter with an astonishingly immense bowl-shaped structure cupping a star, with a habitable area equivalent to many millions of Earths. Investigating the Bowl, or Shipstar, the human explorers are separated, with one group captured by the gigantic structure''s alien inhabitants and the other pursued across its strange and dangerous landscape.

A Tor.com original, Nebula Award-winning author Gregory Benford''s Grace Immaculate is the awe-inspiring story of first contact--and the beginning of something more. Earth picked up the signals from 134 light years away. Humanity''s leaders quickly established contact with the alien Hydrans, engaging in a cultural exchange lasting centuries. But maintaining a communicative understanding between two very different species over such a long distance results in altering both societies beyond expectation... At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Regein was the first human colony struck by the Quarn - aliens never seen by man, yet who sow a strange death through man''s crumbling empire. In humanity''s wreckage, Ling Sanjen, a rare half-breed Caucasian, sets forth to find what - and who - has broken the spirit of mankind...

Craftsman and amateur astronomer Geoffrey Carlisle from Ely discovers that the moon is fractionally ahead of its usual elliptical orbit. He becomes instantaneously well-known for his unique observation. Using Carlisle''s findings, astronomy experts discover that each star circling the moon has been slightly warped. Yet after some time, as Professor Wright from Cambridge University had predicted, the warped stars return to their rightful places, suggesting that the world is an information-ordered one, like an analogue program acting out. What then, are the actual repercussions of a computational error in reality?

What would have happened if history had been different: if the major events that shaped our times had occurred in a different way-or not at all? From a Trojan War in which Helen surrenders to a Civil War fought with robots, from a World War I in which Teddy Roosevelt tries to recapture the glory of San Juan Hill to a World War II in which the race is not for atomic weapons but for orbital rockets, these bold excursions in time depict bizarre new worlds-oddly familiar, disturbingly different.

Once upon a moment, the One spoke to He and She, and learned that infinity and eternity are slippery concepts. At best. Don''t miss Gregory Benford''s mindbending short story The Final Now, a Tor.com Original. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Physicist and writer Gregory Benford draws from his own research to craft this third collection of science fiction stories, available for the first time in book form.

In two science fiction masterpieces about human courage and outer solar system exploration, Anderson--eight-time winner of the Hugo Award--and Benford and Carter provide chilling, highly readable adventure.