Rating: 
Summary: Interesting Topic, but Benford Skims the Surface
Review: Benford's non-fiction is as good as his best science-fiction. His interest and knowledge on archaeology and biology is amazing for a physicits. The way he plays around the deep time subject using two real cases in the first half of the book is brilliant. Sagan's fans be aware. As is usual in his best Si-Fi, the two cases show in detail how real science is done and muddled by personal interests and pride.Be a little patitient with "The Libray of Life", because the wait for the fourth part is worthwhile. The last part is a very interesting "state-of-the-art" briefing on global warming. Now I buy it! Sagan's fans, we may have already a worthy successor. If you found this book interesting and you enjoy hard Si-Fi, I recommend you take a look at these Benford's novels: Cosm, Timescape and Artifact. The fun continues there (in fact these novels were first)
Rating: 
Summary: Boring
Review: I tried to read this book, but i kept falling asleep. Now the idea behind this is a pretty neat one, but i could not get into it.
Rating: 
Summary: Deep Time/Deep Self-Revelation
Review: I very much enjoyed reflecting on the ideas presented in Benford's discussion. The content and organization of the book are not specifically addressed in previous reviews on this site, so for the reader wondering what the book is about, a road map might be useful.
Deep Time has four sections:
(1) Ten Thousand Years of Solitude describes a project in which the author was involved, which addressed how (or if) society can design safe repositories for nuclear waste with effective means of communicating across millenia to people who will not share our culture, technology, or language, "don't go near this place." Past epic attempts to communicate over the millenia and present attempts to preserve computer data for even a few years do not build confidence that this critical message will speak properly to its unimaginably distant audience.
(2) Vaults in Vacuum is a rather darkly amusing discussion of the etched plates NASA sent out on some space missions intended to communicate with whoever finds them about Earth, Sol, and humans. The unintended humor of the political process surrounding their design communicates more to us about human nature than the disks themselves could ever communicate to aliens! The fate of the diamond disk that was supposed to ride with Cassini-Huygens to Saturn is nothing short of hysterical.
(3) The Library of Life is a depressing description of the potentially Chicxulub-scale loss of biodiversity caused by humans in the last few centuries. It argues almost poignantly, perhaps quixotically, for building cryogenically-preserved DNA libraries to store the basic information on biodiversity, so our far descendants, if we manage to leave any, might be able to resuscitate what we are destroying -- "Jurassic Park" on ice.
(4) Stewards of the Earth: The World as Message is a vaguely postmodern discussion of the earth we're leaving behind us for our descendants as a text and what that text reveals about us. The message is not flattering or hopeful. Should human society with its next-quarter or, at most, decades time frame begin to design and effect centuries-long agendas to assist the planet to support us at a high level of technological civilization, our primate cleverness may yet evolve into wisdom and conscious design of what the earth says about us to our long-distant descendants.
Rating:
Summary: Deep Time/Deep Self-Revelation
Review: I very much enjoyed reflecting on the ideas presented in Benford's discussion. The content and organization of the book are not specifically addressed in previous reviews on this site, so for the reader wondering what the book is about, a road map might be useful.
Deep Time has four sections:
(1) Ten Thousand Years of Solitude describes a project in which the author was involved, which addressed how (or if) society can design safe repositories for nuclear waste with effective means of communicating across millenia to people who will not share our culture, technology, or language, "don't go near this place." Past epic attempts to communicate over the millenia and present attempts to preserve computer data for even a few years do not build confidence that this critical message will speak properly to its unimaginably distant audience.
(2) Vaults in Vacuum is a rather darkly amusing discussion of the etched plates NASA sent out on some space missions intended to communicate with whoever finds them about Earth, Sol, and humans. The unintended humor of the political process surrounding their design communicates more to us about human nature than the disks themselves could ever communicate to aliens! The fate of the diamond disk that was supposed to ride with Cassini-Huygens to Saturn is nothing short of hysterical.
(3) The Library of Life is a depressing description of the potentially Chicxulub-scale loss of biodiversity caused by humans in the last few centuries. It argues almost poignantly, perhaps quixotically, for building cryogenically-preserved DNA libraries to store the basic information on biodiversity, so our far descendants, if we manage to leave any, might be able to resuscitate what we are destroying -- "Jurassic Park" on ice.
(4) Stewards of the Earth: The World as Message is a vaguely postmodern discussion of the earth we're leaving behind us for our descendants as a text and what that text reveals about us. The message is not flattering or hopeful. Should human society with its next-quarter or, at most, decades time frame begin to design and effect centuries-long agendas to assist the planet to support us at a high level of technological civilization, our primate cleverness may yet evolve into wisdom and conscious design of what the earth says about us to our long-distant descendants.
Rating:
Summary: great work by a generalist
Review: It is refreshing to see someone such as Gregory Benford with a solid grounding in a scientific discipline (astro physics) reach out as a generalist to other disciplines. I particularly liked his analysis of options for environmental issues...
Rating:
Summary: I found it boring
Review: It's been around two years since I first read this book, and i must say i reference it to people all the time. the reason: it is so darn fascinating. i really liked how the author put things in context and made me think about media forms and how we transfer data. if i gave you an 8-track tape right now, would you know what to do with it to get the info contained on it? younger folks might not know what it is. they would recognize tape (maybe), but 100 years from now, how many players would be around? the book talks about a project the author was on. a nuclear waste site in new mexico needed to have a way to communicate to humans (or others) in the future that the site is radioactive. since the radiation could last 10,000 years, the message would have to be able to be understood centuries from now. what would the message be like? if you read the book you'll find out! lots of different ideas are kicked around and i just couldn't put the book down. buy it, have fun!
Rating:
Summary: 2 years...
Review: It's been around two years since I first read this book, and i must say i reference it to people all the time. the reason: it is so darn fascinating. i really liked how the author put things in context and made me think about media forms and how we transfer data. if i gave you an 8-track tape right now, would you know what to do with it to get the info contained on it? younger folks might not know what it is. they would recognize tape (maybe), but 100 years from now, how many players would be around? the book talks about a project the author was on. a nuclear waste site in new mexico needed to have a way to communicate to humans (or others) in the future that the site is radioactive. since the radiation could last 10,000 years, the message would have to be able to be understood centuries from now. what would the message be like? if you read the book you'll find out! lots of different ideas are kicked around and i just couldn't put the book down. buy it, have fun!
Rating:
Summary: I found it boring
Review: The concept of public servants trying to communicate messages to a distant future it quite interesting. I found it interesting that even we have lost even the locations of some time capsules even 50 years ago. It certainly had some good ideas. The main problem I felt was that the writer was trying to write like a science fiction and a philosophical work. It just could not keep my interest up. However it would make a good project book for someone in a class trying to keep students interested. Which is what I am series thinking of doing.
Rating:
Summary: Thought-provoking, captivating, and easy-to-read
Review: This book doesn't pretend to be the last word on planning for the distant future, but it is most certainly an intriguing, balanced, well-reasoned introduction to the subject. As an example, it deals with the issue of radioactive waste disposal, in a way that neither makes your eyes glaze over nor dismisses the human element. It's a book which anyone interested in politics, urban planning, culture, history, or anthropology should at least take a look at. It could easily serve as a basis for discussion groups in high school or college-level courses in all of the above subject areas.
Rating:
Summary: Fun reading about humanity's most esoteric endeavors!
Review: This book is really two different books connected by a quick segue. The first half of the book sprints through a summary of the different ways that humans have intentionally left evidence of their lives long after their death. It continues to chronicle recent and ongoing efforts to leave evidence of our civilization to future humans and in outer space. I found the discussions of the petty infighting at NASA and the chaotic process of government-sponsored monument design particularly interesting. Benford is quick to note that for the money we spend on a radioactive waste marker that might save 100 lives over 10,000 years, we could save many thousands of lives right now. Comments like these help the reader keep a grounded perspective of the silliness of leaving long-lasting monuments, as well as highlighting the drive that makes us ignore our present concerns in favor of leaving messages for future generations. The second half of the book is entirely about how future generations will interpret the environmental state of the planet as a monument to our current society and how we can take action to change the state of the planet. This section strays more heavily into the realm of speculative fiction than the first half of the book. Benford argues for "responsible stewardship" of the planet as the only option for sustaining our current level of population and energy. He calls for active efforts to influence the patterns of energy exchange over the planet's surface. While he is almost certainly right, his argument is a bit aggressive. He warns that we must start with extremely limited experiments, but does not stress the fact we do not yet have the mathematical modeling techniques to accurately assess and predict the worldwide effects of our experimentation. My only real criticism of the book is that it implies that we are capable of responsibly taking large scale action today, even though it may still be decades before ecosystems modelers will be able to provide the kinds of analysis that will allow humanity to become responsible stewards of the planet.
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