Rating: 
Summary: Benford's best since TIMESCAPE
Review: This is clearly Gregory Benford's best since TIMESCAPE. But it has that same TIMESCAPEy feel: a real look at how science works, from someone who knows the field well. The plot was like an appropriate updating of the classic short story (Sturgeon?) MICROCOSMIC GOD. And it was good to see a female main character. I always enjoy Benford, but this one I enjoyed particularly well.
Rating:
Summary: Great work, but you need a background in Physics to get it.
Review: I personally think it's a great story with wonderful characters. The actual premise requires a bit of understanding of physics and quantum mechanics, but that can easily be reviewed by the commenetary at the end of the book (at least in my edition). I would suggest that you read the notes there first, and then read the book. It will make more sense to you if you don't know much about Astronomy or Physics.If you do, however, know a bit about everyman's science, take a chance and read the book. It will be well worth your time, even if the theory is unfounded. It raises quite a few questions. In fact, this may very well be Benford's last ficiton work for some time. His next book will be a non-fiction venture.
Rating: 
Summary: Did anyone bother to edit this book?
Review: I largely agree with the comments of the other people who gave _Cosm_ a 2. I'd just like to add that it was poorly edited. Two examples follow: In more than one instance, research assistants are referred to as undergraduates after they have been introduced as graduate students. Also, on page 167 (hardcover) a graph is displayed with 10^4, 10^5, 10^6, (powers of 10) on the x-axis. Two pages later, while discussing the graph, the characters state that the axis is labelled 4, 5, 6, etc... While I'm irritated by little things like spelling errors, I can usually read over them. _Cosm_ suffers from a criminally bad job of editing that makes a mediocre story worse.
Rating: 
Summary: You need a degree to understand it
Review: It looks like the customer reviews are all over the scale - some hate this book, some love it. I thought it was a good book. As a semi-scientist, I thought the characters were accurate and interesting. However, the physics was hard to understand. I've had classes in modern physics, but it wasn't enough for me to really understand what was going on. I wish the author had spent more words on the physics and less on the portrayal of scientists in action. I think only people with a degree in physics could understand the science in the book, which is ironic since the whole point behind the book was to introduce non-scientists on how real scientists work.
Rating: 
Summary: Bendford should sell his premises to real authors
Review: Bendford has created a novel for which suitable readers must have the stimulus threshhold of an 80 year old nun. Who would have guess that science fiction could more dull that science fact? Although probably very accurate in terms of its portrayal of academic life in modern universities, this proves to be only slightly more entertaining than an accurate portrayal of the growth of grass. No page is left without some reference or other to the difference between theoretical and experimental scientists, or the plight of the teaching professor who's got research to do, and so on. This led me to believe that the author had to get some stuff off his chest. Too bad nobody but the scientists is ever going to care. Relentless droning about life on campus, coupled with inexplicably dull dialog between cardboard cut-out characters severely damages the impact of what promised to be a very interesting, quite uniquely plausible, and very hard sci-fi premise. I was really fascinated by the Cosm itself, but found myself wishing suffering and/or death on ALL of the characters, in the name of having something exciting happen and/or coming to the end. I read it till the end, but only in hopes of finding out that the awesome, mysterious Cosm had claimed more bland, forgettable lives. Like no other author I have ever read, Bendford's novel declares: 'I am in the wrong line of work!'. Somebody please give the man tenure, because Greg's seemingly got no idea about the Fiction at the end of Science Fiction.
Rating:
Summary: BEAUTIFULLY PACED HARD SF
Review: Perhaps Benford's best--a fast academic novel with more ideas than a shelf of the usual sf. He knows the way science really is done!--and his woman character is both inventive & snappy.
Rating:
Summary: This one needs a no star rating!
Review: Why did the people who gave this book a bad review, give it 2 stars? One was plenty! Also, he must have a lot of good friends to send in the 5 star reviews. Nuff-said!
Rating:
Summary: Hard core physics in fast paced credible SciFi thriller
Review: As a woman PhD physicist, who worked in academia and government labs, I REALLY identified with Benford's black superwoman, superhero, hard-nosed but soft hearted physicist, who is too busy teaching and making her name in science to get a love life (which, true to life, comes to her eventually through working on physics with fellow physicists).The science fiction flows smoothly out of science fact, the coast- to-coast settings and characters are all too familiar and true to style in this near-term future, whether it's the UC or Caltech faculty, students and administrators, or whether it's at the Brookhaven accelerator; and federal officials are still the BAD GUYS. As a Benford fan of long standing, I found this novel to have more depth, more character development, more plotline and more fun: it's a good read for all and any science or SciFi lovers...I give it an easy high five!
Rating:
Summary: Great if you have an interest in wierd areas of physics
Review: Anybody who picked up this "Cosm" looking for an exciting, thrilling, story may as well throw this book away. The best way to discribe it is as a "scientific paper stuck into a fictional setting". Having said this I think its a very intresting read, even if you do need a degree in physics to follow some of the twists and turns of the theories throw up by some of the characters in the story. I recommend this book highly as it has some really worthwhile points to make, which is becoming rarer in science fiction. So I gave it four stars but knock off two if you have no interest in physics.
Rating:
Summary: Simply fine writing
Review: Benford SHOWS us characters; most writers just describe them. He's the best in the filed, at both character and science.
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