Rating: 
Summary: Most Believable Time Book Written
Review: This is one of the best time travel / warp books written. Benford pushes the genre of "hard science" fiction in this novel, so be prepared. Without giving away too much plot, the method of communication across time is more plausible then any other idea put forth by previous authors. The story hits very close to home and builds upon issues that are relevant to our current world.As other reviewers have pointed out, the character development is somewhat weak. However, this cannot stop me from giving a 5-star rating. The final resolution will keep you glued to the book and the technique used to transition the 2 possible futures for us is done very well.
Rating:
Summary: Know what you go to
Review: A lot of the reviewers of this book obviously read it not expecting hard SF. Another big chunk did not expect character developments approaching what one would expect from non-SF.
This book is full of details on the science that are highly believable, and as exact as feasible without messing up the plot. That's the point of hard SF, and it succeeds marvellously. For those of the reviewers that expected "mainstream" SF or a non-SF fiction it is a major distraction.
It also spends a lot of time on character development, which is unusual for hard-SF, and many reviewers seem to have expected traditional hard-SF.
On the other hand if you do love hard SF but find most hard SF to have two dimensional characters, this is a book for you.
The book juxtaposes 1963 and 1998. In '63 America had survived the missile crisis, and there appeared to be progress all around - the test ban treaty was being signed, the economy was booming, and the centers of education in California were seeing a massive growth, with a bustling research establishment. Kennedy was pushing the space race. In '63, Gordon (one of the main characters) were assistant professor, had a sexy,sexually liberated girlfriend and was frantically working on a problem that could make his career. It was all good.
The books 1998 is a world in crisis, mostly described via the impacts it has on the main characters - a research team at Cambridge and the rather unsympathetic Mr Peterson - responsible though tough at work, but an chronic womanizer outside of it. The ecology is badly messed up, and we get to see it not just in terms of headlines, as you might in more typical hard SF (i.e. food production is down, fish is dying off, blah. blah.) but in terms of how it changes social structures and the daily lives of these characters.
The two are tied together by the experiments of Gordon and the group at Cambridge and the groups attempts at telling Gordon how to solve the problems they are facing, while attempting to avoid a paradox.
The group succeeds in communicating through time, but does it succeed in fixing the problems of the now they live in? How do you avoid a paradox? What happens if you create a paradox? These ideas and their resolutions are fairly routine in science fiction now, but I have not previously seen anyone handle them so thoroughly and in such a believable way.
Some complain about lack of character development, but I would claim that anyone who does so does it because they would not normally read hard SF. Some complain about too much character development because they are looking exactly for the hard SF. It's perhaps an awkward combination.
I too found myself wanting to skip ahead at various points, but not because I found parts boring, but because the development of the problem kept me in a lot of suspense. But I'm glad I didn't skip ahead - the "filler" material some have complained about was vital to the feel of this book.
It was "filler" material that provided the tie in with the Kennedy assassination that provide answers to several major questions of the book. It was filler material that demonstrated the mood of the respective time periods and give you the basis for judging the time after the "turning point". "Filler material" expanding on the characters explained much of their motivations for acting the way they did instead of always doing what might have been the logical way to behave for a typical cardboard scientist in typical hard SF.
And the end is stunning in terms of the way it describes time. Only one other time have I had a similar reaction to the end of an SF book, and that was with Arthur C. Clarkes "The City And the Stars" (read it!) which sent chills down my spine (I don't think any piece of fiction have ever done that with me before) for it's haunting image of how limited our view of time is by our viewpoint and our physical existence.
Rating:
Summary: An absolutely phenomenal book.
Review: This is certainly Gregory Benford's most famous novel, a classic, and deservedly so. It won the Nebula Award, the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, the British Science Fiction Award, and Australia's Ditmar Award for "Best International Long Fiction." It is one of the greatest and most disturbing warning tales in the science fiction field, and even though 1998 came and went without an ocean bloom, the dates don't really matter. It was a tale of warning, and it will be a tale of warning; just because a premature date has come and gone does not invalidate the points a piece of fiction is trying to make. Science fiction is not about prediction, nor is it entirely about the era in which it was written. "Science fiction is not predictive; it is descriptive. [...] Prediction is the business of prophets, clairvoyants, and futurologists. It is not the business of novelists. A novelist's business is lying," as Ursula K. Le Guin once said.
The novel describes the lives of scientists; human emotion, fear, failure. All this is mixed in with the work, the science; science is supposedly set in stone, rigid and unmovable, and Benford does his best to crush this myth to a certain extent. Benford shows that scientists are human, with the same foibles and fallacies of every man or woman, and he seems to contrast this idea with science on a larger scale, the idea of the ocean bloom. Science gone bad, contrasted with relationships gone bad. Benford brings these two elements to their peak, straining the science and the scientists beyond their previous limits, and in this novel he showcases what a grand thing is science.
Recommended to all.
Rating: 
Summary: An SF novel bogged down by too much non-SF filler.
Review: I won't rehash the plotline here, as you can find that in almost all of the other reviews.
What I find as the major weakness in the book is the excessive inclusion of filler material intended to add depth and literary value to the story -- self-conscious attempts at characterizations and descriptions which only serve to cast a purple hue over the prose.
As written, the non-married relationship between the "Past" protagonist and his partner does not ring true, and the numerous passages spotlighting these two characters only slow down the story while adding nothing of value to it.
Likewise, the injection of commentary by these same two on 1960s politics and pop music comes across as forced attempts by the author to add social relevance to his writing. If this was a screenplay, I would see it as simply an excuse to provide fodder for a soundtrack album of moldy oldies, a la "The Big Chill."
The story is much more successful when the author sticks to the scientific and academic descriptions, of which he obviously has considerable expertise. Some of the scientific explanations provoked questions in my mind which I wish the author would have addressed, but I found the story (the scientific parts of it, anyway) interesting enough, and felt it was a satisfying read overall.
Rating: 
Summary: Good idea poorly executed
Review: The premise of the book -- scientists trying to contact the near past in order to divert environmental disaster -- is interesting. The premise and the alternate version of the present might have even been fascinating except that the ideas are overwhelmed by much too much text, unnecessary plot developments, incredibly boring detail, and characters you don't much care about. Of all the many, many books I've read in my life, I have purposely not finished only a very few -- but this was one of them. I was just too disinterested to continue reading.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best Hard Science Fiction novels ever written
Review: A Nebula winner, and one of a handful of hard SF books considered a classic. I`ll admit that hard SF doesn't gel well with my personal reading tastes with its emphasis on scientific explanation and frequently stock characters; however, I have enjoyed some immensely, such as _The Forge of God_, and this novel only proves that Hard SF CAN be both technically fascinating and be superby piece of literature and characterization as well. Initially, Timescape caught my attention with its central premise of a dying future (well, 1998, the future when the book was written) finding a way through tachyon messages of contacting the past (1962). But the book does tend to tread water for a long time, and some of the character conflicts get a bit tiresome. But in the finale, which contains a stunning surprise, the strange science at last coalesces into a emotionally stirring vision of time as a landscape. It was at this moment that I saw the book itself become a whole-and an admirable whole. As the thoughtful afterward points out, the book tackles many different types of stories, not all of which will appeal to every reader. Give it shot, even if Hard SF insn't your thing.
Rating: 
Summary: It's a 100 page novella...
Review: This is truly a well written novel even without the hard science. With the hard science in, it is truly excellent. Greg Benford deals with two different times in history, 1998 and 1963. The 1998 timeframe has the world in the beggining of a great calamity due to pesticide overuse. A group of physicists develop a method to send a message back in time to warn 1963 scientists of the disaster in hope of preventing it. Most of the 1998 timeframe deals with the disaster and the various social problems developed from it. The 1963 scientists start to recieve transmissions during an experiment unrelated to the future. What happens is that one group of scientists are labeled kooks because they originally believe that they may be recieving information from outerspace. What the readers find out about scientists is that they are just like everybody else and will fight over trivial matters instead of concentrating on the work. The 1963 timeframe is recieving information about long chain molecule chemicals of which it has no knowledge yet and this has set off the controversey. Timescape is chock full of hard science. Benford has written a book based on sound thoery of tachyons and more than one possible universes including mini-universes. He has made the theories easily understandable without clouding the explanation with intricate math. The reader can gain a working knowledge of both multi-universes and the idea of tachyons. The fact he was able to weave these heavy ideas into a well written story is amazing. This book is well worth the effort and is highley reccommended.
Rating: 
Summary: A very human science-fiction read
Review: This is no fast & quick read. It's also one where it is very easy to miss the point. And the point lies in the human element and the very human part of the plot. There's continual contrast here between the characters on a dying earth and those in an earlier era. The science-fictional theme is, obviously, time-travel or rather the communication through time. This is a book to be patient with. It's necessary to accept the characters, not dismiss them as dull and uninteresting. The characters are people like you and me who are facing their challenges in the best way they can, same as you and me. These challenges placed against a cosmic type of fate therefore become significant. This book gives a deep look at life itself through the depiction and contrast of the working life where the characters in two different time periods are dealing with mind-boggling events on the one level and on the living of their personal lives on another. This book isn't for an action and adventure fan. It's one which presents concepts that will stretch your mind, and at the same time show how everyday life complexities are part of the picture. If you allow yourself to become absorbed in this book, you'll find much to think about, both on intellectual and on personal levels. I did have one fault with the book. It begins in 1998, and I would have liked to see it end in 1998 showing the changes in the primary characters as well as the development of those who we meet in the 60's.
Rating:
Summary: Most Believable Time Book Written
Review: This is one of the best time travel / warp books written. Benford pushes the genre of "hard science" fiction in this novel, so be prepared. Without giving away too much plot, the method of communication across time is more plausible then any other idea put forth by previous authors. The story hits very close to home and builds upon issues that are relevant to our current world. As other reviewers have pointed out, the character development is somewhat weak. However, this cannot stop me from giving a 5-star rating. The final resolution will keep you glued to the book and the technique used to transition the 2 possible futures for us is done very well.
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