Rating: 
Summary: Great book
Review: This book is a (a)Theoretical Physics (b)Spy-Thriller (c)Adventure book. So, if you, as a reader, like any of those types of books, there's a good chance you'ld like this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Could be shorter
Review: Very good hard SF premise, but the novel includes a lot of fluff, developing [bad] characters. I think if the story were condensed to 100 pages, it would be hugo-quality.
Rating:
Summary: BARELY ENTERTAINING AND HARD TO READ
Review: While I basically have difficulties with "hard science-fiction", I enjoy reading it in order to expand my mind and seek a better understanding of theoretical science. Gregory Benford is good for this, and he is capable, as in "Timescape", of writing a good story embodying the science. For me, "Artifact" just does not fill the bill. I honestly had the impression that he was trying his darndest to write something that could possibly be turned into a movie. The heroine is a typical educated woman trying to prove herself professionally, faced with a military type adversary who wants to bed her. She enlists a conveniently weaker though intellectually capable guy to help her smuggle a mysterious object out of Greece into the U. S. Naturally, the object turns out to be a scientific oddity with sinister capabilities. I'm not one to say that you won't enjoy this quite long novel. All I can tell you is that I believe I'm a very literate and also a very tolerant and diversified reader who likes much of what he reads....and I found this to be a chore to read.
Rating:
Summary: Good science; Bad fiction
Review: While I basically have difficulties with "hard science-fiction", I enjoy reading it in order to expand my mind and seek a better understanding of theoretical science. Gregory Benford is good for this, and he is capable, as in "Timescape", of writing a good story embodying the science. For me, "Artifact" just does not fill the bill. I honestly had the impression that he was trying his darndest to write something that could possibly be turned into a movie. The heroine is a typical educated woman trying to prove herself professionally, faced with a military type adversary who wants to bed her. She enlists a conveniently weaker though intellectually capable guy to help her smuggle a mysterious object out of Greece into the U. S. Naturally, the object turns out to be a scientific oddity with sinister capabilities. I'm not one to say that you won't enjoy this quite long novel. All I can tell you is that I believe I'm a very literate and also a very tolerant and diversified reader who likes much of what he reads....and I found this to be a chore to read.
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