Gregory Benford
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Gregory Benford (born January 30, 1941) is a science fiction author and physicist who is on the faculty of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Irvine.
Contents
Biographical timeline
- 30 January 1941 - born in Mobile, Alabama
- 1963 - received Bachelor of Science in physics from University of Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma
- 1965 - received Master of Science from University of California, San Diego
- 1967 - received doctorate from University of California, San Diego
- 1967 - married Joan Abbe
Benford tends to write hard science fiction which incorporates the research he is doing as a practical scientist. He has worked on several collaborations with authors including William Rotsler, David Brin and Gordon Eklund, but has really made a name for himself with the Galactic Center Saga beginning with In the Ocean of Night (1977). This series postulates a galaxy in which sentient organic life is in constant warfare with sentient mechanical life.
His breakthrough novel may have been the time-travel classic Timescape (1980), which won the Nebula Award and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. A scientific procedural, the novel eventually loaned its title to a line of science fiction published by Pocket Books.
Benford has also served as an editor of numerous alternate history anthologies as well as collections of the Hugo Winners. In the late1990s, he wrote Foundation's Fear, one of an authorized sequel trilogy to Isaac Asimov's Foundation series. The other two books in the series were written by David Brin and Greg Bear. Other novels published in that period include several near-future science thrillers: Cosm (1998), The Martian Race (1999) and Eater (2000). Benford has been nominated for four Hugo Awards (for two short stories & two novellas) and 12 Nebula Awards (in all categories). He won the Nebula for his novel Timescape and the novelette "If the Stars Are Gods" (with Gordon Eklund).
In addition to establishing Benford's Law of Controversy, Benford has proposed a corollary to Clarke's third law: "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced," and claims to have created and written about the first computer virus in the late 1960s.
In 2004, Benford proposed that the harmful effects of global warming could be reduced by the construction of a rotating Fresnel lens 1000 kilometres across, floating in space at the Lagrangian point L1. According to Benford, this lens would diffuse the light from the Sun and reduce the solar energy reaching the Earth by approximately 0.5% to 1%. He estimated that this would cost around $10 billion.
Benford serves on the board of directors and the steering committee of the Mars Society.
Bibliography
The Galactic Center Saga is a series of books detailing a galactic war between mechanical and biological life.
- In the Ocean of Night (1976)
- Across the Sea of Suns (1984)
- Great Sky River (1987)
- Tides of Light (1989)
- Furious Gulf (1994)
- Sailing Bright Eternity (1995)
Jupiter Project
- Jupiter Project (1975)
- Against Infinity (1983)
- Man-Kzin Wars VI (1994)
Second Foundation
- Foundation's Fear (1997)
Anthologies edited
- Hitler Victorious: Eleven Stories of the German Victory in World War II (1986), with Martin H. Greenberg
- Nuclear War (1988), with Martin H Greenberg
- Far Futures (1995)
- The New Hugo Winners Volume IV (1997), with Martin H Greenberg
- Nebula Awards Showcase 2000 (2000)
- Microcosms (2004)
What Might Have Been?
- Alternate Empires (1989) (with Martin H Greenberg)
- Alternate Heroes (1989)
- Alternate Wars (1991)
- Alternate Americas (1992) (with Martin H Greenberg)
Non-fiction
- Habitats in Space (1998)
- Deep Time: How Humanity Communicates Across Millennia (1999)
- Skylife: Visions of Our Homes in Space (2000), with George Zebrowsk
- Skylife: Space Habitats in Story and Science (2000), with George Zebrowski
- Beyond Human: The New World of Cyborgs and Androids (2001)
Non-series Novels
- Deeper Than the Darkness (aka The Stars in Shroud) (1970)
- If the Stars Are Gods (1977), with Gordon Eklund
- Timescape (1980)
- Find the Changeling (1980), with Gordon Eklund
- Shiva Descending (1980), with William Rotsler
- Time's Rub (1984)
- Artifact (1985)
- The Heart of the Comet (1986), with David Brin
- Under the Wheel (1987)
- Iceborn (1989), with Paul A. Carter
- Beyond the Fall of Night (1990), with Arthur C. Clarke
- Chiller (1993), as Sterling Blake
- A Darker Geometry (1996), with Mark O. Martin
- Cosm (1998)
- The Martian Race (1999)
- Eater (2000)
- Beyond Infinity (2003)
- Human Being (2003)
- The Sunborn (2005)
Short Story Collections
- In Alien Flesh (1986)
- Matter's End (1990)
- Amazing Stories No 7 (1992), with J. R. Dunn and James Alan Gardner and Kim Mohan
- ''Worlds Vast and various' (1999)
- Immersion and other Short Novels (2002)
- Merlin (2004)
Short Stories
List of short stories and the publications they appear in.
- Man-Kzin Wars VI (1994)
Second Foundation
- Foundation's Fear (1997)
Anthologies edited
- Hitler Victorious: Eleven Stories of the German Victory in World War II (1986), with Martin H. Greenberg
- Nuclear War (1988), with Martin H Greenberg
- Far Futures (1995)
- The New Hugo Winners Volume IV (1997), with Martin H Greenberg
- Nebula Awards Showcase 2000 (2000)
- Microcosms (2004)
What Might Have Been?
- Alternate Empires (1989) (with Martin H Greenberg)
- Alternate Heroes (1989)
- Alternate Wars (1991)
- Alternate Americas (1992) (with Martin H Greenberg)
Non-fiction
- Habitats in Space (1998)
- Deep Time: How Humanity Communicates Across Millennia (1999)
- Skylife: Visions of Our Homes in Space (2000), with George Zebrowsk
- Skylife: Space Habitats in Story and Science (2000), with George Zebrowski
- Beyond Human: The New World of Cyborgs and Androids (2001)
Non-series Novels
- Deeper Than the Darkness (aka The Stars in Shroud) (1970)
- If the Stars Are Gods (1977), with Gordon Eklund
- Timescape (1980)
- Find the Changeling (1980), with Gordon Eklund
- Shiva Descending (1980), with William Rotsler
- Time's Rub (1984)
- Artifact (1985)
- The Heart of the Comet (1986), with David Brin
- Under the Wheel (1987)
- Iceborn (1989), with Paul A. Carter
- Beyond the Fall of Night (1990), with Arthur C. Clarke
- Chiller (1993), as Sterling Blake
- A Darker Geometry (1996), with Mark O. Martin
- Cosm (1998)
- The Martian Race (1999)
- Eater (2000)
- Beyond Infinity (2003)
- Human Being (2003)
- The Sunborn (2005)
Short Story Collections
- In Alien Flesh (1986)
- Matter's End (1990)
- Amazing Stories No 7 (1992), with J. R. Dunn and James Alan Gardner and Kim Mohan
- ''Worlds Vast and various' (1999)
- Immersion and other Short Novels (2002)
- Merlin (2004)
Short Stories
List of short stories and the publications they appear in.
- Stand-In
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (June 1965)
- Representative From Earth
- Flattop
- Deeper Than the Darkness
- Sons of Man
- Nobody Lives on Burton Street
- The Prince of New York
- 3:02 p.m., Oxford
- The Movement
- Inalienable Rite
- But the Secret Sits
- Star Crossing, with Donald Franson
- Battleground, with Jim Benford
- West Wind, Falling, with Gordon Eklund
- And the Sea Like Mirrors
- In the Ocean of Night
- Jupiter Project
- Icarus Descending
- Man in a Vice
- Nobody Lives Around Here
- If the Stars Are Gods, with Gordon Eklund
- Threads of Time
- Doing Lennon
- Beyond Grayworld
- Cambridge, 1:58 A.M
- John of the Apocalypse
- White Creatures
- How It All Went
- The Anvil of Jove, with Gordon Eklund
- Marauder!
- Seascape (aka Pebble Among the Stars)
- What Did You Do Last Year?, with Gordon Eklund
- Hellas is Florida, with Gordon Eklund
- Homemaker
- A Snark in the Night
- Knowing Her
- Starswarmer
- In Alien Flesh
- Old Woman By the Road
- A Hiss of Dragon, with Marc Laidlaw
- Nooncoming
- Time Guide
- Dark Sanctuary
- Redeemer
- Calibrations and Exercises
- Time Shards
- Titan Falling
- Pick an Orifice
- Slices
- Exposures
- Shall We Take a Little Walk?
- Cadenza
- Valhalla
- Lazarus Rising
- Relativistic Effects
- Sandy Lust
- Swarmer, Skimmer
- The Touch
- Me/Days
- Time's Rub
- To the Storming Gulf
- Newton Sleep
- Of Space-Time and the River
- Freezeframe
- As Big as the Ritz
- Snatching the Bot
- Effing the Ineffable
- The Gods of the Gaps
- What Are You Going to Be When You Grow Up?
- Proselytes
- All the Beer on Mars
- Alphas
- We Could Do Worse
- Mozart on Morphine
- Leviathan
- Proserpina's Daughter with Paul A. Carter
- The Rose and the Scalpel
- Warstory
- Latter-Day Matian Chronicles
- The Eagle and the Cross
- Manassas, Again
- Centigrade 233
- Touches
- Matter's End
- Down the River Road
- Rumbling Earth
- World Vast, World Various
- The Dark Backward
- Doing Alien
- The Bigger One
- Soon Comes the Night
- Not of an Age
- Strong Instinct with Mark O. Martin
- The Trojan Cat with Mark O. Martin
- Deep Eyes
- Kollapse
- A Worm in the Well
- A Tapestry of Thought
- A Desperate Calculus as Sterling Blake
- High Abyss
- Immersion
- Paris Conquers All with David Brin
- Afterword: Retrospective with David Brin
- Zoomers
- The Voice
- Galaxia
- A Cold Dry Cradle with Elisabeth Malartrez
- Early Bird
- A Dance to Strange Musics
- Ordinary Aliens
- Three Gods
- Menage a Trois
- Around the Curve of a Cosmos
- Brink
- The Clear Blue Seas of Luna
- The Hydrogen Wall
- Anomalies
- At the Double Solstice
- A Hunger for the Infinite
- Immortal Night
- Mammoth Dawn with Kevin J. Anderson
- Mandikini
- Side Effect
- Shakers of the Earth
- Sleepstory
External links
- [] at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- [Giant rotating space lens]
- [Homepage at UCI]
- [List of works at Fantastic Fiction]
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