4 ms·

Is this the novelist that wrote the novel with the tachyon messages to our past generations warning them about the impending climate change disaster? Edit: no,

by petre 3y ago

Is this the novelist that wrote the novel with the tachyon messages to our past generations warning them about the impending climate change disaster? Edit: no, it's Timescape by Gragory Benford. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/778990.Timescape https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/778990.Timescape

monkey_monkey 3y ago
I think the novel you're referring to is 'Timescape', and it was written by Gregory Benford. From what I remember (and it's been 20 years at least since I read it), it's quite a bleak story.
- petre 3y ago
  Yup, it was about the same size but maybe still better than Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Red from what I remember? At least I've finished reading it.
  - KineticLensman 3y ago
    (spoilers) Timescape and Red Mars are very different in very different in nature and size. Timescape is a self-contained end-of-the-world story, but set in a multiverse, so some of the characters do get out alive. Red Mars is the first part of a lengthy trilogy, which is ultimately optimistic about humanity itself, even though the story contains environment collapse, devastation, and war. [Edit] To be clear, the overall story of which Red Mars is just the first part is much longer than Timescape.
    - petre 3y ago
      They're about the same thickness and number of pages and I've read them at about the same age. Timescape got the Nebula award, Red Mars got the BSFA and Nebula awards. They have about the same number of stars on Goodreads, so roughly the same reception? I haven't finished reading Red Mars, I think I grew tired with the endless descriptions. Maybe the other two Mars books are better? Dunno, never got around reading them, moved on. Both might be okay books to turn into movies, with Red Mars just use the lenghty descriptions as documentation for filming the scenes.
teraflop 3y ago
Egan has a somewhat smaller-scale and more personal exploration of a similar concept, in a short story called "The Hundred Light-Year Diary".
- Acumen321 3y ago
  This is my favorite story of his. It is part of the collection Axiomatic for those new to him.
pimlottc 3y ago
I always get Greg Egan, Greg Bear and Gregory Benford confused.
- geden 3y ago
  It’s all very confusing :)
- angiosperm 3y ago
  Thank you, I was just about to post how much I liked Blood Music.
gcr 3y ago
You might also like these similar short stories with a similar theme: - "What's expected of us" by Ted Chiang, about a reverse time delay device that reveals the deterministic nature of physics and causes a societal crisis. It's eventually used to send a message to the past from the heat death of the universe: https://www.nature.com/articles/436150a https://www.nature.com/articles/436150a - "The Hundred Light-Year Diary" by Greg Egan, about a society that adapts to being able to receive messages from themselves one hundred years into the future. Every person gets a ration of 100 characters per day that they can send to their past self. This one also deals with questions of free will, and what we choose to omit from our "perfect" records when given the chance. Synposis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hundred_Light-Year_Diary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hundred_Light-Year_Diary

by petre 3y ago

monkey_monkey 3y ago

I think the novel you're referring to is 'Timescape', and it was written by Gregory Benford. From what I remember (and it's been 20 years at least since I read it), it's quite a bleak story.

petre 3y ago
Yup, it was about the same size but maybe still better than Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Red from what I remember? At least I've finished reading it.
- KineticLensman 3y ago
  (spoilers) Timescape and Red Mars are very different in very different in nature and size. Timescape is a self-contained end-of-the-world story, but set in a multiverse, so some of the characters do get out alive. Red Mars is the first part of a lengthy trilogy, which is ultimately optimistic about humanity itself, even though the story contains environment collapse, devastation, and war. [Edit] To be clear, the overall story of which Red Mars is just the first part is much longer than Timescape.
  - petre 3y ago
    They're about the same thickness and number of pages and I've read them at about the same age. Timescape got the Nebula award, Red Mars got the BSFA and Nebula awards. They have about the same number of stars on Goodreads, so roughly the same reception? I haven't finished reading Red Mars, I think I grew tired with the endless descriptions. Maybe the other two Mars books are better? Dunno, never got around reading them, moved on. Both might be okay books to turn into movies, with Red Mars just use the lenghty descriptions as documentation for filming the scenes.

teraflop 3y ago

Egan has a somewhat smaller-scale and more personal exploration of a similar concept, in a short story called "The Hundred Light-Year Diary".

Acumen321 3y ago
This is my favorite story of his. It is part of the collection Axiomatic for those new to him.

pimlottc 3y ago

I always get Greg Egan, Greg Bear and Gregory Benford confused.

geden 3y ago
It’s all very confusing :)
angiosperm 3y ago
Thank you, I was just about to post how much I liked Blood Music.

gcr 3y ago

You might also like these similar short stories with a similar theme: - "What's expected of us" by Ted Chiang, about a reverse time delay device that reveals the deterministic nature of physics and causes a societal crisis. It's eventually used to send a message to the past from the heat death of the universe: https://www.nature.com/articles/436150a https://www.nature.com/articles/436150a - "The Hundred Light-Year Diary" by Greg Egan, about a society that adapts to being able to receive messages from themselves one hundred years into the future. Every person gets a ration of 100 characters per day that they can send to their past self. This one also deals with questions of free will, and what we choose to omit from our "perfect" records when given the chance. Synposis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hundred_Light-Year_Diary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hundred_Light-Year_Diary