I've got to say, Timescape let me down. I'd had high hopes, as the plot sounded brilliant: Scientists in 1998 are quickly discovering that industrial pollutants in the oceans are creating a chemical reaction which is destroying the planet's ecosystem with incredible speed. So a small group in California devises a plan to send a tachyon broadcast back in time to the year 1962.

What kills me about this story is that I feel like it had so much potential that the author didn't tap into. I'd expected the story to be more like Carl Sagan's Contact, with an exciting moment of discovery no further than a third of the way into the book, followed by frantic scientific progress and further discoveries, and a wondrous climax. What I got was a lot of details about the everyday lives of the scientists, their relationships with their wives, what they had for dinner, and what their colleagues were studying. There was most definately a lot of 'hard science', but it was boring. Even towards the end of the story, Benford pushes you in a direction that hints at what happens, but you never really find out. There is no climax to the story, and no resolution. I found the ending frustrating.