The Galactic Center Companion

by Gregory Benford

Overview

Second Edition: Includes New Stories

Death came in on sixteen legs.

So begins a novella set in the Galactic Center series, �A Hunger for the Infinite.� Now this novella and much other writing about the science and fiction in the series, appears in one volume. Unique in literature, the series comes from the author�s own scientific research. The series took a quarter century to complete, and Benford traces his own research into the strange structures there, first discovered in the 1980s. Critics have described the six novels as �magnificent� by �the most rigorous of hard SF writers.� The series has been called �one of the greatest sf series ever written,� �a major achievement in realizing the potential of hard SF not only as speculation, but as literature,� with �a bardic heft worthy of Poul Anderson.� �No one has surpassed this ground-breaking achievement in mapping the unmappable depths of space, time, and consciousness.�

For the first time, all the depth surrounding the series is collected in one volume.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940149336333
Publisher:	Lucky Bat Books
Publication date:	03/17/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Physicist, Educator, Nebula Award-Winning Writer

Author of more than 20 Science Fiction novels, a two-time Nebula Award Winner, Gregory Benford sets the science and the physics of today into his stories of the future.

Gregory Benford, New York Times bestselling author (with Larry Niven) of Bowl of Heaven, also author of top-selling novels, including Jupiter Project, Artifact, Against Infinity, Eater, and Timescape, is that unusual creative combination of scientist scholar and talented artist; his stories capture readers�hearts and minds�with imaginative leaps into the future of science and of us.
Many of Benford�s best known novels are part of a six-novel sequence beginning in the near future with In the Ocean of Night, and continuing on with Across the Sea of Suns. The series then leaps to the far future, at the center of our galaxy, where a desperate human drama unfolds, beginning with Great Sky River, and proceeding through Tides of Light, Furious Gulf, and concluding with Sailing Bright Eternity. At the series� end the links to the earlier novels emerge, revealing a single unfolding tapestry against an immense background.
Often called hard science fiction, Benford�s stories take physics into inspired realms. What would happen if cryonics worked and people, frozen, were awakened 50 years in the future? What might we encounter in other dimensions? How about sending messages across time? And finding aliens in our midst? The questions that physics and scientists ask, Benford�s imagination explores.

A PROFESSOR AND SCHOLAR

Meanwhile, as a University of California faculty member since 1971, Benford has conducted research in plasma turbulence theory and experiment, and in astrophysics. His published scientific articles include well over two hundred papers in fields of physics from condensed matter, particle physics, plasmas and mathematical physics, and several in biological conservation.
His scientific credits go on: He is a Woodrow Wilson Fellow and a Visiting Fellow at Cambridge University, has served as an advisor to the Department of Energy, NASA, CIA and the White House Council on Space Policy; and in 1995 received the Lord Foundation Award for contributions to science and the public comprehension of it.