Gregory Benford (original) (raw)

Gregory Benford (born January 30, 1941) is a science fiction author and physicist who teaches at the University of California, Irvine.

Benford has an identical twin brother, Jim Benford, with whom he has collaborated on science fiction stories and projects. Both got their start in science fiction fandom. Benford was the co-editor of the fanzine Void.

His first professional sale was the story "Stand-In", which appeared in the June 1965 issue of the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. In 1969, he began writing a regular science column for Amazing Stories.

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 him self in the series of interconnected novels which began 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 1990s, he wrote Foundation's Fear, one of an authorized sequel trilogy to Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, the other two books being written by Brin and Greg Bear. Other novels published in the 1990s include several near-future science thrillers: Cosm (1998), The Martian Race (1999) and Eater (2000).

Benford has been nominated for four Hugo Awards (two short story, two novella) 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).