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Customer Reviews

16 Reviews

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(3)

Average Customer Review

2.7 out of 5 stars (16 customer reviews)

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5.0 out of 5 stars Indiana Jones meets Particle Physics, Jun 14 2004

By	E. Nichols (Bloomington, IN USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Artifact (Mass Market Paperback)

Perhaps I'm biased because I like Benford's style: I couldn't put the book down. I read it straight through, just stopping once for lunch. It's not Benford's best book because his others are all so great, but it was much better than I expected after reading the other reviews here. Benford mixes in plenty of realistic science, archaeology, and university politics with the action of the plot. At the end of the book, an interesting "Technical Afterword" puts the sci-fi in context with "real" physics.

My favorite line from the book is typical Benford: "He had noted that the noise in a room rose as the square of the number of people in it..."

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2.0 out of 5 stars BARELY ENTERTAINING AND HARD TO READ, Aug 5 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Artifact (Mass Market Paperback)

I've read other Benford books before, and this does not compare to his previous work! The heroine here is an immature and reckless and chain-smoking, crazy woman called Claire. She's an amateur archeologist who STEALS a precious artifact from Greece just to get revenge on the Greek co-director of the dig site. The Greek dude, Kontos is guilty of sexual harrasment to Claire, but Claire, the crazy woman that she is, is guilty of GRAND THEFT of a national Greek treasure. I also consider her GUILTY of all the TROUBLE caused by her theft! Her utterly brainless ... actions lead to a WASTE OF US TAXPAYER MONEY because the US has to launch a major military operation to try to FIX UP the consequences of HER THEFT! Lots of people lose their lives (Greek and American) because of HER STUPIDITY!!!!!!! And guess what? She lives in the end, she gets her man and has a happy ending! How stupid! The plot of this book is totally majorly [dumb]! Mr. Benford, if this is what has become of your writing talent, I believe you should stick to PHYSICS and stop trying to be an SF/Adventure/Romance writer!!!!!!!!!

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2.0 out of 5 stars Good science; Bad fiction, Feb 27 2003

By	Neal C. Reynolds (Indianapolis, Indiana) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Artifact (Mass Market Paperback)

While I basically have difficulties with "hard science-fiction", I enjoy reading it in order to expand my mind and seek a better understanding of theoretical science. Gregory Benford is good for this, and he is capable, as in "Timescape", of writing a good story embodying the science.

For me, "Artifact" just does not fill the bill. I honestly had the impression that he was trying his darndest to write something that could possibly be turned into a movie.

The heroine is a typical educated woman trying to prove herself professionally, faced with a military type adversary who wants to bed her. She enlists a conveniently weaker though intellectually capable guy to help her smuggle a mysterious object out of Greece into the U. S. Naturally, the object turns out to be a scientific oddity with sinister capabilities.

I'm not one to say that you won't enjoy this quite long novel. All I can tell you is that I believe I'm a very literate and also a very tolerant and diversified reader who likes much of what he reads....and I found this to be a chore to read.

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Most recent customer reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars Quasi SF
The reason that I read books that are described as "science fiction" is, ultimately, for the science fiction. Read more

Published on Jan 29 2003 by Octavius Absinthe

3.0 out of 5 stars Far, far from his best . . .
Benford can be infuriatingly inconsistent in the style and quality of his writing, but the occasional winner keeps me reading his stuff. Read more

Published on Jun 28 2002 by Michael K. Smith

1.0 out of 5 stars major let-down
I picked this up as a used book, so my edition is older than most, but I have to agree with some other reviewers here who questioned why it was brought back into print. Read more

Published on May 9 2002 by Plaque

2.0 out of 5 stars Could be shorter
Very good hard SF premise, but the novel includes a lot of fluff, developing [bad] characters. I think if the story were condensed to 100 pages, it would be hugo-quality.

Published on Jul 25 2001 by satyen navin shah