Artifact

by Gregory Benford

Artifact

A small cube of black rock has been unearthed in a 3500-year-old Mycenaean tomb.

An incomprehensible object in an impossible place; its age, its purpose, and its origins are unknown.

Its discovery has unleashed a global storm of intrigue, theft and espionage, and is pushing nations to the brink of war.

Its substance has scientists baffled. And the miracle it contains does not belong on this Earth.

It is mystery and madness -- an enigma with no equal in recorded history. It is mankind's greatest discovery ... and worst nightmare.

It may have already obliterated a world. Ours is next.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Thriller, Science Fiction Fantasy, Suspense, Ebooks, Horror

416 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

Gregory Benford is an American science fiction author and astrophysicist who is on the faculty of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Irvine.

As a science fiction author, Benford is best known for the Galactic Center Saga novels, beginning 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.

Reviews

[deilann · Rating 1 out of 5]

Originally posted on my blog, SpecFic Junkie.

If you can handle misogynistic, xenophobic, americancentric novels with shallow plots, poor characterization, and severe genre identity issues as long as the science is good, you will love this book! The sad part? How often you have to put up with all of that, just for a little hard scifi.

A tall, unattractive (but striking) woman whose thighs make a "scchk" noise when she walks in jumpers and wears garters rather than pantyhose is constantly sexually harassed and propositioned as she does highly illegal and unethical things because archaeology and foreign people are evil and have laughable politics. Haha, let us laugh at Greece's plight! No, literally. They giggle over the workers issues. Then hells yeah AMERICAN SPIES come and save the day from quantum badness. No one ever remarks on the fact that if America had never stolen the artifact, it would never have become super dangerous.

Which, in my opinion, is the best part of this awful, awful book because it's such a great metaphor for so much of the US's foreign policy. If we hadn't done something stupid, we wouldn't be cleaning up this muck!

Mmm, by the by... part of the reason we know so many details about the female protag is because male characters are constantly undressing her with their eyes. The first chapter is from her POV, and basically sets the urgency of the book... the urgency being that Evil Greek Politician Archaeologist is sexually harassing her at her dig site and because she won't sleep with him, he's going to kick her off the dig but no, she found something cool and the Evil Greeks can't be trusted with their own legacy! Also, he might steal her credit! Because he's Evil and Greek!

In the second chapter, she goes to find a metallurgist to help her with some stuff and things. We get treated to her talking to a guy about archaeology and then get to (from his POV) hear how he's less interested in her science and more interested in finding out what she looks like without her clothes on. In fact, we later find out that he lied to her about being a metallurgist because she was so hot he couldn't control himself and couldn't let her go to Greece without him getting a chance to hit that.

No mater where the protag goes, she's sexually harassed. To the point it feels like the author is trying to write a romance novel for a bit and failing terribly. (Or awfully succeeding, depending on how you look at it.) But then the two of them hook up and it decides to be a boring spy thriller instead. With a lot of mathematics and quantum theory.

Oh, some people complain about this book having Too Much Science, at least on Goodreads. I found the science content pretty light, especially for hard scifi. I feel like it should be accessible to those who have a decent understanding of quantum mechanics? I don't know why you'd want it accessible to you, but whevs.

Don't read this book. There are hard scifi authors out there, who don't fail terribly. You don't have to put up with shoddy writing and a plethora of isms just to get some good science.

[Tracy Walters · Rating 2 out of 5]

A science fiction novel that started out with a very intriguing prelude and ended up having WAY TOO MUCH scientific calculations and information for the average reader to even understand and care about....the characters were interesting enough and the story would have been much more fun to read if it had omitted at least 250 pages of scientific jargon that was repeated over and over without giving the average reader a clue of what it really meant. Pretty dull book with some moments of intrigue, mystery and romance.

[Branko S · Rating 3 out of 5]

Koliko je naucna osnova dobra, toliko je sve ostalo lose. Opisi, brojna putovanja i narocito politicka pozadina, mogu se slobodno preskociti, o romansi da i ne govorimo... Ali je zato celokupna ideja odlicna, pod uslovom da volite teorijsku kvantnu fiziku uz malo arheologije. Dakle, Stiven Hoking i Indijana Dzons.

[Roddy Williams · Rating 1 out of 5]

'In a 3500-year-old Mycenaean Tomb, an artifact has been unearthed. An incomprehensible object in an impossible place; its age, purpose and origins unknown.
Its substance has scientists baffled. And the miracle it contains does not belong on this Earth.
It is an enigma with no equal in recorded history and its discovery has unleashed a storm of intrigue, theft and espionage that is pushing nations to the brink of war.
It is mankind's greatest discovery… and worst nightmare.
It may already have obliterated one world. Ours is next.'

Blurb from the 2001 orbit paperback edition.


I find myself being rather ambivalent about Benford novels. Admittedly, the science is as accurate as it possibly could be, and if it does get above some people's heads, Benford has provided an afterword in which he gives a 'Quarks for Dummies' lecture in some of the more important aspects of subatomic particles.
'Timescape' is a novel which, although listed in Pringle's '100 Best SF Novels', is rather dull and lacks pace and background colour.
'Foundation's Fear' suffered from both a lack of characterisation and a sense of disjointedness in that the narrative was attempting to follow both Seldon and a pair of resurrected AI simulations.
'Artifact' however, is a very readable if lightweight piece, but does have its faults.
In structure it resembles very much the outline for a film including a short prologue sequence (which in a film would be shown before the main credits) set 3500 years in the past before the next chapter brings us bang up to modern day at the same location.
Claire Anderson is a feisty Boston Irish archaeologist excavating a Mycenaean tomb under the watchful eye of the Greek authorities, while Greece itself is transforming into a One-Party Socialist State.
Kontos, a brutish Greek archaeologist turned politician, is attempting to oust the Americans from the dig. Claire then discovers a strange cube within the tomb, carved from black stone with an amber cone protruding from the forward surface.
Tests on the cube produce curious results. It is, for one thing, radioactive.
Kontos proves to be a lecherous Greek as well as a Socialist. After a final showdown Kontos has the cube packed up, prepared to claim it as his own find. Claire and US mathematician John Bishop return to the tomb and reclaim not only Claire's notes but the cube, which they feel quite entitled to carry off to the US with them.
Benford makes no attempt to question the moral basis of this. Indeed, it seems implicit within the text that such an act is necessary as the US is the only country capable of examining and learning the secrets of such an object, and the Greeks of course, would only be interested in it for its military capabilities, while the Americans, God Bless them, would be concerned only for the pursuit of science and the artifact's peaceful applications.
The Greeks attempt to reclaim the artifact, but are thwarted, so they declare war on Turkey instead.
This may seem a flippant over-simplification of Benford's portrayals, but had he attempted to put some shades of grey into depictions of the two races this would have been a far superior book. The American characters are uniformly honest, decent people while the Greeks are two-dimensional caricatures; corrupt, devious, lecherous and violent.
On a Hollywood level, America (and indeed the UK if one considers Bond movies to be representative of British cinema) often gets away with portraying evil foreign regimes in this cliched way, but one could argue that many recent productions of this type are aware of the ironic nature of their depictions, which border on self-parody, particularly in the case of contemporary Bond movies and Vin Diesel's 'XXX'
One expects an author in this day and age, particularly an SF author, to be more aware of the political and social nuances. No regime is truly evil. No democracy is truly good.
Sadly, the whole badly thought out political nonsense tends to detract from the artifact itself, a natural trap for two bound singularities (like two big quarks) one of which has been jarred loose but is returning like a heat-seeking monster to find its twin.
It's a shame really. If there were less of the political and racial polarisation, this could have been something half decent.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have read and enjoyed almost every scifi epic Greg Benford has written. I search for his books everywhere, hoping a new one comes along soon. This one was painful. My recommendation: read Part I, then jump to Part IV. You missed: “Thing found in Greece makes it way to MIT” There I saved you 150 pages of agonizing wooden dialogue and travelogue. The rest of the book isn’t bad. Had an interesting ending, sort of.

[Michaela · Rating 2 out of 5]

Stereotypical characters who ogle the female protagonist throughout the entire book and the plot was a little too heavy on the archaeology side and had very little to do with the singularity and actual science. I made it through the entire thing because it was mildly interesting and I love Benford, but this was mediocre at best. If you're deciding between two books to read and this is one of them, go with the other.

[Paul Darcy · Rating 3 out of 5]

by Gregory Benford, published in 1985.

‘Artifact’ is essentially a physics idea brought to life by author Gregory Benford. Now, I must admit, I find Benford’s works a bit dry but this one I actually liked quite a bit.

The ‘Artifact’ is found in Greece by our very strong female protagonist Claire and conflict erupts like a volcano almost from the first page. A joint dig is taking place between the US and Greece, but the leader of the Greeks is a detestable, but crafty womanizing, boor.

You just know where that is heading and indeed it does head there. Anyhow, the artifact is found by Claire and her coworker George and they hide it because it is so unusual. They conscript a Metallurgist (only he isn’t, he just works in the department - he is a mathematician) to come to Greece and do some tests on the composition of the artifact.

The artifact is a cube with an translucent amber horn sticking out of one side and doesn’t’ seem to fit any archaeological mold of the time of the tomb in which is was found.

This is a grand adventure tale filled with spy thriller action and intrigue. Like I said before Benford doesn’t usually do it for me but I liked this one. All the political stuff with Greece at war with Turkey and whatnot had me yawning a bit, but the key elements of the story had me glued to the page to see if our protagonist and her accomplice John the mathematician could actually pull it off.

If you are in to spy thrillers, then this one might appeal to you. If you are looking for a true science fiction you won’t get it here.

I will say though that the idea behind this novel is pretty cool and Benford even has a technical explanation in the back to detail the theories behind what the artifact actually is. I won’t tell you because that may spoil it.

I would recommend this for a pretty decent read, but not go out of my way to - if that makes any sense. Good solid Benford work and better than others of his I’ve read.

[Liz · Rating 2 out of 5]

You really need a physics degree to follow this one, and I don't have that degree. Fortunately, I do have advanced math and some engineering physics under my metaphorical belt, otherwise I would've been completely lost when reading this book. As it was I was only lost about half of the time.

All the elements of a good story are here, a mystery, interesting characters and conflict, but the author just doesn't seem to know how to pull it all together successfully. For every step the plot or character development advances, you're slapped with a load of technobabble. A little science is good, too much and you're writing a technical manual, not a sci-fi novel.

I really was intrigued by this mysterious artifact and what it ended up containing, and by the character conflicts, but overall it was just impossible to focus on any of that when trying to wade through yet *another* round of math/chemistry/physics lectures.

Give this one a miss, unless of course reading textbooks is your idea of a good time.

[Emmett P · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strange but technically stunning and compelling to the end. Found it in a used book store and bought it because I liked the cover. I wouldn't search out the author again but the book was great.

[Jon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was under the impression from the title and the opening pages that this would be a book about archeology, and the first fifty pages do indeed owe a lot to Indiana Jones. And certainly the bad guy finally got his, with extreme prejudice. But the book turns out to be about quantum physics. A lot of quantum physics. And I gather from an afterword that it is plausible physics, at least for 1985 when the book first appeared. But for me it might as well have been "Captain! The unobtainium has breached the positronic core and fraxelled the dilithium crystals!" The writing is plain and occasionally awkward: "Claire followed him, breathing more rapidly than the steep, winding stairway explained." But there was at least one passage that for me was worth the rest of the book. I never read a clearer or more memorable description: "The most important lesson of modern Einsteinian physics was the fact that space could be pathological. Before Einstein, the world was a place of billiard balls, remorselessly predictable paths and serene certainty. No physicist can now recall without a thrill the moment when he left that arid Newtonian landscape and entered a Lewis Carroll-like world where time was a fourth dimension, space curved giddily, and honest witnesses could blithely disagree about the simplest facts of what happened where and when. Einstein linked space with the matter it contained, returning to physics a depth and mystery it had lost."

[Tentatively, Convenience · Rating 4 out of 5]

review of
Gregory Benford's Artifact
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - March 29-April 3, 2022

For the complete review go here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/...

Apparently, I've only read 2 bks by Benford previously: In the Ocean of Night ( https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ) & Against Infinity. Apparently, I never reviewed the latter. Somehow, Benford has never made much of an impression on me. However, Artifact changes all that, I liked it very much, it was a fun & thrilling imaginative excursion thru a scientific possibility. I expected something different but was very pleased that it is what it is.

"Prologue Greece [ca. 1425 B.C.]"

[..]

"Inside, the ritual party was enclosing in the tomb walls the severely fashioned stone. It was a miraculous thing—humming, giving an unceasing, eerie glow through the amber ornament. The abode of a god or a demon beast.

"Some in the procession said it should be kept, worshipped, not buried with the King. But the King had commanded this placing in the tomb. To protect his people from the fevered, blotchy death, he had said." - p ix

The novel proceeds to a presumably late 20th century archeological dig site in Greece. The political conditions are changing, effecting the situation at the site.

""Excellent. Great things happen in Athens and I will not have time for this site now. It is well you be on your way."

""What things?" George asked.

"Kontos' face altered as he turned to George, the strong jaw jutting out more. "Nothing you would approve, that I am sure."

"George grinned wryly. "Try me."

""The divisive times, they are finished. The center parties, they come over to our side."

""What'll you end up with? A one-party state?"

""True socialism."" - p 5

Yes, "true socialism", like the socialism that Mussolini followed, like National Socialism.

"The American press now saw a "socialist underbelly" stretching from Spain to Greece. Italy had a cosmetically Marxist government, but kept its NATO bases. In Greece the rhetoric was sharper, more threatening. Robotization in Europe had sent Greek laborers home, where they had become a disgruntled irritant, calling for stronger measures. The centrist parties had little to offer them. Gripped in another chronic financial crisis, the US-backed International Monetary Fund was not likely to bail out any Greek government." - p 11

The IMF never, strictly speaking, "bails out" anybody. They prey on the weak by allowing government figures to sell out their countries. They give huge loans w/ mmmmaaaaaaannnny strings attached & then the people receiving these loans, ostensibly for 'the good of the people' proceed to profit from the loans while the masses get victimized even further. The IMF, being an international loan shark, always benefits from this destructive process.

Thus, the tense stage is set for a scientific adventure that's simultaneously a political thriller.

""It's a good find, isn't it?"

""No Mycenaean tomb has a false wall like this. Or that amber ornament. A first. A real first."" - p 24

"Mycenaean tombs were austere, a product of people who had never known opulence. They echoed the Cretan fashion of a deep circular pit cut into the slope of a hillside. Modern archeologists termed them tholos tombs, from the ancient Greek word for round." - p 27

""Brought from Crete, perhaps," she said softly. "Or, more likely, a Cretan laborer did the carving." Linear A was a transcription of the Minoan language, or Eteocretan.

""Just our luck. Linear B was deciphered back in the '50s, right? How long until somebody'll do the job for Linear A?"" - p 35

Our hero, the archeologist Claire, returns briefly from Greece to Boston to recruit some last-minute help to work on the site before she & her colleagues are forced away by Greece's political upheaval. John, who she mistakenly thinks is an expert in the field needed, doesn't really get informed until they're in Greece en route to the site where they exchange that friendly banter that ya just knoooowww will probably turn into a love affair.

""Yes." She laughed. "See, I gained one day on him. So then I went over to MIT, to recruit a warm body from Watkins' minions."

""And here I thought it was my charm."

""I decided to overlook your missing limbs and birth defects. When Hampton told me he wouldn't release any of our own people who knew metals, I knew it was—"

""Time to git."" - p 60

Alas, their Greek scientific overseer has political ambitions that mainfest as threats against the visiting Americans.

""It is not too late to take you to headquarters. A few days in the cells.""

[..]

""You'd have to tell our embassy," Claire said.

""So I would. But I could have you transferred from one holding prison to another every twelve hours. Very hard to find such people."

""Typical," John spat out." - pp 117-118

Things go from bad to worse.

""Why are those Army men meeting over there?" He pointed to a dozen or more, all talking at once.

"Kontos said slowly, "The Parliament, it is dissolved. Our party declares a special circumstance."" - p 123

"special circumstance"? Is that like a 'National Emergency'? Such as the one billions of people have been kneeling down to since the declaration of COVID-19 as such a threat? I did a little research about these recent 'Emergencies' & came up w/ some tidbits:

"South Africa's beleaguered white leaders today imposed a nationwide state of emergency and detained hundreds of activists in an effort to crush dissent before Monday, the 10th anniversary of the Soweto uprisings." - New York Times, June 13, 1986

Now, the "Soweto uprisings" were young students protesting being forced to learn Afrikaans & preferring to learn English. Sounds like a really wild & unruly bunch, right?! NOT. The Special Branch murdered something like 570 of these students. We're talking about kids here. No wonder they were afraid of the 10th anniversary.

Coincidentally, here's something relevant from Reclaim the Net about Canada:

"Much of the investigation will look at Trudeau’s attempt at justification for invoking the Emergencies Act.

"The Emergencies Act is a piece of legislation that was passed in 1988. It gives the federal government emergency powers in times of crisis. This can include things like freezing bank accounts, deploying the national police force, and other measures.

"Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act to give himself these unprecedented powers. The RCMP were deployed to remove protesters, and some bank accounts were frozen without a court order."

& then there's this about the US from Wikipedia:

"The National Emergencies Act (NEA) (Pub.L. 94–412, 90 Stat. 1255, enacted September 14, 1976, codified at 50 U.S.C. § 1601–1651) is a United States federal law passed to end all previous national emergencies and to formalize the emergency powers of the President.

"The Act empowers the President to activate special powers during a crisis but imposes certain procedural formalities when invoking such powers. The perceived need for the law arose from the scope and number of laws granting special powers to the executive in times of national emergency. Congress can terminate an emergency declaration with a joint resolution enacted into law. Powers available under this Act are limited to the 136 emergency powers Congress has defined by law.

"The legislation was signed by President Gerald Ford on September 14, 1976. As of March 2020, 60 national emergencies have been declared, more than 30 of which remain in effect." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationa...

It's interesting to me to see the "List of national emergencies in the United States" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of... ) & to see wch ones are still in effect & under wch president they were enacted. The oldest one still running was under Carter (1979), 6 still current were under Clinton, 11 were under G. W. Bush, 9 were under Obama, 9 were under Trump, & 5 have been under Biden.

Only TWO of the national emergencies were public health related.

1st, under Obama from October 24, 2009 to October 23, 2010:

"Declaration of a National Emergency With Respect to the 2009 H1N1 Influenza Pandemic (Proclamation 8443) – empowered the secretary of Health and Human Services to issue waivers allowing overcrowded hospitals to move swine flu patients to satellite facilities or other hospitals.

"Months before this national emergency was declared, on April 26, 2009 Obama's acting director of Health and Human Services declared H1N1 a public health emergency. Later on October 24, 2009, a second declaration was made by Obama to temporarily waive or modify certain requirements of the Medicare, Medicaid, and State Children's Health Insurance programs and of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act Privacy Rule."

& SECOND, under Trump, from March 13, 2020 & still not ended yet:

"Declaring a National Emergency Concerning the Novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Outbreak (Proclamation 9994) — On March 13, 2020, President Donald Trump declared that he would give the states and territories access to up to 50 billion dollars in federal funds to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. This includes the ability to waive laws to enable tele-health. Stated by President Trump: "It gives remote doctor's visits and hospital check ins. The power to waive certain federal license requirements so the doctors from other states can provide services in states with the greatest need.""

It's interesting isn't it? Under 2 presidents supposedly diametrically opposed to each other such laws are enacted. The president supposedly the most in opposition to COVID-19 restrictive measures is nonetheless the one who signed into power the 'emergency' law enabling this current situation. Personally, I find any such 'emergencies' or 'special circumstances' to stink of the New World Odor.

But I digress. Claire & John go to a museum in Athens.

"She led him through rooms of pottery. "Fired clay outlasts everything."

""Even modern materials?"

""Certainly. Our toilet bowls will still be usable ten thousand years from now. Oh, look."" - p 146

& worse.

"She studied the Greek newspaper headlines. "There's a new state censorship law. That one says they're printing only releases from the government for now. Umm . . . Borders are closed to everybody except tourists. Controls on movement of currency and capital."

""The usual. Banks closed?" - p 154

A digression brings up a subject of potential interest.

"John admired the sweeping view and said, "So this was Atlantis, huh?"

"Claire could hardly let this pass. "No, that's Sunday supplement archeology. Crete was Atlantis. The Egyptians got confused somehow. They told the Greeks a thousand years later that a great island civilization was destroyed by explosion and sank beneath the waves. Well, Crete got all the dust and ash from here dumped on it, and suffered earthquakes, too—that was the origin of the legend. But Santorini did the job, not a mountain in Crete."" - pp 161-162

The artifact having been found, a chemical analysis is done on part of it.

""This composition analysis doesn't make sense," Abe said, frustrated. Dunnsen had brought his expertise to bear and rendered up a detailed list of what the cone contained. The chemist's-eye view was painted in a graphic display of compounds and elements, all found by various diagnostics which tested the sample's ability to re-emit or absorb light of a definite frequency. "That stuff's damned funny."

""Let me see." Claire studied the sheets, which were covered with curves in scarlet, blue and yellow. The peaks and valleys represented differing amounts of each element representing jagged, multicolored teeth. "Actinium, boron, calcium—good grief, this is nothing like amber."" - p 230

Claire has been taking chances in an obsessive & dedicated way to try to further research &/or solve the mystery of the artifact - having to evade the clutches of Kontos all the while.

""You are endangering your entire professional position here, Claire. If you—"

"She stood up. "Professional? Ha! My father used to say, you have to be able to tell a tracheotomist from a cutthroat. Well, I can."" - p 239

Interesting expression, eh? I think that it might be giving the surgeon too much credit, tho.

Having been lovers w/ at least one woman who wore stockings that stopped before her crotch & didn't wear panties, all for easy access for frequent sex in a variety of places, this next passage put a new spin on that.

"Her choice of old-fashioned style in hosiery had far more to do with a tendency to yeast infections, but let him think what he liked." - p 244

In the process of studying the artifact, John has an inspiration that's outside-the-box.

""Did you ever measure for ferromagnetism?"

"Abe looked up. "No. In limestone, there is none."

""How about from whatever's inside?"

""Unlikely. The source is small."

""How would I do it?"

"Abe sighed with exasperation. "Ask in Mettalurgical Stores. I think they have some such device. It is for field work."

"Like every seemingly minor task, this took much longer than it should. General Stores has a file card on it but the kit was not in its bin. Odd-shaped devices were crammed into any available space, another symptom of a great university which had long ago exceeded its physical bounds." - pp 261-262

Of course, John is right & the artifact has a big magnetic field. This provides a valuable clue to the how & why of its unusualness. My reviewer note-to-self at this point is too much of a spoiler so I'll just drop the following as a hint.

"It worked. However, the image was mottled and blurred. It showed the same square they had seen before by looking at the emitted gammas. The central dot remained as well. This meant that the source was dense, which was no surprise. The question was, how dense?" - p 270

This being science fiction there's plenty of science to keep me interested.

"To get a contorted field, you had to find solutions which warped space-time like a standing wave. The analogy which led him was the large, slow-moving pile-ups of water sometimes seen in canals and rivers. He had seen one in a creek near the Gulf once, just before a storm. It was an eerie stack of water, massively crawling inland on the surface of the creek. He had been fourteen and the sight disturbed him, seemed somehow malevolent. He had studied such waves since: they were called solitons. Unlike ordinary water waves, they had only crests, no troughs." - pp 306-307

Fascinating. I've seen what I call 'geometrical lightning', i.e.: lightning that follows a dashed straight line. I've yet to read anyone else's description of this but I'm sure there must be one out there AND a name for it.

"Solitons are waves with just a single crest. They result when a wave’s natural tendency to spread as it propagates is cancelled out by an inherently nonlinear phenomenon known as self-focusing. This means that solitons can travel a long distance whilst maintaining their same shape." - https://www.nature.com/subjects/solitons

References to Cotton Mather keep appearing to me. There's even a Cotton Mather company here in Pittsburgh. I think I 1st came across mention of him some 40 yrs ago as someone who believed in the Hollow Earth. Then I read about him as a witch-hunter. Witch Hunters, to me, were/are absolutely despicable people who oppress(ed) knowledge, generally in favor of a patriarchy - connected to the forcing out of women from healing. Mather is reputed to've been the 1st North American vaccinator - from the era when vaccination meant cutting a person's arm & smearing pus from a cow pox into the wound. That's not really that far removed from what vaccination was before this newest mRNA manifestation. All in all, I think of Mather as a sadistic serial killer given that he killed 'witches' & that many of his 'patients' died from vaccination.

"Exercise in winter's frigid grip was an effort of will, a building of moral character appropriate for the land of Cotton Mather." - p 330

"A promoter of the new experimental science in America, Cotton Mather carried out original research on plant hybridization and on the use of inoculation as a means of preventing smallpox contagion. He dispatched many reports on scientific matters to the Royal Society of London, which elected him as a fellow in 1713. Mather's promotion of inoculation against smallpox, which he had learned about from an African man named Onesimus whom Mather held as a slave, caused violent controversy in Boston during the outbreak of 1721. Scientist and US founding father Benjamin Franklin, who as a young Bostonian had opposed the old Puritan order represented by Mather and participated in the anti-inoculation campaign, later described Mather's book Bonifacius, or Essays to Do Good (1710) as a major influence on Franklin's own life." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_...

Well, well,, well.. No less a man than Benjamin Franklin was anti-inoculation. It's interesting that the Salem Witch Trials basically came about b/c of what some Puritan girls had been taught by their slave teacher. I have to wonder whether that woman & Onesimus both deliberately introduced ideas to the enslaving Puritans that wd destroy their society from w/in. It IS interesting to me that Mather cautioned against Spectral Evidence in the Witch Trials, something that I think is at risk of being revived in a more subtle form NOW.

For the complete review go here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/...

[Alien · Rating 2 out of 5]

Archäologin Clair entdeckt in Griechenland ein Grab mit einem seltsamen Steinblock. Doch dann eröffnet ihr der chauvinistische griechische Ausgrabungsleiter (und Militarist und Politiker) Kontos, dass sie aufhören müssen. Ein politischer Umsturz steht bevor, die Amerikaner sind verhasst.

Hier ein paar etwas etwas unzusammenhängende Gedanken:

Eine ziemlich gewagte Mischung aus Archäologie/Indiana Jones/Politthriller / physikbasierter Hard-SF.
Schade, dass auf dem Klappentext schon die Sache mit den Singularitäten verraten wurde. Es hätte mir mehr Spaß gemacht, wenn ich das nicht gewusst hätte. Vielleicht wäre ich selber drauf gekommen, vielleicht wäre es eine interessante Überraschung geworden. Aber leider wurde es halt gespoilert.

Das Buch enthält viel zu oft lange Infodumps. Das ist ermüdend. Wenn einen die Themen mordsmäßig faszinieren, wäre das vielleicht OK, mein Interesse war nur milde, darum war es zuviel.

Das Verhalten der Singularitäten ist seltsam und unglaubwürdig. Mag sein, dass Benford weiß, von was er da schreibt, aber mir gefiel nicht, dass ich mich seinen Behauptungen ausliefern muss.
Nach längeren, eher akademischen Passagen kommt es dann wieder zu eher wüsten Actioneinlagen. Diese scheinen mir nicht gerade glaubwürdig.
Das Buch ist zu lang mit 500 Seiten.
Zuerst wollte ich trotzdem noch 3 Punkte geben, zum Schluss sind es dann doch nur 2/5

[Howard Gibbins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Artifact tells the tale of an archeological find in Greece that is not expected or understood. The excavation and examination of the artefact becomes an issue of Greek heritage, and when the basic principles of archeological research conflict directly with of an overzealous ex-archeologist who is now a member of the military, and who is also part of a junta that is trying to overthrow the government.

The lead archeologists is Dr. Claire Anderson, and she along with her crew foreman discover the artifact, just in time to be interrupted by Kontos the military / ex-archeologist who becomes the ever demanding bureaucrat, and who always wants his own way. Claire recruits another academic Dr. John Bishop to assist her in discovering what the specimen is, and this leads the story in a whole new direction. 

The characters in the story are very well written, and represented. I found the story to be very interesting, and there was actually science in the story, and as all science-fiction should have (but that is usually lacking).

Excellent read.

[Jose Gaona · Rating 3 out of 5]

http://conclusionirrelevante.blogspot...

(...) Desde luego, si comparamos Artefacto con Cronopaisaje, llegaremos a una conclusión claramente desfavorable para la primera, que solo se muestra superior en el aspecto más especulativo y técnico de la narración. Y si acaso. Pero no creo que sea un planteamiento correcto para una novela que me ha mantenido pegado a ella durante la mayor parte de su desarrollo. Los méritos de Artefacto han de ser evaluados por sí mismos, y aquí hay material de sobra para pasar unas muy buenas y entretenidas horas de ciencia ficción. Puede que sea una obra menor en un escritor que solo con Cronopaisaje merece estar entre los grandes, pero es sin duda una obra más que aceptable para el grueso del género. Y posee un desenlace que te hará mirar de manera distinta la mitología clásica.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book more, but the "literary" parts seemed really contrived. Too much time spent on cliche romance and wooden character back story. Overall it was a solid book. Worth reading

Interesting detours into science and archaeology. Too many lectures... I'm pretty sure most of the characters were supposed to be late 20s (maybe early 30s... how old is a postdoc?), but their internal monologues sure sounded like old men.

Also, I call bullshit on the "southern" accent. I've spent much of my life in Virginia, both the city and out in the country. I've also lived spent long spans in the deep south and the gulf coast. The accent might have been realistic (assuming the author had someone in mind), but I didn't find it believable

[Charl · Rating 3 out of 5]

I skimmed the reviews complaining, in essence, "Too much science!", and after reading it I have to assume that those were written by people who don't read much hard science fiction.

As usual with Benford's work, the story is founded on some pretty esoteric science, but I never felt overwhelmed or burdened by it. He gave enough to understand it, and didn't ever go overboard with it.

If you like hard science fiction, enjoy.

[Mark O'neil · Rating 1 out of 5]

Shockingly bad...
Just takes SO LONG to get to the point and there isn't much of one..
Oh boy - the main female and male characters are pathetic and woman are portrayed as
really feeble and inept.

The Greek characters are cartoon like bad guys - sort of mustache twirling pantomime cutouts.

Ok the idea is interesting but the way it's padded out...really?

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent scientific thriller about the attempts to locate and contain a monopole. Benford does a great job describing how science is really done.

[Eli Bishop · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have to admit that this review is based on having speed-read Artifact so that I only picked up maybe 20% of the words. I don't normally do that, but I couldn't help it once I realized that my plan to break out of a months-long not-reading-anything rut by picking up a guaranteed sugar rush—an old Gregory Benford technothriller that, as I remembered from having flipped through it in an airport bookstore or something long ago, is about physicists and military creeps fighting to possess an ancient plot object that probably contains a tiny black hole or the like; cool!—hadn't taken into account that Benford, when he's in setup mode and doing a lot of mundane international intrigue stuff while keeping the cool science thing mostly offstage, can be unbearably boring and kind of unpleasant. He is way too into this filler material: endless travelogue passages, endless arguments with stereotyped foreign antagonists about who has authority over what… and at least 10,000 occurrences of the male protagonist thinking that the female one is really hot, while she is thinking that he's a sexist oaf but there's still something strangely fascinating about him, etc. (will his condescending thoughts about her repressed emotions turn out to be exactly right? will they eventually get together and produce a few hasty sentences of cringe-worthy sex prose? what do you think?). That's basically the first two-thirds of the book and I was not digging it in the least. I persevered only because I wanted to see the cool science thing, dammit.

And eventually you do! There follows some procedural lab mystery stuff, and Benford (a retired astrophysicist) is, as usual, quite good at writing about scientists doing their jobs; they even turn into somewhat more interesting characters as long as that's going on. The theoretical physics stuff is pretty cool and, I think, not too badly explained although I have no idea whether it's interesting if you're not such a science nerd. Then the villains return and cause a bunch of escalating problems with the artifact and we're chasing it across the ocean floor and the book is suddenly a really entertaining technothriller with very little chaff. This could have all started about 200 pages earlier so I can only assume that Benford had a vastly excessive page count obligation in his book deal, or else he just found himself really enjoying writing about vaguely described archeological proceedings, creepy romantic tension, and above all, tough guys arguing.

Now, when you get toward the end of a book like this—where there is one main villain who has caused all this trouble by wanting to possess the dangerous SF object, and everyone is like "No, it's too dangerous, you don't understand!", and he's like "Raar, I will possess it, you can't stop me!"—there is really just one event you're waiting for. This event must happen. (Stop reading here if you really can't see where this is going and want to maintain suspense for the least surprising thing ever, even though the genre tradition really relies on you knowing how this works and eagerly awaiting it.) It must happen, and it does! Benford pulls out some pretty impressive and gruesome special effects as that guy gets his ironic just deserts (although it'd be more ironic if he'd actually brought this about by one last arrogant decision, like opening an Ark or something, instead of just randomly choosing to stand in the wrong place while menacing our heroes). It's the cheesiest possible plot resolution in an extremely '80s way, and I may have laughed out loud in appreciation of its shamelessness and its undeniably snazzy execution. Then there's a happy ending and some not-bad but very rushed "here's the SF explanation for some mythology" stuff.

So that's my big reading achievement for this fall: maybe 20% of Artifact, out of which I can highly recommend maybe a quarter.

[Tome Addiction · Rating 3 out of 5]

I not sure what to say about this book, it has a little Chrichtonesque techno-thriller feel, has archeological mystery, defiantly plenty of hard-sci-fi with the mystery of the artifact but I think it failed to bring it all together. It wasn't a total 3 as aspects kept me reading and other aspects I scanned due to the lack of interest and limited character development. In the end, it left me thinking and I couldn't just go on to the next book but the hangover didn't last long but the best part for me was the science but what I wanted was an archaeological mystery, 3.25-3.5, I want to give it a 4 but after more thought, it's just a 3 a good story take it or leave it.


Spoilers:

I think the story had an opportunity to be a great sci-fi mystery but Benford wasn't sure what he wanted to do, he spent too much time trying to explain the science of quarks in a cube and not enough energy (no pun intended) on the story that was set up in the beginning prologue. In the end, he didn't provide closure to the initial archaeological mystery and I found it interesting that an archaeologist was the lead on all the physics in the book. I think once the quarks were discovered that characters involvement, in reality, would have been limited to its discovery in the Mycenean tomb and how it got there but no this character has a thrilling adventure with the antagonist a Greek Arachelogist tied to the Greek government and political unrest in Greece in this story, there were some fluff action scenes with helicopters, boats, and guns that failed because they read like they were just thrown in. Benford needs to take lessons from Clive Cussler if he wanted to write that style of book. I enjoyed it because I liked the science and the mystery behind the science but the initial hook and subplot were lost once the new science-related subplot was presented. In the end, you learned a lot about quarks and he even dedicated the last chapter explaining the science in the book. But, the story of how it got there, was it extraterrestrial in origin, or any number of possible questions was lost on the characters trying to figure out the science behind the artifact until she figured out the physics of it all, I never knew and archaeologist could be so smart about physics. Yes, the last line was sarcasm.

[Santiago Ide · Rating 4 out of 5]

No basta con gustar del género de ciencia ficción, para leer a Gregory Benford se exige algo más. Los relatos de Gregory Benford entra en el género de ciencia ficción dura, por lo cual para aquellos que gustan de ciencia ficción tipo “Guerra de las Galaxias” la encontraran lenta y tediosa, no así para aquellos que gustan de la especulación científica.
Soy un seguidor de este escritor y considero unos de los grandes en su género. Artefacto estaba traspapelada en el tiempo en mis lecturas a pesar de estar escrita en una época de la guerra fría, no había tenido la oportunidad de tenerla en mis manos, esta historia se desarrolla en un episodio de la historia geopolítica en donde el mundo se disputaba entre dos grandes bloques, Occidente y la Unión soviética. Grecia tuvo una participación importante alterando en parte los balances de influencias en ambos bloques. Un relato se inicia con un funeral de un gran rey griego de la época micénica (3500 años de antigüedad) , en pleno siglo XX un grupo de arqueólogos descubren un cubo de piedra con características desconocidas de la artesanía que se descubrieron en su entorno, se tomó la devastadora erupción minoica ocurrida en la isla Santorini, como un antecedente para construir los fenómenos asociados al cubo (artefacto) y las singularidades atrapadas en ella, esto da inicio a unas de las aventuras que en su primera parte de la obra es digna de las películas de Indiana Jones, para luego continuar esta aventura y hacerla más apasionante en los laboratorios del MIT - Instituto de Tecnología de Massachusetts - en EE. UU. Dilucidar los misterios del Artefacto reunió a físicos y matemáticos , la segunda parte entra de lleno a la física de partículas y la trama te mantiene en tensión última página y aún más, el autor -Gregory Benford - en apéndices da una pequeña clase de física de partículas.
¡Gran Novela!

[Chris Gager · Rating 2 out of 5]

Needed a new book to read and picked this on off the sci-fi end of the shelves. So far so-so as the author spends a lot of time and words on human melodrama and puerile sci-fi sex and romance crapola. When boy meets girl (at MIT no less) he uses phrases like "ample lips" and "glittering blue eyes" to describe John's reaction to Claire and finds it necessary to describe an "ample oak window ledge" in John's office just a few words after the "lips" thing. Didn't anyone edit this book? Then John starts out a sentence with "Say, ..." - a usage that went out with the roaring twenties if I'm not mistaken. So far there hasn't been much sci-fi, but the maguffin is right there and the reader of course knows that it's gonna be big and bad, But the author so far can't bear to just GET ON WITH THE STORY! Sheesh ...

Almost 200 pages and counting, and still no sci-fi, just a lot of running around in Greece. A lot of geo-political archaeological intrigue. Double sheesh ...

G'reads keeps on saying that I've "read" this book so I guess I'll just leave it since I'm almost done now. I'm into the epilogue, which "explains"(speculates on) the history of the horned black box. I have never taken a physics class but I'm ok-ish with science in general and didn't find the science/math to be a major problem. Past the halfway in the book it dawned on me what this crapola reminded me of ... Dan Brown and his twin atrocities "The DaVinci Code" and "Angels and Demons." A lot of endless trotting about the globe, plenty of explosions and gunfire. Gruesome sudden death events(the passing of Kontos is noteworthy in that regard), Endless cliffhangers and icky romance/sexual innuendo and generally bad writing. Still, I did keep reading(a lot of skipping and skimming was employed) so I guess there was enough of the curiosity factor to keep me going. That means that I give the book a flat 2* rating instead of the dreaded 1*.

- Wouldn't "Greek" archaeology be better than "Grecian" archaeology?

- more hideous writing ..."She concentrated prettily" and "thick coffee"(what IS that anyway?)

- The epilogue features a wedding with "brimming glasses of champagne" and more sex talk.

[Kevin Phyland · Rating 4 out of 5]

Claire is an archaeologist from Boston University engaged in a dig site in Greece. In a 3500 year old tomb a strange artifact is uncovered. It has inscriptions not native to the region and is cubic in shape - also not usual. In an attempt to penetrate the cube without opening it Claire rushes back to the States and lures young physicist John from MIT back to Mycenae. There the oddities increase. The cube emits radiation of all wavelengths and the suspicion grows that whatever is inside is dangerous. The dig is a joint Greek-American venture however, and the local archaeologist Kontos smells fame from the object and a tug-of-war begins between he and Claire for the right to publish. This all becomes seemingly moot as war breaks out between Greece and neighboring Turkey but Kontos secretes the artifact away from the rest of the dig’s findings. Claire and John must escape from Greece with their information before Kontos, now a military strongman, can prevent them. The struggle leapfrogs between Greece and Boston and back again as the artifact, now suspected of being a singularity, demonstrates some previously unknown physics. Gregory Benford has written a gripping and interesting tale of derring-do and super-science amid the ruins of Greece. Well worth spending the time!

[Russell Forden · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really loved Benford's books Timescape and Cosm, but this is not one of his better ones. It's more thriller adventure than scifi, and boy does it need some editing! Large chunks of the first half, wherein our main characters Claire and John lug the titled object back to MIT Boston from Greece, could easily be excised without harm. The story and characterisations really border on being racist, American imperialist and sexist too. It's like Benford decided he'd have a go at writing a shitty airport novel in the style of Dan Brown and others of his ilk. But, being Benford, there is actually some good writing here, and of course there's always some very good science too. Read it, like I did, if you're looking for some realistic science detail as research for your own scifi novel. Otherwise, forget it and head straight to Timescape or (especially) Cosm. Both great books.

[Cliff · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have to admit that the science was above my head and I totally gave up on the author's afterword explaining in greater detail. However, the author slips up when it comes to the humanities. A Vivaldi trumpet voluntary? Which one? The Greeks Mediterranean Catholic feelings? They are Greek Orthodox, for heaven's sake. The idea is quite interesting, an ancient artifact which has mysterious powers and is possibly the source of the Minotaur myth. I saw that straight away, it took the archeologist months before the light dawned. The characters are mainly cardboard, particularly the evil Greek archaeologist, Kontos. The Americans are the goodies, sticking their noses into everything. The back cover says (in capitals) it may have already obliterated one world, ours is next. Oh yeah? Had the writer of the blurb read the same book as me? Neither of these happenings is even hinted at.

[Betty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not quite the book I was expecting, but I did appreciate that this a sci-fi novel with accurate, real hard science. I learned some new things, which is always great. That said, this book wasn't that engaging. I won't go into the misogyny or jingoistic aspects of the book, as they weren't so in my face that I couldn't just ignore them. If you are sensitive to that, you may want to skip this book.

To be honest, this book was just simply dull, even with a lot of action towards the end. I found myself skipping over large sections where nothing much seemed to be happening, or the dialogue seemed like it had been written just to bulk out the book. The characters weren't particularly likeable or empathetic. I probably won't read this again, but I did enjoy it enough to finish it which is why it has three stars.

[Eric Lawton · Rating 1 out of 5]

Appalling.
Even as SciFi, the premise is not enough for a full length book.

But as a misogynist and colonialist novel, it takes many sexust myths for granted and enthusiastically supports the theft, by the United States using heavily armed force, of artifacts from Greece.

Defenders only have the excuse that it's a few decades old and that's how "we" thought, are refuted by characters in the book who opposed this, showing that people in those times objected to the bigotry, so people could have known better, but the author portrays them as obviously foolish for rejecting male and US superiority.

[Don DeBon · Rating 5 out of 5]

While this is hard science fiction that might turn off some, if you like a good artifact story the you don't want to pass it up. The book might drag to those not interested in science in a few places, but one can skip that to "get back to the action" if you want without losing too much of the story itself (personally I found it fascinating). There is a lot of mystery and action in addition to the hard science I mentioned earlier making it a worthwhile read to more that those interested in hard science fiction

[Emmalyn Renato · Rating 3 out of 5]

This starts with the discovery of a mysterious artifact at an archaeological dig in Greece amidst political upheaval. Three Americans at the site sneak the artifact back to the U.S. then it turns into a combination of hard science trying to puzzle out what the artifact is and a thriller as the Greeks try to get the artifact back. This is not one of Benford's best. It hasn't aged well. There are character stereotypes plus supposedly intelligent people who are far too naïve and don't think things through.

[H · Rating 4 out of 5]

Claire is an archaeologist from Boston University engaged in a dig site in Greece. In a 3500 year old tomb a cube is found.

She gets physicist John from MIT back to Mycenae. A tug-of-war begins between Greece and Claires university ensues.

The mysterious thing embedded in the cube is also a rather interesting explanation for the tale of the Minotaur.
It was a rather fun tale and some rather less interesting involvement by the American military happens, but it was a good tale reminiscent of Michael Crichton.