Tides of Light

Galactic Center #4

by Gregory Benford

Now in a new, revised edition, the fourth book of the Nebula Award-winning author's Galactic Center series is a classic tale of man's future and fate--and the greatest mystery from outer space that humanity has ever encountered.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Space Opera, Hard Science Fiction, Audiobook, Science Fiction Fantasy, Speculative Fiction

530 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

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

[Stewart Tame · Rating 4 out of 5]

Make no mistake. There are some mind-blowing concepts in this book. A band of humans are on the run from a race of mechanical beings. They've stolen a ship and eluded pursuit, heading for a star system that should support them. But when they arrive, they find a destroyed and abandoned mech civilization. It seems that there may be greater threats than the one they fled …

I started this book a little off balance. It's the second in a series, and I haven't read the first. It didn't take long to get up to speed though. I may go back and read Great Sky River as I’m curious to read more about the Bishops’ fight against the mech. And I’m definitely keen to know where the story goes from here.

And I’m in awe of Benford’s imagination. Most writers would be happy just to come up with the Cosmic String, but he throws in the Skysower, and the cybers as well. And he does a fantastic job of rendering alien thought processes with the chapters from Quath’s point of view. There's just so much going on in this book that it gets a bit daunting at times. Recommended!

[Mouldy Squid · Rating 3 out of 5]

Following the departure of the Family Bishop from Snowglade, Tides of Light continues the Galactic Centre Saga by Gregory Benford. Here, Benford finally hits his stride with this series. He deftly introduces more pieces to the intragalactic puzzle he only hinted at in Great Sky River and presents us with a credible alien race. While the science here is not as hard as we are usually accustomed to with Benford, his writing is at the same level as his Sunborn.

Tides of Light details the adventures of the fleeing remnants of humanity when they arrive at the planetary system they set out to at the end of Great Sky River. Along the way Benford manages to comment rather acerbically on religous fundamentalism and the tragedy it brings when welded to politics. Benford also works in commentary on the abuse of power, the disaster of blind obedience and the triumph of rationality in human endevor. Pretty heady stuff well seasoned with an action packed plot.

This novel does suffer from a few serious flaws. Benford has a couple of lengthy info-dumps that stand out from the rest of the narrative like unhammered nails. what is worse is that one of these poorly handled info-dumps exists only to support another deus ex machina that saves the heroes. There also exist a couple of fairly streched plot points that, in the end, serve only to hurt the socio-political comments Benford tries to make.

Better than average, with some truly excellent scenes, Tides of Light is a good continuation of what promises to be a exciting series.

[Tomislav · Rating 4 out of 5]

Within Gregory Benford’s Galactic Center series, the first two volumes are hard-sf in a near-future Earth setting featuring astronaut/scientist Nigel Walmsley. However, with Great Sky River (#3), the story jumped forward some 35,000 years, to an initially unrecognizable story universe. Tides of Light (#4) is a sequel to Great Sky River in which Family Bishop has escaped the Mantis and the planet Isis in an ancient human spaceship they discovered. I’m now in a re-read of the entire series, because it is mentioned in Lecture 4 “Evolution and Deep Time in Science Fiction” of Gary Wolfe’s video lecture series How Great Science Fiction Works.

Once again, the plot tension is not so much about conflict with the Mechs in their long-term aggression across the galaxy, as about the Mech strategy of pitting biological forms against each other, and reaping a form of art from their actions. In this volume, Benford focuses his hard-sf acumen on the evolution and intentional development of biological forms in the shadow of Mech aggression. This is not done with straight-up info-dump, but as seen through the sensoria of our knowledge-regressed post-human descendants and a race of cyborg biological life encountered on the pre-programmed destination world of the Argo. Benford has worked out an intricate future history and reveals more of it in each volume of the series. The narrative can be difficult to follow until the reader assimilates the clues to the nature of the deep-time speculations Beford is animating, and that is the pleasure of hard-sf. Yet, Killeen and his tribal family are easily identified with, and their human concerns drive the story. Quath, less so.

Reviews should not be a mere plot synopsis, or reveal more of the world building than necessary – and I have tried to avoid that. I would not recommend reading this book as a stand-alone, but I have found the series as whole to be both challenging and rewarding.

My edition also contains the entirety of A Hunger for the Infinite, a 44-page novella set in the same future history, which I have previously read in Robert Silverberg’s anthology Far Horizons: All New Tales from the Greatest Worlds of Science Fiction. It made little sense to me then, on a stand-alone basis. I now better understand a lot of the vocabulary and context, and it furthers the exposition of Benford’s Galactic Center speculations. So, a good inclusion here.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some GR alternate edition pages don't offer a book blurb, so I'm copying one into my review:

Piloting an ancient starship, Killeen and the Bishop tribe escape the mech-ruled world of Snowglade. Seeking refuge on a far away planet, they discover vast wonders: an organic life-form as large as a world, a planet-coring cosmic string, a community of humans ruled by a brutal tyrant, and ultimately an alien race more awesome than any they have encountered. As they battle for survival against these myriad dangers, Killeen and his crew will gain an unforeseen ally—one that may determine humanity's true destiny...

This series continues to improve. Tides of Light builds on the series course correction that was Great Sky River. The book blurb summarizes the story pretty well. Whereas Great Sky River laid the groundwork for where the series now takes place, Tides of Light focuses more on how these tribes of humanity deal with each other and one another. The militaristic hierarchy is more prominent than I remember it being in Great Sky River, but if you're fighting for survival against intractable enemies every day, then I guess war is all you know.

The "alien race more awesome than any they have encountered" refers to the Cybers. I thought that was an odd name choice considering how cybernetically enhanced our Humans are here. But if you compare the two, the Humans are entry level cyborgs compared to these new aliens. And Benford does a great job of giving us their POV, particularly through the alien known as Quath. They look down on the Humans as being mere animals, but Quath comes to realize that they're something more.

The way the "organic life-form as large as a world" was introduced was a bit jarring. It seemed like Benford had gone off on a speculative tangent for the hell of it, but eventually he brought it back around into the story. Killeen's encounter with the planet-coring cosmic string also seemed like a physicist's thought experiment that was conveniently contrived because, well, he's an astrophysicist! Show off! ;-P But in the grand scheme of the story, Benford made it fit.

Speculative science and tech marvels aside, I think that at this point in Benford's career he finally got a good handle on characterization. I finally felt some attachment to these characters rather than being an dispassionate observer of the story's events (or worse). Even the Cyber Quath proved interesting. The tyrant was less so. He was two-dimensional, and it isn't until the end of the novel that we learn why; finding out earlier would've been a spoiler.

Overall, a good blend of speculative ideas and characterization.

[Vincent Stoessel · Rating 5 out of 5]

My kind of #scifi! More in depth review at a later date. TGIF

[Roger Burk · Rating 4 out of 5]

A last remnant of humanity rides a commandeered starship into the center of the Galaxy, looking for they don't know what and dealing with the mech civilization that wants to exterminate them, extraterrestrial cyborgs that regard them as noxious pests, planet-sized interstellar organisms that wander from system to system to plant their eggs, and some other remnants of humanity led by a crazed fanatic who literally thinks he's God. Our heroes lurch from one peril to another, suffering attrition at every encounter, and one wonders how long this can go on. But the story is gripping, and it goes on for at least another book.

[dgrv · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not the best in the series, but quite enjoyable and good science-fiction.

Not the book I expected, but one that gripped me and that I’m happy I finished. Although not as articulated as others in this series, I did find interesting ideas and new variations on previous themes.

The exploitation of religious fervor and the complications in relationship between biological life, mechs and a mix of both were my favorite aspects.

This is good science-fiction. It just isn’t as grand or surprising as previous books. I would recommend it to continue exploring the themes of this series if you’ve read previous books. I do not recommend reading it on its own, as the series has a linear and logical progression that helps understand context.

[Bruce · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a disappointing follow-on to "Great Sky River", and it was largely pacing that made the early-middle section of the book such a slog. At one point, I started to seriously consider Benford might be paying a kind of snarky homage to bad "Golden Age" science fiction, but eventually (and I do mean eventually), he remembered the story was supposed to be heading somewhere and managed to rescue the storyline from an otherwise ignominious end.

2.5 stars for this book plus an arbitrary .5 stars to inspire readers not to give up on the series itself.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

The fourth book of this series has been the best so far. This one of the relatively few books where aliens actually feel alien and not just as a placeholder for an agenda or faction.

The focus on this book is Kileen, the protagonist of the 3rd book and Quath, an alien. The book switches between their points of view and does a great job of being hard SF at it's best.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gregory Benford describes himself as a physicist and amateur writer. If only more professional writers were as inspired. This is the first of this series I've read and it is wonderful. As in full of wonders - all the while being prone to sudden furious flashes of heightened surprise and delight.

[Dirk Grobbelaar · Rating 4 out of 5]

It moved in tides of light.

This feels a little bit like a transitional novel, a stop-over on the way to somewhere else, if you will.

However, it is so full of big ideas that it is easy to forgive it any transgressions. Notably: the cosmic string, and the comet beast / seed beast / cosmic sower entity. Twisty brains.

I will confess that I struggled a bit with the sequences that were told from the Cyborg entity's point of view, but it is a very alien point of view, so that does make sense.

Interestingly, according to the jacket of my paperback edition this is the book 2 of the Galactic Center series (everywhere else it is show as book 4). I believe it is because the arc initiated in Great Sky River (and continuing here) takes place many, many years after the events in the first two novels, at a time when humanity has all been wiped out by the "mechs" and with the action taking place ever closer to the galactic center.

So it seems perfectly in order to treat the first two (In the Ocean of Night / Across the Sea of Suns) as standalone novels.

Nevertheless, it is interesting to see how Benford's fictional universe has changed over the course of four novels, and I am really curious to see where he is taking it. Next: Furious Gulf

[Larry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Killeen got a starship now, but he is still a hillbilly when it comes to math and science.

A new alien race is introduced. Telepathic alien marvels that humanity is able to accomplish anything while in the grip of their constant, strong sexual urges.

The godlike entity that knows Killeen's father puts in another appearance.

There is some extra material at the end that helps the continuity in the abrupt transition from Across the Sea of Suns to Great Sky River.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit of a disappointment after the great Great Sky River. It bogs down in some more of the same from that book, and while Benford continues the more nuanced take on issues of authority that he started in the last book, he also reintroduces a source of comically bad human authority, ala the first two books. There are of course some great ideas. A new advanced race of aliens with a fantastic toy at their disposal is a great addition, and one in particular is a major character. Through their POV and some plot machinations we learn more about the machines and how complex their planning really is.

[Robin Dawes · Rating 5 out of 5]

By turns lyrical, gritty, and grotesque, Benford's extended vision of the far future never fails to enthrall and amaze. The last remnants of the human race, surrounded by vastly superior entities that are at worst implacably hostile and at best completely indifferent, strive desperately to avoid extinction.

[John Sheridan · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting and imaginative story of the distant future featuring a human race no longer necessarily the dominant species in a challenging universe. A good read, worth persevering with to see what happens in the second volume of the story.

[Xabi1990 · Rating 3 out of 5]

7/10. Media de los 8 libros leídos del autor: 6/10.

Su aclamada saga del “Centro Galáctico” está bien (solo bien, para mí. Los mejores el 3 y este 4)

[Ciro Strazzeri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Continua l'avventura verso la soluzione del mistero del ruolo dell'umanità nella galassia

[Guido]

Why you might like it: Physics-forward cosmic saga; rigorous tone. Rubric match: not yet scored. Uses your engineering/rigor/first-contact/world-building rubric. Tags: hard-sf, galactic-center

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Benford, Gregory. Tides of Light. Galactic Center No. 4. Bantam, 1989.
The collaboration between Gregory Benford and Larry Niven on The Bowl of Heaven in 2012 sparked a discussion between them about the differences between Big Dumb Objects and what they wanted to call the alien object they were building, a Big Smart Object. Benford might have mentioned that in Tides of Light, he had already created several BSOs. If you like epic-scale hard scifi, you can’t do much better than Benford. Tides of Light is a direct sequel to Great Sky River. The Bishop family has escaped from the mechs on Snowglade and reached the preprogrammed destination in their ancient spacecraft. There they find another band of human refugees, a race of cyborg-like aliens, and the Big Smart Objects. If, by some chance, this is your first Galactic Center novel, you might do well to read the chronology at the end first. One big idea here is that it is not always easy to distinguish between life and other varieties of intelligence.

[Mars · Rating 2 out of 5]

Weak action, rather uninteresting characters, pointless aspirations, too many deux ex machinae.

The beginning of the book reads a lot like Idiocracy - "we're on this spaceship where everything is breaking and we have no idea how to fix it, and learning is just too haaaard!" - but without the sense of whatever-the-hell-it-was that Pump Six brought to the same situation.

Space travel is never adequately explained, but this IS the fourth book in the series so i will give it a very tentative benefit of the doubt on this one.

And then there are the variously improbable things in the book itself.

The Skysower? Even ignoring the unlikely physics of the thing, how the hell does it navigate? You can't just eyeball things in space. And what's the point of its existence? It obviously didn't evolve by itself, but any reason for making something like that withers in the light of the utter impracticality of the thing.

The edibility of everything in sight. Ugh.

The number of coincidences - (not much of a spoiler, but just in case) oh, the Mantis sent them here at just the right time to meet these lovely aliens who are just in the process of their first sucking?

Oh, and you know how the Cybers have an all-out battle over who's right? We're talking about something that should take years, if not centuries, to plan and execute, so "yes, let's wipe out the Noughts and kill each other right this second to resolve this!" makes absolutely no sense in this context.

Overall, as a standalone book it's utterly worthless. As a continuation of a saga it may have a bit of merit, as I haven't read any of the others I can't judge.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Set long into the future when humans have become a relict of their former glory. Once a space-faring race they are now confined to a few individual planets in the outer reaches of the galaxy, confined by the increased deprivations of the mech, a robot mechanical species who have virtually taken over control of the galaxy. The book is set in three distinct parts. The first, the humans voyage of flight from their devastated home planet out into space to a new world. In fact this flight has been planned for them by the mechs, unknown to them! The second part deals with the thoughts and movements and conflicts of an alien race, very much like organized spiders, who encounter the travelling humans. This latter race is gutting the humans destination planet using a cosmic string and using the planets core material, iron, to build a great cosmic web for communication to other galaxies. The third part deals with the humans conflicts on the surface of the new planet both with the original human inhabitants who have also been fighting a losing battle against both the mech and the spiders and the subsequent discovery by the spiders that the humans have a role to play in the ultimate destiny of the universe. I enjoyed the book, the more so the further I got into it. Lots of very good SF ideas as one would expect from a world class physicist.

[Paul Sand · Rating 3 out of 5]

[Imported automatically from my blog. Some formatting there may not have translated here.]

This has been on by TBR pile for years, and I finally made myself sit down and get through it. The reviews at Amazon and elsewhere are ecstatic, but I found it very slow going, full of purposelessly florid writing.

It's frustrating not to like a book that you should like. There are some neat things, as the book's protagonists encounter a world that a cyborg race is gutting with a cosmic string for a large-scale engineering project. Our main hero finds himself in the midst of an undergraduate physics problem as he gets dropped through a hole cut all the way through the planet.

But I kept finding myself not caring very much what happened either to the humans or the cyborgs.

[Bill · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the fourth book in Benford's "Galactic Center" series, and the second one set far in the future. I finally liked it. But it was a tough slog through the middle third or so. I think the whole book could have used the tightening of another draft.

To his previous war between man and mechs, the author adds insectoid cybers and other organic and inorganic lifeforms that may or may not be sentient. The fascinating and frustrating part of this book was the totally alien point of view that the cybers bring to it. That might be enough for some readers. But the only thing that really kept me going was desiring the payoff for the investment that I'd made in the previous book.

There are two more books in the series. I hope Professor Benford does not disappoint.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

TIDES OF LIGHT continues the saga of Killeen and the Family Bishop where Benford left off at the end of GREAT SKY RIVER. Having recently reread GREAT SKY RIVER, it is almost impossible for me to not compare these two tales. The stories of many of the characters continue in TIDES OF LIGHT and their growth and changes are very believable, but overall I think GREAT SKY RIVER is the better book. This is still a good book, maybe a very good book, but not of the caliber of its’ predecessor.

[Vic · Rating 3 out of 5]

Need to read book as part of overall series..... I just picked up reading this book without reading earlier book.... I had some difficulty at the beginning but resolved by mid point of story. Overall rating should have been higher as interest in story evolved to an interesting excursion.
I would recommend. (Did not realize that I had previously read the book in 2018 until I was 2/3 of the way finished).

[K · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love hard sci-fi because it is grounded in realism, I can almost believe it could come true. What I dislike about hard sci-fi is that it is often written by scientists. Their stories often lack the depth of human emotion that makes for good story telling. This book fits that profile. The storyline is excellent but the story telling was dry.

[Sherrill Watson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oh dear. I read the first couple of chapters. Then slogged thru the next couple. Finally gave up & read the last chapter. So there's a terrible fight throughout this long book, Killeen (who's not very bright) loses his soul mate / girlfriend and finally get away and goes in search of more adventures. Sorry, I couldn't get into this, and I like sci-fi.

[Ben · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bleh. I got this because I enjoyed Great Sky River a long time ago and wondered what happened to all the characters. I ended up skimming this one to see the general plot points and the resolution, the actual plot seemed forced in to continue the same series forward.

[Bookbrow · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first two books of the Galactic series were Ok, the next two were very good.

[Mark Yashar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed this one. Another of Benford's 'hard SF' novels.