Hard SF discussion

Benford is one of my favourite hard SF authors-I've enjoyed most of his Galactic Centre series beginning, for me, with Great Sky River-the first Benford book I read. I've also read COSM and a novella about Jupiters atmosphere in F&SF magazine ages ago which was good. Also the collaboration with Brin about Halley's comet was good. I just today received Artifact, free from Bookmooch.com. Any other Benford readers on here? (I didn't get his recent free story that was posted on here-it went right over my head)

I have read through book three of the Galactic Center series, and I didn't really like the first two books either. I thought Great Sky River had a better handle on the characters than the first two, which seemed so technical and some of the world building felt like it got lost in the scientific explanations, or it was just assumed we knew what he was talking about. For me, a non-scientist, I got a lost a lot. But Great Sky River did a much better job blending the two and it was a great story.

Yea I count Great Sky River as book one in ther series-i didn't read the much earlier 2 books until later and didn't enjoy them as much. The protagonist in the first 2 books doesn't pop until the third or fourth book after Great Sky River

His "Martian Race" is my favorite book about exploration of Mars. Very plausible technology and science in general.