Happy Birthday, Gregory Benford!

Gregory Albert Benford was born on this day in Mobile, Alabama, in 1941. A leading writer of Hard SF, he received a BSc in physics from the University of Oklahoma, followed by an MSc and PhD from the University of California, San Diego. His breakthrough novel, Timescape, won both the Nebula and John W. Campbell Memorial Awards, and he has been nominated for the Hugo Award four times and the Nebula twelve times in all categories. Benford has undertaken collaborations with David Brin and Arthur C. Clarke among others and, as one of the ‘Killer Bs’ (with Brin and Greg Bear) wrote one of three authorised sequels to Isaac Asimov‘s Foundation series. He has also written for television and served as a scientific consultant on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Gregory Benford lives in California, where he was Professor of Plasma Physics and Astrophysics at the University of California, Irvine, a position he held until 2006, when he formally resigned in order to participate in a new bio-tech corporation dedicated to unplumbing the genetic governors of ageing in humans.

His best-known work remains the Nebula, John W. Campbell and BSFA Award-winner Timescape, which is available as an SF Masterwork and a Gateway eBook, but we would also recommend In the Ocean of Night, The Heart of the Comet (with David Brin) and Sailing Bright Eternity.

You can find Gregory Benford’s work via his Author page on the Gateway website and read about him in his entry in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.