Benford is a scientist and a technocrat; he truly believes science is the key to improving mankind. He is not, however, a simple-minded cheerleader in the manner of such science fiction writers as Jerry Pournelle and Ben Bova. The crisis upon which Timescape turns is one for which science is responsible, at least in part; it is a result of recombinant DNA research. A virus accidentally let loose into the environment in the 1990s interacts with diatom algae in the Atlantic Ocean with disastrous results. The mutated algae begins to grow out of control and to kill off most other forms of life. Quickly spread throughout the biosphere by the wind, it threatens with extinction a human race already on the ropes due to overpopulation, pollution, and food shortages. In 1998, trying to stop the crisis before it started, physicists working on tachyon emissions attempt to communicate...