In the Ocean of Night

Galactic Center #1

by Gregory Benford

Contains Introduction Essay
Cover Artist: Don Dixon

2019: NASA astronaut Nigel Walmsley is sent on a mission to intercept a rogue asteroid on a collision course with Earth. Ordered to destroy the comet, he instead discovers that it is actually the shell of a derelict space probe - a wreck with just enough power to emit a single electronic signal...

2034: Then a reply is heard. Searching for the source of this signal that comes from outside the solar system, Nigel discovers the existence of a sentient ship. When the new vessel begins to communicate directly with him, the astronaut learns of the horrors that await humanity. For the ship was created by an alien race that has spent billions and billions of years searching for intelligent life...to annihilate it.

In the Ocean of Night is a 1977 hard science fiction novel by Gregory Benford. It is the first novel in his Galactic Center Saga. It was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1977. It was first published as a novelette in the May/June 1972 edition of Worlds of If Science Fiction.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Space Opera, Science Fiction Fantasy, Aliens, Hard Science Fiction, Ebooks

450 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

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

[Dirk Grobbelaar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Benford works with a fascinating concept here.

In the Ocean of Night was first published in episodic format, before the pieces were cobbled together to form this first novel in the Galactic Centre series. It’s a good novel too. However, there is a problem with the pacing, undoubtedly because of its episodic origin. The novel consists of a number of separately defined timeline sequences, which makes sense given the plot progression. It is heavy stuff all round, but the problem lies with the second sequence, which might have been OK if it wasn’t for the fact that the preceding sequence was so exciting. Too much of a counter point here, I daresay. Things pick up after that, though, and Benford is a very good writer. He is also a scientist, so he knows how to sell a concept. In the end, all is forgiven as the novel gradually rebuilds momentum until culminating in some fine Science Fiction. The characterisation of Nigel Walmsley is also worth a mention.

It does set up the rest of the Galactic Centre series nicely. You just know things are bound to get hardcore from here.

So what’s it all about? Well – quite a bit, it turns out. The novel is deceptively dense, but deals with a theme that is not unfamiliar in Sci-Fi today, namely that of a universe filled with Machine Intelligence (as opposed, perhaps, to Organic Intelligence, and why this might be so), and, well, first contact, evolution and war (among other things). Or is it a novel about one man’s obsession? You decide. There is also the question of the Chicken and the Egg...

Heavy on philosophy and science, In the Ocean of Night also touches on some themes that are reminiscent of 2001: A Space Odyssey. I will admit that it affected me in a way that few books do, just by pressing on some of the right buttons. The whole fascinating truth of the story only resolves in the very final pages, even though, by this time, it is shrouded in gibberish (not quite sure why Benford decided on such a cryptic approach, although I have a suspicion or two). It’s a shame about the pacing issue, because that’s probably the only reason I’m not giving it five out of five stars.

[Claudia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very mixed feelings about it.

The premise is great, it gripped me from the very first pages. In fact, I noticed well into the book that it was originally written in 1977. Aside from a few outdated technological terms, the vocabulary seemed very actual - I would never have guessed its age.

But the mumbo-jumbo about the new sect (cause I can't even name it religion) and its influence felt so unnatural and out of place. Maybe if the setting would have been thousands of years from now, it could have worked, but so close to nowadays it didn't. I even thought the connection with Bigfoot to be more credible than this.

But I must acknowledge that, for a novel from '77, the hard SF part of it was something to be admired. I also liked the rebellious side of the main character, Nigel, and his cleverness.

All in all, a good read, which could have blown my mind had I read it 20 - 30 years ago.

[Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

When it comes to hard-SF, I'm generally of the opinion that it is almost always rooted in real science, has a big scope, and sometimes veers off into Clarkian speculative stuff that might be POSSIBLE, but generally looks like magic to the rest of us.

Back in '77, hard-SF was coming off a late-sixties, early-seventies vibe that sometimes goes philosophical, sometimes metaphysical, and often gives us that man-power vibe that was such a common silly motif back then that quickly backfired to give way to militant feminism. But this was before that time.

All of these are minor little noises that flavor -- or annoy -- readers these days. But pushing all this aside, what we have here is a solid hard-SF novel written in episodes that span 20 years. And best of all, we focus on all the neat variables of machine intelligences versus organic intelligences.

Now, for those of us who haven't grown up with the much later Neal Asher novels or Iain M. Banks novels that tend to do this all in a much more interesting and coherent fashion, I have to point to Benford as a really good example of this kind of storytelling. It's direct, deals with the problem of extinction-level intelligence events, and in the meantime remains a consistently interesting adventure.

I will not put this novel at the top of the pedestal -- for this kind of thing -- but I do think it's a good novel of its time and it laid some pretty great foundations for later writers/novels. I'm curious to see how much the series improves and how big the scope might get.

[John · Rating 1 out of 5]

A third way through the book I had to put it down, this rarely happens to me. I tried very hard to read it, if you put the $’s down to buy you want read it. I must preface this review with the fact I’m an emotional void in true life and books … getting involved in relationships real and written should be avoided at all costs. I also spent a number of years in the Army, thus hippies, holding hands and singing in circles with happy clappers, existentialist god and mung bean books leave me cold. (I do like chick peas and lentils though)

In my defence I was looking for SciFi, in front of me I had a book from a previous author I remember liking from my dim past and a very pretty cover that screamed my needs are about to be meet. I consider I was misdirected than I chose poorly. The intro mentioned all the SciFi I was looking for, derelict ship, first contact and the fact the aliens want to wipe us out … Plus it has won prestigious awards … not a single mention of a single mung bean … Great I think!

Imagine my surprise when a third way through the book I’ve already had to literally skip most of the chapters since they involve personal relationship and god rubbish that for the life of me I cannot see being relevant to a hard scifi book .. I want to hear about aliens, not your dying wife, girlfriend and sex scenes .. ???? At my surrender point I decided to read the reviews, not something I normally do as we all have different views on good and bad writing ….. a number of reviewers said he put bigfoot into the book as well ????

Not saying it is a bad book or badly written, but for the first third of the book I endured I can say it is not one for me. Possibly if I was more in-touch with my inner woman?

[Gendou · Rating 3 out of 5]

Started off strong with asteroids and mysterious aliens, but then, near the end... Big-foot. I'm not even kidding. Big-foot.

50% Intriguing science fiction
25% Inter-personal relationships that are at least mildly interesting
20% Lame social and religious blah blah
4% Random digressions into poetry (yeah, I don't quite get that)
1% Big-foot... No, seriously!

[Oleksandr Zholud · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a hard SF first contact novel. I read it as a part of the monthly reading for May 2023 at Hugo & Nebula Awards: Best Novels group. The book was published in 1977 and was nominated for Nebula and Locus, lost Nebula to Gateway by Frederik Pohl and took 2nd place in Locus list.

This was the first novel by Gregory Benford nominated for major awards. However, earlier, he was nominated for novellas and short stories, including the ones, which were included in this novel. For, in reality, the novel consists of four novellas:
• In the Ocean of Night (1972)
• Icarus Descending (1973)
• Threads of Time (1974)
• A Snark in the Night (1977)
The novellas were serialized in the Worlds of If, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and in a anthology edited by Robert Silverberg. The combined nature of the novel is felt during the reading, for pieces are uneven and moreover, usually a reader [like me] assumes the growth of a story into a great final, but here there are four finals…

The novel has a protagonist, Nigel Walmsley, an Englishman working for NASA in the early 21st century. He more than once by chance (and later by design) takes part in the first contact. For example, the first story (I guess it was Icarus Descending as a novella is about an asteroid suddenly turned comet named Icarus which is on a direct collision course for India. To prevent a giant loss of life, Nigel is sent to plant a thermonuclear bomb to Icaruis. However, as he approaches, he sees that parts of the comet are obviously artificial. So, he runs against time, exploring this ‘ship’ before the demolition… as you can see, it is a great self-containing story. Meanwhile, the following arc while mentioning what happened before, is quite independent and depicts Nigel’s family life and fallout from the first story. As such it feels like a letdown after a space adventure. Moreover, like a lot of the late 60s and 70s SF, in this future marriage has changed and e.g. Nigel is in a partnership with two women, but only one he really cares for – therefore it looks more like following a fashion than an attempt to discuss a possible social development – I actually sometimes feel the same way about putting a homosexual couple is almost every modern SF novel.

I guess I’d have enjoyed it more if it were just a collection of novellas, but uniting them into a single continuous story hasn’t worked for me.

[sardonic · Rating 1 out of 5]

white british dude whose only personality trait is getting irrationally angry at complete strangers about religion goes from being in a polyamorous relationship with two women to getting a petite Japanese manic pixie dream girl to fall in love with him via impressing her with weed? and being incredibly patronizing towards her. (and of course those three women are the only ones in the entire novel) plus the occasional misogynistic introspection from the pretentious white british dude.

the scifi stuff is okay, standard machines vs organics stuff, ending made 0 sense.

[Niall519 · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dreary, mysoginistic crap. Combining all the very worst aspects of Clarke, Asimov, and Heinlein, with nothing that made any of those three any good.

I thought Heart of the Comet was pretty bland when I read it way back when, but this set impressive new lows.

Back to the second hand bookshop with you, book, and I'm not even bothering to crack open the sequel.

[Bryan Alexander · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first read In The Ocean of Night when I was around 10 years old. Or tried to read it. I found it haunting and moving, plus having space action that I loved, but it was also over my head. Since then I read and enjoyed the other books that follow it in the Galactic Center sequence.

On a whim I dug up a copy and reread it. It's an ambitious book. There's a first contact story at the center, along with a very 1970s view of a fouled-up world, sexual exploration, institutional politics, meditations on the difference between humans and machines, a sketch of human evolution, body horror, and cybernetics. No wonder it was tough going for a ten year old.

Our main character is an astronaut with the insanely British name of Nigel Walmsley, and he spends the novel seeking personal or metaphysical transformation through alien contact. Unfortunately the world is a largely rotten place. NASA is run by idiots, pollution is killing people, standards of living are falling, international wars rage, and an apparently bad religion is taking off. The aliens aren't going to save us; in fact, we might drive them off by our heinousness. Yet Nigel and his allies keep plugging away through signals, spacecraft, and scheming.

Benford's prose focuses on Walmsley, increasingly shifting into a mix of sparse lyricism and modernism language play. This works well until part of the end, which get a bit too much.

Speaking of the end, it does tie up enough to satisfy as a novel. And yet the stage is certainly set for epic sequels, once we learn that there are two competing alien races or groups, one an anti-organic machine civilization that might want to exterminate humanity. Plus there's Bigfoot. I know that makes some reviewers toss the book aside, but in this case it works for themes and, well, because yetis are awesome.

In The Ocean of Night dates in some ways. It's very male-centric, and the underplay of two women in the first half disappoints a reader in 2021. The timeline is obviously out of date and some prognostications misfired. On the other hand, maybe 1970s grimness is coming back for a younger generation born after 9-11, reared in the Great Recession, and steeped in climate change dread. And a fight brewing between machines and organics might be just the ticket today.

[M Hamed · Rating 1 out of 5]

loved the lifting sweep as a misty dust of snow sprang up beneath the machine like chiming crystals attempting to fly anew—farewell—this unflagging energy of the mind he loved the most as each sense in turn made a fresh grab at the greased pig which was the world even as he waves upward at the veiled white faces receding,


a good representation of the incoherence ,that is this book

[Tomislav · Rating 4 out of 5]

Second read – 25 September 2024 - ****. In the Ocean of Night is the first book of Gregory Benford’s hard-sf Galactic Center series. I’ve started a re-read of the 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.” The 1977 novel is a fix-up of four previously published novellas, and was nominated for 1978 Nebula Award. The novellas are:

Icarus Descending, published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction April 1973
In the Ocean of Night, published in Worlds of If May-June 1972, Locus Novella 1973 17th place.
Threads of Time, published in Threads of Time anthology, edited Robert Silverberg, 1974, Locus Novella 1975 12th place.
A Snark in the Night, published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction August 1977, Hugo novella 1978 nomination, Locus novella 1978 2nd place.

The stories all concern a British-born astronaut named Nigel Walmsley, who is involved in several first encounters with an alien intelligence from outside the solar system. Walmsley’s reputation grows, as he takes initiative in opposition to NASA’s conservative and politically-motivated direction. They don’t like him, but they need him. Humanity’s movement out into the solar system is systematic and believable, although his stated timeframe is overly optimistic. Benford’s vision of the situation of machine and biological intelligence in the galaxy that is gradually revealed through the episodic novellas is subtle and complex, yet broadly powerful. This novel sets the stage for future novels of deep time and cosmic significance.

This world-building is paralleled with choppy stories of Walmsley’s personal life. There is little of his personal life in the first story, of his encounter at the comet Icarus. However, the next episode is told from the context of his polyamorous triad with Alexandria and Shirley. I found the closing events of his life with Alexandria to be evocative in their contrasts between the alien communication involved, the misinterpretations of the New Sons (a new world religion that stands in like a caricature of actual religions), and how it affected Walmsley. In the final episode, involving an alien space wreck at Mare Marginis on the Moon, I was indifferent to his subsequent relationships with Mr. Ichino and Nikka. The social speculations of the then near-future are extrapolations of the trends of the 1960s and 1970s, which ring false when read in 2024. The writing probably would have survived better if Benford had not attached actual years to the future events. The epilog is set in 2019 - five years ago...

First read – 3 September 1984 - ***. I read this because I liked Gregory Benford’s Timescape. I did not realize at the time that it was the first of a series.

[Youssef · Rating 1 out of 5]

Thanks to this book, I now know for a fact that I react badly to a stream of consciousness writing style. I took this for a sci-fi book, which it is, and largely is not. The elements of world-building and sci-fi I needed are here drowned under so much irritating stream of consciousness expositions, that you are left unsure of what the bloody hell is happening. The ridiculous way conversations happen, conducted in cryptic half-sentences and jumping from one idea to the next without bothering completing any. No one outside of the french film d'auteur talks this way, and at least there you have the visual medium to clue you in on what is left unsaid. In consequence, the relationships are superbly unengaging. I just wanted the poor woman to die so that we can move on. I wanted the various antagonists to die so we can move on. I wanted the hero to just drop dead so we can move on. The world-building is frustratingly bad. There was an indefinite number of global conflicts, there is some indefinite shortage of energy happening for no particular reason. There are widespread pollution and ecological decay, for no particular reason, slowly killing billions from famine or related illnesses. Almost every nation outside of North America is in total decay. The US itself is in some sort of semi-autocratic state yet with enough high technology and resources to colonize orbiting cities and the moon. People are mauled in public view for not carrying IDs or something, but the here gets away with insubordination, treason even, not once, not twice, but three times. The rest of the world is so inconsequential that no one bothers to tell them what is happening with aliens, yet everyone is afraid of it triggering a nuclear war, yet it's fine when a nuclear explosion happens on Earth.
In short, this should have been a nice novella, even a short story, introducing the rest of the series. Since I already invested too much in reading this book to just stop here, but if the first chapter of the next book is written in the same style I will just cut my losses, and move on.

[Charles Daney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Before discussing the book itself, it seems appropriate to consider its theme, which is pretty simple and familiar: humans vs. artificial intelligence. That's a conflict that has been envisioned for a long time – at least since the middle eastern golem folklore, followed by works such as Frankenstein and The Island of Dr. Moreau. At present, with the rapid technological progress of computer-based AI, the opposition between humans and "intelligent machines" ("robots") is as heatedly debated as ever. That conflict could become even more intense, especially if the machine side is ultimately represented, as this book postulates, by "things" whose origins (not hinted at explicitly in the present work) aren't of this planet.

The question in all this that's often not addressed is why a conflict should exist at all. Is it a contest over scarce natural resources? Is it simply that the "machines" are so far advanced that humans are hardly any more important in their regard than amoebae are to humans? The book discussed here is the initial volume in a series (known as the "Galactic Center Saga") of 6 (or 7, counting a novella at the end). It drops hints at a different possibility: Perhaps these intelligent machines view any form of biological life as a malignancy that threatens the peace and tranquility of the entire galaxy.

There is a plausible argument for this point of view. The book only hints vaguely at it, and certainly doesn't spell it out. So let's examine it here. Biological life as we know it cannot appear instantaneously out of a physical, chemical process. Instead it must pass serendipitously from its earliest appearance (which we still can only guess at) through a period of evolution that (probably) lasts several billion years. Along the way, the mechanism of the process itself imprints distinct and contradictory tendencies on all, or almost all, successful species that put in an appearance.

On the one hand, in the Darwinian formulation, there is "survival of the fittest". That is, because resources are usually scarce, or at least expensive to access, there is an inevitable competition between – and within – most species for consumption of the existing resources of a particular environment. And the scarcer the resources, the more intense and possibly destructive is the competition. Exactly which physical and behavioral characteristics contribute most to survival are highly variable over time, depending on the specific nature of the total ecosystem: the available resources and the nature of the species present. But what is constant is the potential for intense competition and conflict in order for the "fittest" to survive.

On the other hand, biologists in the past few decades have come to appreciate (as Darwin apparently didn't), that cooperation among the individuals of a species – and also among species that may be quite different from each other – can have significant survival value. The value of cooperation within certain species, such as ants and humans, is fairly apparent. In such species, for instance, there's a division of labor in which each individual behaves in ways that are specific to the individual yet promote the survival of the species, or a subgroup of it, as a whole.

Unfortunately, the problem with cooperation is that it's not stable over time. As the availability of necessary resources varies, intense stresses can arise if resources become difficult or expensive to obtain. Especially in the presence of such stresses, it will usually be advantageous for a few individuals (or species) to "cheat" or "defect" from behavior that benefits the group (or the species or even allied species) as a whole in order to secure scarce resources for themselves. (The "prisoners' dilemma" is a very simple example.) But even when stresses are low, some individuals will still be tempted to "cheat" or "defect" – simply because evolution has favored such behavior at some times in the past. (Widespread cheating, of course, is eventually disadvantageous – but individuals who cheat often do better in the short term, and have more offspring, until their behavior is common enough to be suppressed.)

Net result: conflict and destructive competition can arise whenever the equilibrium between the opposed tendencies of cooperation and aggression is disturbed for any reason. The process of evolution that all biological life forms undergo essentially guarantees such a possibility. There will be times when the cheaters use violent, destructive means to have their way. In short, evolved biological life can't be trusted not to spoil galactic tranquility by defecating copiously all over the neighborhood from time to time.

The book doesn't make any of this very explicit. But something like this might be what the machine intelligences assume – and further, that they have originated in such a way as to avoid any evolutionary predisposition to exhibit hostility and aggression among themselves. Not having read any of the sequels Benford wrote, I don't know if this idea (or some alternative explanation) is proffered. However, this "Galactic Center Saga" doesn't seem to be as highly esteemed as other works in the science fiction world. (For instance, there are Wikipedia articles on only the first 3 volumes of the series.) It could be that the series, like the first volume, comprises much sound and fury, but signifies nothing much in particular.

Regarding this first volume, I don't have a lot more to say. The plot has definite essential elements of complexity, suspense, and surprise. (Sasquatches even put in a brief appearance, along with the suggestion they have benefited from earlier alien encounters.) And the prose flows smoothly, even elegantly at times. But overall, the book seems like a small collection of related short stories (which, apparently, is how it originated). It's short enough (a little over 300 pages) to sustains a reader's curiosity about "what happens next". But it's not quite a compelling, memorable read that could have arisen from a more consistently developed central vision.

[Rusty · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bow before the master. Goodreads author Andrew Leon has been politely asking me to give Gregory Benford a chance for almost a year now. When he first asked me to, I had assumed that I already had. Back in the 90’s when I first started reading science fiction in earnest I found that the sci fi portion of my local bookstore was pretty well stocked with authors whose last name started with ‘B.’

Stephen Baxter, Greg Bear, David Brin, Ben Bova, they are probably others that I can’t recall at the moment. But I read all these guys over a period of 6 months or so. Startide Rising, Mars, The Forge of God, Ring, and I read multiple books by each of these guys. It was during a naïve time I had when what laid beyond the ‘B’s’ was a great mystery because I could never get past them when I was browsing.

Anyhow, I thought I’d read Benford too, I knew the name, folks told me he was pretty good. I had him on my list of guys to read. I must have just forgotten. The second time Andrew told me to check I went out to the internet and checked his bibliography.

I had never read a word of his stuff. Damn.

So, I took a gander at this book, written more than 40 years ago. And held my breath. When this thing arrived I almost immediately regretted not having found him earlier. The story, as it goes, is pretty hard to lay out, as the plotting reminds me quite a bit of something Arthur C Clarke would have done, but the prose Benford used was incredibly powerful, it was full blown literary.

I absolutely loved this novel. It took me a bit longer to read than I would have liked, as it felt like the sort of thing I could have knocked off in a couple of days, but other stuff kept coming up and I didn’t really have an opportunity to just sit and plow through. That didn’t stop it from being awesome.

The book is written in four parts. The first takes place in 1999 when a rather large asteroid on a trajectory that leads it to Earth is being investigated by our hero, Nigel, he sees that this is really an ancient alien craft, derelict and unworking. He disobeys orders, raids it for what he can and allows it to go unencumbered. He was supposed to nuke the thing before it struck the earth, but he let it go having realized that it would not hit the earth, but skip along its outer atmosphere and fly away to never be seen again.

In part two, a decade later, after taking a desk job within NASA, on the same day he discovers a working alien craft entering the sol system, his one true love in life is diagnosed with a terminal disease. And it’s right there I was hooked.

I’ve thought about this book a lot as I read. I wasn’t kidding about the plotting. There is no real bad guy, and it takes place over 20 years. It’s about a guy trying to find his place in the universe, and the idiots that run the world. It was a masterpiece.

Funny, I’m not sure it would get published if it were written today, and I don’t mean for the fact that it is set, more or less, on our time right now. It’s so far wrong on details, big and small, that you might think it would be hopelessly dated. But it isn’t. Benford wrote what is clearly a ‘hard’ science fiction book, and those tend to age poorly, but what this had going for it that so many others do not, is a hauntingly beautiful story.

The final part, where some of the mysteries presented early in the novel are explained, the story drags a bit. It starts to get a tad new agey there too, but the weight of the previous portions of the book carried me along even after things got weird at the end. Not too badly, he wrote not only a beautiful novel, but a very philosophical one as well. It posits a universe where beings not too much unlike humans, rise and fall with startling regularity, but the machines we all build continue to live and explore long after the species that created them have passed into the night.

They see humans, and other organic beings, as something to be avoided, or if necessary, exterminated. This is a 40 year old book that looks at humanity dealing with the night sky full of sentient machines, and a history of violence written all over the galaxy – and the solar system itself.

Only read if you can sit and think about what’s being written. I’m a fan for life because of this book. Thank you Gregory, and thanks Andrew, for the introduction.

I loved it, and can’t wait to read another of Benford’s books.

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

The cover sums it up nicely: blue balls.

Warning, there may be a few spoilers below.

There is some really cool ideas in here, but they're completely overshadowed by Benford's need to overly develop his cardboard characters. For example, many pages are dedicated to the Nigel's (the main protagonist) relationship with two other women. His feelings, how he doesn't identify with one of them when the other isn't around etc. This is fine as far as it goes, but this type of drama ends up consuming 90% of the narrative. It's not until the last 10 pages of each part of the novel when we finally get introduced to the aliens and their machines. Then Nigel explores a bit, doesn't get very far and we're no closer to learning anything new about the motives of the aliens. Then it all starts over again. Hence, blue balls.

The back cover of the book states that the machines' purpose is to wipe out organic life. The fact that this little piece of information is only revealed as an off hand comment/speculation by Nigel at the very end of the book leads me to believe that the author had no idea where the story was going until years later when he decided to write a sequel - at which point he was free to pick up on any one of the myriad loose plot points thrown throughout the book.

Also there are Bigfoots (yes, the hairy bipeds) that carry lasers and fly spaceships. Enough said.

I really want to like this author. I love hard SF, but I just can't get past his writing and especially his characters. I picked this up at the bookstore expecting something along the lines of Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space books, but got Ed Wood instead.

[Oscar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Todo indica que el cometa Ícaro impactará con la Tierra próximamente. El astronauta Nigel Walmsley se dirige a investigar el cometa e intentar volarlo con cargas explosivas. Pero pronto se lleva una sorpresa que cambiará la manera de afrontar la misión: Ícaro no es un cometa, sino una nave.

‘En el océano de la noche’ (In the Ocean Night, 1977), de Gregory Benford, es la primera novela de llamado Ciclo del Centro Galáctico, formado por seis títulos. El arranque es francamente bueno, pero ese sentido de la maravilla se va perdiendo a lo largo de la historia, ya que se centra demasiado en los problemas personales de Nigel. El libro está bien escrito y no aburre.

[Lars Dradrach · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hard sci-if from way back then, in the style of Clarke and Heinlein.

Benford clearly leans toward Clarke for the hard sci-if narrative intermixed with more or less accurate predictions of the future (more or less our present)

And written in 1976 it has some strange, nearly poetic sections, where the narrative becomes rather philosophical and non linear , which makes it feel somewhat aged.

It’s obviously the start of an epic tale of mankind’s past and possible future, including a first contact angle and even with it’s flaws I intend to continue the series (the next one is from 1984 so hopefully it’s more up to date).

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

An OK read, difficult to become invested in the characters.

[David · Rating 1 out of 5]

1.5 stars rounded down to 1.

First, a bit of backstory. I actually started this series, not knowing it was a series, back in the 80s. I'd picked up Across the Sea of Suns (book #2) through a sci-fi book club as a teen. Upon reading it, I realized that it wasn't a standalone but a sequel. However, there was enough backstory that it didn't matter. But then the ending was left wide open, so I knew that it was, in fact, a series. I was not amused and subsequently forgot about the series for decades.

By chance, while perusing through one of the local library's book sales, I came across Sailing Bright Eternity and discovered that it was the last book in a six-book saga. I bought it, and it has sat on my nightstand for years hence. So when I spotted this book last summer, I knew that I should go back and read the whole series start-to-finish. Besides, I really liked the titles of the books.

I might be regretting that decision.

This book was written from 1972-1977 and parts were published in If magazine over that time. The book starts in 1999 and runs through 2019 (reprints bumped those dates back 20 years). There is so much 70s dreck hanging over this story that it's downright suffocating. Everything that was ugly about the 70s is concentrated and perpetuated for forty years! The Clean Air Act never accomplished anything, people passively gave up their cars for mass transit because Detroit and Tokyo couldn't innovate, Moore's Law failed to materialize, and the US never snapped out of its economic funk and continued to slowly slide into turpitude. It's enough to make me want to thank Reagan for his "Morning in America" pep rally speeches just to avoid this rubbish.

What arises out of this miasma is a new religious movement dubbed The New Sons. As far as I can tell, it's an amalgam of hippies, Eastern philosophy, Old Testament Christianity, and mysticism that infects the country and the world. Traditional religions are powerless before it and are soon negotiating for inclusion. It comes across as wholly implausible and schlocky. Maybe if I'd been trapped in Haight-Ashbury and my girlfriend was seduced by a bunch of hippies, I'd believe it. In essence, this is what happens to the protagonist, Nigel Walmsley.

Nigel is an insufferable, self-absorbed, patronizing jerk. A certain comment he made regarding a potential asteroid impact in India makes me think he might even be racist. He thinks he's right about everything and disobeys orders because he's right, damnit! What sucks is that too often he is right. But who wants to give that guy the satisfaction? He's a bit of a hypocrite: After witnessing a New Sons' bonfire ritual, he calls it a "license for public rutting" then goes home to have a three-way. Said three-way is Benford's rather clumsy way of informing the reader about Nigel's polyamorous relationship. What's worse is that most of the other characters in the novel are pathetic: power mad bureaucrats and passive aggressive religious zealots. In his relationship, Alexandria seems about ready to pass away from ennui (yes, she's ill, but Benford doesn't take advantage of her lucid moments to develop her character) while Shirley is always angry at Nigel for something. Too much of this book—almost a third—is spent detailing this relationship. While there's some hope for him by the end of the novel, after reading his stream of consciousness babble, I can't help but think he's just going to be a different flavor of insufferable, self-absorbed, patronizing jerk going forward.

So is there anything good here? Yeah, sure. Nigel's encounters with the aliens and anything involving Dr. Ichiro and Nikka. There's the "big idea" that attempts to answer the Fermi Paradox. But there isn't enough of this to counter the swamp of bad I had to slog through.

Now I probably shouldn't be so critical of a book that was written over 40 years ago and was one of Benford's first works, but this was a book that was nominated for both the Nebula and Locus awards. Sure, I'll give him points for the concept, but he lacked vision. How is there a space program if the economic malaise of the 70s never ends and only worsens? He was a physicist at a prominent university; how did he not hear about the advances underway with microelectronics? I gotta use a fax machine on the Moon 50 years after we set foot on it? Maybe we can excuse him for not foreseeing the innovations that would drive the last decades of the 20th century (I'll even forgive him for including Bigfoot—it was the 70s after all), but not his characters' behavior. Benford writes this damnably sexist scene where Alexandria's doctor won't tell her his prognosis of her medical condition until after Nigel arrives from work, and even then, he directs his conversation to Nigel as if Alexandria is no more than a sick pet. She was an executive at American Airlines negotiating a deal with a Brazilian company! How can Benford do that to her?

Maybe, this book probably would've been easier to deal with reading it right after it was finished, trapped in the 70s, but by 1980 this book's days were numbered.

[John Loyd · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the Ocean of night (1977) 333 pages by Gregory Benford.

This is sort of a first contact novel, three times over, and in each instance Nigel Walmsley is on the forefront. The first part was too quick to think the book was over, but at the end of the second encounter I thought that's a good place for an ending. Then I see that this was originally published as three or four short stories/novellas. I didn't see any discontinuity, just a good stopping point. The third story picked up and built upon what had gone before.

In part one an asteroid has somehow become cometlike, grown a tail, a tail which has altered it to be on a collision course with Earth. Nigel is one of the astronauts sent to blow it up so that it won't harm the Earth. He finds a crevasse, investigates, finds that it's an ancient spaceship. Goes against orders, which are to immediately blow it up. He takes it upon himself to investigate further.

In the second part, 15 years later, Nigel working as a scientist in a ground based lab, JPL, is part of the discovery of the snark. In between following Nigel around, Benford gives us some of the thought process of the snark. In the third story, they find an alien spacecraft on the moon. This time Nigel is brought in to work on it after the discovery. I don't want to reveal more plot than I already have.

Benford fleshes out his characters really well. We see Nigel in his home life, his relationship with his wife Alexandria, actually part of a triad with Alexandria and Shirley. Besides the triad, this future had people riding public transportation rather than cars, presumably fewer luxuries, one mention of Mr. Ichino enjoy chili with real meat rather than soy product. With this somewhat bleaker society Benford introduces New Sons, a new religion. Nigel doesn't like those new sons. Although in there the stories aren't about fixing moral issues on Earth, rather focused on the alien contact.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Benford, Gregory. In the Ocean of Night. 1977. Galactic Center No. 1. Aspect, 2004.
In the Ocean of Night is the novel that put Gregory Benford on everyone’s science fiction pay attention list. Like many novels of the period, it started out as a few short stories that were cobbled together and expanded into a substantial, if not always structurally obvious, novel. Nigel, a NASA astronaut imported from England, is on a mission to rendezvous with a dangerous incoming asteroid and blow it to relatively harmless smithereens. But then he discovers there is an alien spacecraft inside with a dead crewmember onboard. He starts ignoring Houston and it is game on. Complications ensue when the alien craft steals a page from Arthur Clarke and emits a signal aimed out of the system. Longtime readers of Benford will not be surprised at where things go next. The novel is surely a creature of its time, but it is a classic of hard sci-fi space opera. 4 stars.

[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favourite thing about this book has got to be Nigel Walmsley. He's probably one of my favourite characters in fiction, ever. He's such a fun main character: very passionate but at the same time extremely cynical, which makes for a lot of amusing scenes. The storyline of this book is a very interesting one and I enjoyed the other characters too: Mr Ichino and Nikka are fun, and I was surprised at the emotional depth that was involved with Alexandria's storyline. I didn't really expect emotions in this book. Learning about the Snark was fascinating, and I really enjoyed the scenes with it.

Every scene that involves Nigel coming in contact with someone of the New Suns is pure gold.

I'll definitely be checking out the rest of the series.

[Vincent Stoessel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Don't stop here!
This initial book of the series is the weakest in the series, but it should not discourage you from continuing with the series which is quickly becoming my one of favorites. There are some that suggest you skip this first novel and jump right to volume 2. The completionist in me could never allow me to do that but looking back, I think it's a totally viable option. If you can suffer through it, you will see that Benford does begin setting the stage for a story of a much larger story that will unfold in later tales.

[Erik Graff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gregory Benford is an astrophysicist, not a literary giant. He is good as a popularist of physics and space science, his books being rooted fact and contemporary theory. I liked this novel, which eventually evolved into a grander series, because of its critical stance as regards politics on Earth.

[Tim Pendry · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found myself disappointed with this 1976 'hard sci' novel, not because the outdated sci fi component was an issue but because, as a novel, its literary experimentation and narrative jumps did not cut the mustard.

One should never be too hard on old hard sci-fi books just because their imaginative futures look less imaginative nearly half a century later (say). At least they tried and the core idea here has merit - Earth's first contact with a galactic struggle between machine and organic intelligences.

Apart from the fact that the sociological representation of the future is a simple extrapolation of the lifestyles and political anxieties of the 1960s and 1970s and so uninteresting today, there are other more literary flaws. Its cardinal sin though is its ridiculous leap into pseudo-science ('Bigfoot').

By trying perhaps to be a serious narrative novel with far too much 'stuff' on the emotional lives of its characters, it provides insufficient time to develop the science fiction. The main character also makes imaginative leaps that no serious scientist could possibly make to move the story along.

The core idea's viability gets to be neglected in favour of an 'ancient alien' story line that becomes embarrassing. A nuclear explosion is only one of many incidents that are left lying unexplained in the path of the reader while hypotheses are thrown out wildly and then treated as facts.

One also suspects that Benford thought that some almost unreadable and rather dull literary modernism might help to convey the passage of a somewhat emotionally repressed British-American astronaut into some form of transcendence. It does not. It merely seems pretentious.

There are other more novelistic flaws - the over-emphasis on a polyamorous stressed emotional life that disappears half way through the novel, the 'life crisis' sexual shenanigans with a techno-nymph on the moon and the stereotypical science versus religion sub-plot that goes nowhere.

There is nothing wrong with mixing hard science fiction with the more conventional novel of character development and emotional growth but, to get away with it, you have to be able to do both twice as well as more conventional practitioners, This is not the case here.

This is a shame because periodically Benford writes very well especially when his protagonist is doggedly and autonomously ploughing his own furrow and yet his bureaucratic survival never quite seems plausible enough to keep putting him in the right place and right time as it does.

Our hero is somehow there at some remarkable moments of first contact in a way that seems more magical than scientific. It is extremely hard to believe that any modern society would let him get away with his behaviour on first contact and put him where he could be central to next contact.

As a normal space adventure it might have worked. Perhaps as a novel of emotions based on first contact alone it might also have worked (though then be of scant interest to most sci fi readers). As a combination of both, it just does not do so.

[Bill Hayes · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mediocre at best.
This 1972 book has not aged well, among other things; the major communication devices are all descendants of the fax.

The gruff, independent, outspoken 'know more than any of the dummies at NASA' type seemed like a character from the 50's or 60's.

My major gripe is that even though this is a book about alien contact, little of the book is directly related to that. There are three alien spacecraft in it, yet less than 10% of the book is dealing with them. In fact the most exciting part of the book is Nigel's conversation with a machine intelligence on one of the craft as it heads away, but this is limited to a single paragraph.

And he rushes the ending, having Nigel tell us what the aliens were about instead of having the story show us.

Toward the end of the book I realized I had read it back in the 70's. So it was literally forgettable.

[Holly · Rating 1 out of 5]

Really bad. It starts off being really masochistic and then at the end it completely derails and Benford can't decide if he's writing sci-fi or fantasy or just rehashing every conspiracy theory he's every heard. It's confusing and awful and he gives Sasquatch an alien blaster gun. I also probably could have died happy without reading an anti-gravity sex scene between a super has been and a young astronaut who has so much going for her. Like, seriously, Benford? That is what you spend your time thinking about? Dudes be trippin.

[Simon · Rating 3 out of 5]

A series of episodes dealing with man's first contact and one man's struggle against those elements of humanity who would sooner destroy or supress aliens than welcome or attempt to learn from them.

However, the aliens turn out to be quite different than he expected and subject to as much fear and petty mindedness as humans are.

[Frank Taranto · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first in a series, have to reread this to see if the series is worth getting into.

[Barbara · Rating 1 out of 5]

A dislikable cast of characters does nothing to help the slow plot.