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The book takes the determinist idea that if you knew enough science, you could effectively predict the future and then does precisely nothing interesting with it. The book is remarkably sexist - Asimov’s disdain for womankind is mostly shown by the depiction of a universe in which women are almost entirely absent. A woman speaks precisely once in the book and in response, she is told that she speaks too much and is threatened by her husband to have her tongue removed.

Also, it’s just pretty boring. I don’t know why it’s still in print.

I was really looking forward to reading this having bern recommended it years ago but never got round to it. Now I find myself bewildered - is there another Khaled Hosseini who wrote a different Kite Runner? This book is really not good. It has all the subtlety of a punch to the face, is bursting with cliché and is indifferent bordering on dismissive of the female half of humanity. Add to that absurd plot points which Michael Bay would turn his nose up at and the overwhelming feeling is bafflement.

A really engaging and nuanced book. It manages to do what most science books fail at - not only does it include the inherent uncertainty in scientific investigation, but brings it out of the fringes to show that uncertainty is part of the excitement and the mystery which makes science so fascinating. Roberts in an exceptional communicator.