"'The hard science is as gripping as the fiction' The Times; 'Entertaining and illuminating' New Scientist"

Roundworld is in trouble again, and this time it looks fatal. Having created it in the first place, the wizards of Unseen University feel vaguely responsible for its safety. They know the creatures who lived there escaped the impending Big Freeze by inventing the space elevator - they even intervened to rid the planet of a plague of elves, who attempted to divert humanity onto a different time track. But now it's all gone wrong - Victorian England has stagnated and the pace of progress would embarrass a limping snail. Unless something drastic is done, there won't be time for anyone to invent spaceflight and the human race will be turned into ice-pops. Why, though, did history come adrift? Was it Sir Arthur Nightingale's dismal book about natural selection? Or was it the devastating response by an obscure country vicar called Charles Darwin, whose bestselling "Theology of Species" made it impossible to refute the divine design of living creatures? Either way, it's no easy task to change history, as the wizards discover to their cost. Can the God of Evolution come to humanity's aid and ensure Darwin writes a very different book? And who stopped him writing it in the first place?

"The hard science is as gripping as the fiction." - "The Times." "Entertaining and illuminating." - "New Scientist."

The latest instalment in the Sunday Times-bestselling Science of Discworld series.

Jack Cohen, Ian Stewart & Terry Pratchett:
Terry Pratchett is one of the most successful authors in Britain today. His 26th Discworld novel was published in 2001. Ian Stewart won the Royal Society's 1995 Michael Faraday Medal for outstanding contributions to the public understanding of science. Jack Cohen is a biologist and science writer and long-time collaborator of Ian Stewart.

2008-02-13 Yet another excellent book!

Although a slight detour from the norml type of Discworld book, I found the combination of the story (which was great) and the explanations of the real science behind the story to be absolutely fascinating and I learned stuff I never knew before while still being entertained in the good old Pratchett style!

I have now brought all three of these Science of the Discworld series and have already read them several times over as they were so enjoyable.