Judgment Day

Science of Discworld IV: A Novel

By: Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart, Jack Cohen

Narrated by: Michael Fenton Stevens, Stephen Briggs

The fourth book in the Science of Discworld series, and this time around dealing with THE REALLY BIG QUESTIONS, Terry Pratchett's brilliant new Discworld story Judgement Day is annotated with very big footnotes (the interleaving chapters) by mathematician Ian Stewart and biologist Jack Cohen, to bring you a mind-mangling combination of fiction, cutting-edge science and philosophy.

Marjorie Dawe is a librarian, and takes her job -- and indeed the truth of words -- very seriously. She doesn't know it, but her world and ours -- Roundworld -- is in big trouble. On Discworld, a colossal row is brewing. The Wizards of the Unseen University feel responsible for Roundworld (as one would for a pet gerbil). After all, they brought it into existence by bungling an experiment in Quantum ThaumoDynamics. But legal action is being brought against them by Omnians, who say that the Wizards' god-like actions make a mockery of their noble religion. As the finest legal brains in Discworld (a zombie and a priest) gird their loins to do battle -- and when the Great Big Thing in the High Energy Magic Laboratory is switched on -- Marjorie Dawe finds herself thrown across the multiverse and right in the middle of the whole explosive affair.

As God, the Universe and, frankly, Everything Else is investigated by the trio, you can expect world-bearing elephants, quantum gravity in the Escher-verse, evolutionary design, eternal inflation, dark matter, disbelief systems -- and an in-depth study of how to invent a better mousetrap.

Critic reviews

"Stewart, Cohen and Pratchett set out to puzzle us and make us think differently.... This is exhilarating." --A. S. Byatt, New Statesman

“Fascinating and entertaining. . . . It’s baffling why this appealingly distinctive offshoot of the wildly popular Discworld yarns took so long to cross the Atlantic.” —Kirkus Reviews

very entertaining and thought provoking.

Heard the four chapters of the science of Disc World. All very much worth listening.

Boring

Content of story was just not as creative as his other books. I have to say I feel that it was a disappointment.

There is nothing wrong with being an Atheist

It is a nice book about belief and what it means for different kinds of people.

It's a science book. Don't expect miracles.

Unlike other reviewers, this reader doesn't look to science books to reinforce the desert fables I was taught as a child. Like the other books in this series, this is a tongue in cheek exploration of science, the history of science, and why science is not magic. Delightful and informative.

If you get it, you get it.

This is the second time I’ve listened to the entire science of Discworld series.
Judgment day is by far the densest of the books. It has a serious point to make and it makes it well.

I consider the 4 books as a single Terry Pratchett story.