It's the perfect ending for this. There are many delights here for the rationally-minded reader, and many scares, as the depth of irrationality and fervour that combine in the US christian populations provide all the most horrible moments when you realise how seriously some of their more crackpot views are taken in high political circles. Secular Europeans will be amazed at how medieval it all seems, but then again, this is part of the point. Although the universe's workings are there to be discovered, human beings are what they are and they make of knowledge what they've always made of it - tools and weapons. This is Science Fiction for the scientific.
Human weaknesses compete with human strengths in a struggle that is the great epic of our existence.
This is shown in large scale, in small scale and commented on all in one easy sweep of deceptively easy-reading language. If I have a criticism of it, it's that I would have liked to see more characterisation of the major scientists involved and there were one or two unconvincing moments that seemed to exist purely to make a point, but these quibbles hardly matter in the scale of the enterprise. Review by Justina Robson.