I found this book of Paul Davies's very lucid to read, and back in the summer it was one of the only books that I read in a single day. I remember being sat in the conservatory overheating with the greenhouse effect of the transparent roofing - it being a hot summer here in England - and perhaps this made my imagination drift more into what I was reading. But whatever, Davies's book, (originally published as the Fifth Miracle), certainly provided ripe sod for my imagination to bear fruits, (I think that for part of the time I was sitting under the table and fell asleep for an hour or so, dreaming of meteorites travelling from Mars to Earth and things; perhaps dreaming in the the middle or reading a book such as this isn't a bad idea, as the ideas get given a dry run through the imagination, which may help to establish whether they are realistic or not). One Russian friend of mine commented that popular science writers are likely to try and sensationalise their work in order to make it more exciting, and I suppose that I cannot really deny that this is a valid comment, but I wouldn't really agree with it straight away either. It seems that Paul Davies is really serious about his theories here, such as the chance that life was transported from Mars to Earth, (or even vice versa), via meteorites being launched into the cosmogony with extremophiles on board, (bacteria that can withstand extreme conditions). I have read another Paul Davies book in full also, (About Time), so I can say that someone who reads Paul Davies would not at all be disappointed by the writing quality in The Origin of Life, and the imagination with which Paul delivers his theories, (and other established theory), to the reader. Paul adopts the academic position name or "Astrobiologist" for this book, which fits the theme of the book perfectly; I don't know if he has always called himself an astrobiologist or if he sometimes refers to himself as an astronomer. I would wholly recommend this book.
