It must be a very lonely job, being a theoretical physicist. After all, they spend much of their lives devoted to speculating about things that may not even exist, and, once they have come up with a theory that holds water, hardly anybody understands them, or -shamefully - tries to understand them. So when Einstein posed the question: "Did God have a choice when He created the Universe?" was this question born out of frustration more than philosophical inquisitiveness? We can imagine the hirsute scientist adding, "Because if he did, why couldn’t He have made it easier to understand?"

In Einstein’s Question, Steve and Deja Whitehouse have created the ultimate fantasy for those who ponder the Cosmos by animating those parts of it that are only known as mathematical symbols in hypothetical speculation. From sub-atomic particles to what exists beyond the boundaries of the Universe, each entity becomes a character in this story, with its own strengths and weaknesses, and its own will to exist. Unfortunately, when all involved are willing the same thing, conflict arises and disharmony takes over.

In the middle of all this are humans - another entity in the cosmic crowd. They are as culpable as anything else of bringing about disharmony in their own environment, and to the balance of the Cosmos as a whole. The question is: who will have to pay in order to maintain universal harmony? The answer is not so simple, given that morality, as well as science, is all relative in this book.

Drawn into this conundrum is a group of four, rather smug, academic friends who find themselves removed from their ivory-inlaid comfort zones to confront real