"LISTEN, there's a hell of a good universe next door; let's go," said the American poet e e cummings.

This line - about the venue, if not the invitation - is taken entirely seriously by some eminent scientists. In The Universe Next Door, cosmology writer Marcus Chown explains 12 views from the cutting edge of science, most of which have been explored during the past 50 years by science fiction writers but are now being touted as fact.

Chown takes us through some mind-boggling concepts. These include life on Earth seeded from the depth of space by micro-organisms carried on comets; invisible galaxies, stars and extra-terrestrials; and multiple realities played out in an infinite number of universes.

One extreme argument has it that stars and galaxies only become real when their light is picked up by our telescopes. Does this mean, you ask yourself, that stars visible to the naked eye have existed longer than those that had to wait for the invention of the telescope?

It's difficult to resist the feeling that some ideas have been dreamed up by scientists desperate to make a name for themselves at any price. Academics and researchers are as ambitious as anyone else, and the same thinking once led some French literary theorists to dump the term author because they believed their criticism was more important than the writers they were 'deconstructing'.

The theories described here range from the beguiling to the terrifying to the preposterous, and Marcus Chown handles them all with admirable objectivity and clarity.

Armed with his substantial 30-page glossary of scientific terms and definitions, almost all of this book can be enjoyed and understood by the layman.

Updated: 11:21 Wednesday, January 22, 2003