I tried to read it and bounced off it HARD. Well before I actually got into any of the science bits. The history was kind of interesting, but the characters in the first bit--I couldn't make myself care about them (and I tried), and there was too much random jumping of location and characters, none of which I could get at all interested in, and I was genuinely trying, because I'd heard such good things about it. Then we got into the present-day section, and the detective guy is investigating those scientist deaths or whatever, and none of the motivations they were coming up with made ANY sense or had ANY relation to any scientist or researcher I've ever known, studied, or heard of. I mean, the earlier characters might not have appealed to me, but at least I understood who they were and why they did what they did. At that point, I figured that I'd read enough of it to be able to tell that the things that bugged me were getting worse not better, and so I gave up.

Which was disappointing! I wanted to get to the physics!