In this age of increasingly extravagant whiz-bang science fiction movies, there are few constants like "Godzilla".
Though the book is full of strong and often extravagant claims about science, technology and policy, not one of them is sourced.
Junk science, extravagant contingency fees, dubious evidence of causation and damages have transformed courts of law in many instances into collection agencies where the playing field is anything but level.
Upon its release in the United States Variety praised the film as an "extravagant piece of science fiction.
Some might find these science fiction stories extravagant, and it may be unclear whether they teach us anything about the real world.
The apartheid allegory District 9 was perhaps this year's cleverest film, proving that science fiction doesn't need extravagant special effects to make the grade.
"Totem," written and directed by Robert Lepage (the director of the Metropolitan Opera's extravagant "Ring" cycle), bills itself as "somewhere between science and legend," a story about "the evolutionary progress of the species".
Dr. J. Craig Venter of Celera Genomics, who led the private sector's counterpart sequencing project, was no less extravagant in his assessment, declaring, "It will change science and our view of ourselves as we go forward".
Her father is the Clowes professor of science at Harvard and the author of "The Extravagant Universe: Exploding Stars, Dark Energy and the Accelerating Cosmos" (Princeton University Press, 2002).
Epstein became a major philanthropist, spending millions on science projects at Harvard University, and was famous for his extravagant parties.
