I enjoyed Seeing Further, but then, I enjoy reading about history, minute stories of individual lives and discovery. This is a collaborative work led by Bryson, so the reader who enjoys a more direct narrative (such as that in A Walk in the Woods) may not find quite what they expect in this book.
I loved hearing from other writers, scientists, thinkers--and that collaboration with Bryson makes Seeing Further even more interesting for me, however, I realize some readers do not enjoy the switch to other voices, and so I'll suggest that you make up your own mind in this case.
As for me, I will purchase Seeing Further, as a reference book for myself and my children, for visits back to stories, historical happenings, and the arc of human discovery led by the Royal Society.

Brilliant essays. A little dry. Very interesting.

It was, let´s say: okay. But I expected a lot more from it. The first chapters were almost up to what I expected. The history of the Royal Society was presented in a fresh, mostly charming style, provided by different authors concerning different spheres of investigation or presentation of the Royal Society.
The chapters from no. 9 onwards became more and more boring, not because there were touching more recent times (mostly the 20th century) but because they consistent more or a less in a long description of who made and did what and when. I expected some kind of cultural historical analysis of the last trends of cientific development, touching upon themes like chemistry, biology, genetics and the like. But in the end it was (for me) more like a boring lecture from a very good informed investigator who lacks the knack of good presentation.
Moreover I didn´t get the point of contact with the main theme of the book: the Royal Society. If I am to be provided with the life histories of important cientists, thats okay but I would read Wikipedia instead if I had an interest in this. This book promised: "the story of science" and "endeavours, discoveries and disputes" and this led me to think that I could expect something more than just mere facts - more analysis and some insights into the interwoven histories of science and culture. So, after all I am a little bit disappointed.

This collection included some excellent essays as well as a handful that sagged. I would have appreciated a bit more unity as only very liberally defined threads hold the collection together and very rarely do the authors seem to be in conversation with one another.

The Earth has been around 4.5 billion years, but it's only in the last 350 that we have be able to understand this from radioactive dating. Our exploration of this planet and the surrounding cosmology can be traced to the beginnings of the Royal Society that brought scientists and philosophers together.

This book is a fantastically overwhelming and enticing compendium of articles from writers about the Royal Society. The book begins most strongly with the prominent scientists who were asking the big questions. Newton's discoveries of the gravitation applying to the earth and other planetary bodies gave a rise to universal physical laws. Leibniz's theory of our world's orderliness and the principles of logic that would be cited in computer science. Darwin's theories of evolution and natural selection that reshaped our idea of the divine order.

Like Bryson's fantastic "A Short History of Nearly Everything", the book invites digging into different chapters, jumping around, making connections between chapters. Not all chapters are as equally exciting. The early philosophical questions were far more exciting to me than engineering feats of bridge building (sorry engineers). Like any compilation, some work was more exciting than others.

Really great book that gave me an appreciation of the Royal Society. A great entry to wonder and intrigue.

Excellent essays on science and today's world, viewed through the magnificent lens fo the history of the Royal Society.

No idea how a book about a scientific institution can be so boring and uninformative.

Covering a wide range of topics in the history of science. Multiple essays centered around the Royal Society. Some essays were more interesting than others. I liked the ones dealing with math and physics history. Some of the pop sociology of science stuff seemed a little lightweight to me.

I very much enjoyed some of the earlier essays, on the history of science. The later ones, on the present state, not so much. The late essays, especially the one on climate change, were dry and uninteresting.

If a book is marketed as a Bill Bryson book, I expect humour, whimsy, and wonderful tidbits of information. I'd have enjoyed this more if they had collected essays from authors that write like Bill Bryson. Instead, there is a lot of tedious wanking on and I felt like a teacher's aide sentenced to grading freshman term papers. The enjoyable exceptions to this were Bill Bryson's intro, Simon Schaffer's essay on lightning rods and Richard Holmes' essay on the history of scientific ballooning. Read those and skip the rest in my opinion.