Quick Take
- Narration: Wil Wheaton is a natural fit for Munroe’s dry, nerdy humor, delivering the absurd hypotheticals with the deadpan enthusiasm they deserve.
- Themes: Physics and thermodynamics made ridiculous, the nature of scientific inquiry, impractical thought experiments as genuine education
- Mood: Playful and intellectually energizing, best in short bursts
- Verdict: A worthy sequel that maintains the original’s formula of rigorous science dressed in deliberately absurd clothing, ideal for the curious listener who wants to feel smarter while laughing.
I was halfway through a long drive when I put What If? 2 on, expecting the kind of light entertainment that fills dead highway miles without demanding much. Randall Munroe had other plans. Forty minutes in I had learned something specific and surprising about thermodynamics via the freezer door thought experiment, and I was genuinely irritated that I could not write anything down. That is the Munroe formula: real science hidden inside questions so absurd that your defenses are entirely down by the time the learning arrives.
The first What If? built a devoted following by answering questions from xkcd readers, and it is worth noting that some of those readers ask questions that a reasonable person might not. What would happen if you rode a helicopter blade? What if you built a billion-story building? What would a lava lamp made of actual lava look like? Munroe takes every question seriously in the scientific sense while maintaining the comedic register that makes the book feel like spending time with a brilliant friend who has no sense of self-consciousness about their interests.
Our Take on What If? 2
The sequel improves on its predecessor in at least one structural way: the short worrying answer sections, brief responses to questions that have very bad and very fast answers, are expanded here. Those sections were already a highlight of the first book, and giving them more space was the right editorial decision. They work as palate cleansers between the longer, more technically involved chapters, and their darkly comic logic is where Munroe’s voice is most distinctively itself.
The range of topics is genuinely wide. Munroe moves from swing-set physics to airliner catapult design to feeding all of New York City to a Tyrannosaurus rex. The questions come from readers, which means the book has an organic variety that a solo-authored thought experiment collection would lack. Some chapters are five pages, some are closer to twenty. That variation keeps the listening experience from settling into routine.
Why Listen to What If? 2
Wil Wheaton is the right narrator for this material. He has enough science fluency to deliver the technical passages without stumbling, and enough comic timing to land Munroe’s drier jokes without overselling them. The audiobook format loses the original’s illustrations, which Munroe draws himself in his characteristic minimalist xkcd style, and those drawings do meaningful work in the text by reducing complex physics to visual metaphors. Wheaton compensates with tone, but listeners who want the full experience should know the visual dimension is absent in audio.
At six and a half hours, the runtime is efficient for the amount of material covered. What If? 2 is an ideal format for a medium-length commute, an exercise session, or any listening context where you want engagement without emotional weight. It is explicitly impractical, as Munroe acknowledges throughout, but the impracticality is the vehicle for the education rather than an obstacle to it.
What to Watch For in What If? 2
Listeners who loved the first book will find everything they loved here: the same deadpan register, the same willingness to take absurd premises seriously, the same genuine respect for scientific accuracy even when the questions are ridiculous. The book does not try to evolve the formula significantly, which is either a limitation or a feature depending on what you came for. If you wanted Munroe to expand his scope or try something structurally different, this is not that book. If you wanted more of the same done well, that is precisely what you get.
The cosmic road trip chapter and the billion-story building chapter are highlights. The chapter on riding a geyser as it erupts is one of the book’s more technically involved entries and rewards close listening. One reviewer noted that the humor lands best when the questions involve very specific extreme circumstances, and that is accurate across the collection. Munroe’s comedy is almost always structural rather than performed, emerging from the logic of the situation rather than from jokes inserted into scientific explanation.
Who Should Listen to What If? 2
Listeners who finished the first What If? and wanted more have already answered this question for themselves. For newcomers, this works as a standalone entry point, since the questions are not connected across chapters. It suits science-curious adults who remember enjoying physics in school but found professional science writing too dense, and it suits curious young adults and teenagers who are looking for science education that does not feel like education. It does not suit listeners who need narrative arc or emotional stakes. Each chapter is self-contained, and the book as a whole builds toward nothing except a general expansion of your sense of how strange and specific the physical world is.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do you need to have read or listened to the first What If? before starting this one?
No. The chapters are fully independent of each other and of the first book. Each question is answered self-containedly, so What If? 2 works equally well as an entry point or a continuation.
How does Wil Wheaton handle the loss of Munroe’s illustrations, which do real explanatory work in the print version?
He compensates primarily through pacing and tone, slowing down for the more technical passages and using inflection to signal transitions that illustrations would handle visually. Some of the information density is inevitably lost in audio, but the core humor and scientific reasoning survive the translation.
Is this more suitable for casual listening or does it require focused attention to follow the science?
Both modes work, but different chapters reward different levels of attention. The shorter chapters and the worrying answers sections are easy background listening. The longer chapters on airliner catapult design or thermodynamics benefit from more focused attention if you want to retain the reasoning rather than just the punchline.
How does the humor in What If? 2 hold up if you are already familiar with Munroe’s xkcd comic strips?
The voice is consistent with xkcd, so fans of the strip will feel at home immediately. The book format allows Munroe to develop individual ideas further than a strip permits, which means some chapters feel like extended comics while others are more like essays. Either way, the sensibility is unmistakably his.
