Percival Everett's novel Dr. No follows Wala Kitu, a professor of mathematics at Brown University whose field of study is "nothing," i.e., whatever existed before the Big Bang, and whatever the universe is "expanding into, through, and/or toward." Wala is a genius, but his laborious search for nothing has so far been fruitless. "Nothing" is not anti-matter, dark matter, zero, emptiness or the absence of something. It is a great joke. Everett milks the ensuing wordplay for over 200 pages: "I work very hard and wish I could say that I have nothing to show for it." "I was a charlatan. I knew nothing. But given that was my chosen topic, I was a successful fraud." "'Nothing seems to bother you.' 'Actually, nothing bothers me all the time.'"

Wala is soon approached by John Milton Bradley Sill, a billionaire and self-proclaimed "James Bond villain," who could use his expertise. Sill believes...