His new book is co-authored by Caltech physicist Leonard Mlodinow, and is remarkably unimpressive given Hawking's reputation.  Indeed, according to his fellow scientists, it is nothing more than lightweight speculation wrapped up in scientific verbiage:

The book "is a vehicle for putting across lightweight speculation that anybody could imagine," asserts MIT-educated physicist Thomas P. Sheahen in a paper provided to WND.   Hawking and co-author Leonard Mlodinow, a Caltech physicist, claim there was no need for a creator, as the law of gravity assures that the "universe can, and will, create itself from nothing."

 

"If the author names were reversed, Mlodinow first, everyone would ignore this book," Sheahen writes in "A Physicist Looks at The Grand Design.'" "Only Hawking's fame boosts it to totally undeserved prominence."

I don't even have a science degree and I can see through this one.  The law of gravity is enough to assure that the universe can create itself?  Two problems: 1. Gravity is something, so where did it come from?  How was it created?  2. Gravity has to have something act on to be able to create, doesn't it?  Gravity can pull planets and heavenly bodies, but if there aren't any of those to work with, gravity by itself isn't going to get very far now is it?

Of course, don't take it from me.  E. Calvin Beisner has the credentials...and he says it better (or at least in a more scientific way) than me anyhow:

Published by Bantam Books, the 208-page work posits that this "spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist." "The folly of Hawkings' claim is pretty obvious," E. Calvin Beisner, national spokesman for the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation in suburban Washington, D.C., told WND. "The law of gravity is, of course, not nothing, and consequently the universe's spontaneous self-creation wouldn't be a creation from nothing anyway."

 

Beisner argued further that "the law of gravity is a law of physics, affecting the interaction of physical, material things." "There is no law of gravity where there are no physical things," he reasoned.

Hawking may sell some of these books, but he's not providing any answers.  And despite the fact that he continues to defy the odds, the saddest part of all of this is that his time to get it right is growing shorter.