Tim Requarth, reviewing The Vital Question for The New York Times, finds the book "seductive and often convincing, though speculation far outpaces evidence in many of the book’s passages. But perhaps for a biological theory of everything, that's to be expected, even welcomed."
Peter Forbes, reviewing The Vital Question in The Guardian, noted that the origin of life was once thought to be "safely consigned to wistful armchair musing", but that in the past 20 years new research in genomics, geology, biochemistry and molecular biology have transformed thinking in the field. "Here is the book that presents all this hard evidence and tightly interlocking theory to a wider audience.", writes Forbes.
Michael LePage, reviewing the book in New Scientist, writes that the fact that complex cells only evolved once is "very peculiar when you think about it", but it is just one of many large mysteries that Lane addresses, including aging and death, sex, and speciation. LePage finds Lane's arguments "powerful and persuasive", with many testable ideas. The book is not, he writes, the easiest to read, but "it does tell an incredible, epic story", from the dawn of life to the present day.
Caspar Henderson, in his book review in The Telegraph, writes that Lanes book "succeeds brilliantly" as good science writing can, expanding the readers horizons "in ways not previously imagined." Lane explains why the counterintuitive idea "that cross-membrane proton gradients power all living cells" is no mere technical detail: per gram, he notes, the power is 10,000 times denser than the sun, and it is conserved across every form of life, telling us something about how life began and how it was constrained to evolve. Henderson recommends the book as amazing and gripping, only criticising the publisher for the "pedestrian" quality of the design and printing.
The founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates, reviewed the book under the heading "This Biology Book Blew Me Away". It moved him to read two of Lanes other books, and to bring him to New York to interview him. Gates noted that "As much as I loved The Vital Question, its not for everyone. Some of the explanations are pretty technical. But this is a technical subject, and I doubt anyone else will make it much easier to understand without sacrificing crucial details."
Lane won the Michael Faraday Prize in 2016 for "excellence in communicating science to UK audiences".