The Black Cloud

A 1959 traditional ‘exhausting’ science-fiction novel by famend Cambridge astronomer and cosmologist Fred Hoyle. Tracks the progress of an enormous black cloud that comes in the direction of Earth and sits in entrance of the solar, inflicting widespread panic and dying. A choose group of scientists and astronomers – together with the dignified Astronomer Royal, the pipe smoking Dr Marlowe and the maverick, eccentric Professor Kingsly – have interaction in a mad race to know and talk with the cloud, battling towards set off completely happy politicians.

Within the pacy, participating fashion of John Wyndham and John Christopher, with loads of exhausting science thrown in so as to add to the chillingly credible premise (he manages to predict Synthetic Intelligence, Optical Character Recognition and Textual content-to-Speech converters), Hoyle carries you breathlessly by to its thrilling finish.