A 1959 classic 'hard' science-fiction novel by renowned Cambridge astronomer and cosmologist Fred Hoyle. Tracks the progress of a giant black cloud that comes towards Earth and sits in front of the sun, causing widespread panic and death. A select group of scientists and astronomers - including the dignified Astronomer Royal, the pipe smoking Dr Marlowe and the maverick, eccentric Professor Kingsly - engage in a mad race to understand and communicate with the cloud, battling against trigger happy politicians. In the pacy, engaging style of John Wyndham and John Christopher, with plenty of hard science thrown in to add to the chillingly credible premise (he manages to foretell Artificial Intelligence, Optical Character Recognition and Text-to-Speech converters), Hoyle carries you breathlessly through to its thrilling end.

The scientific life of Fred Hoyle (1915–2001) was truly unparalleled. During his career he wrote groundbreaking scientific papers and caused bitter disputes in the scientific community with his revolutionary theories. Hoyle is best known for showing that we are all, literally, made of stardust in his paper explaining how carbon, and then all the heavier elements, were created by nuclear reactions inside stars. However, he constantly courted controversy and two years later he followed this with his 'steady state' theory of the universe. This challenged another model of the universe, which Hoyle called the 'big bang' theory. Fred Hoyle was also famous amongst the general public. He popularised his research through radio and television broadcasts and wrote best-selling novels. Written from personal accounts and interviews with Hoyle's contemporaries, this book gives valuable personal insights into Fred Hoyle and his unforgettable life.

In Home Is Where the Wind Blows, Sir Fred Hoyle, one of this century's most eminent scientists and author of dozens of successful books, both fiction and nonfiction, offers a revealing and charming account of his life and work. Mathematician, physicist, astronomer, cosmologist - Sir Fred is perhaps best known, in scientific circles, for his brilliant explanation of the origin of the elements from hydrogen nuclei in stars (a process known as nucleosynthesis) and for developing (with Sir Hermann Bondi and Thomas Gold) the elegant but controversial steady-state theory of the Universe (which assumes the continuous creation of matter). In 1950, in the last of a series of radio lectures on astronomy that he delivered on the air for the BBC, Sir Fred coined the term "Big Bang" to characterize the competing expanding-Universe theory, which has since become the dominant paradigm. Ironically, the term has become a permanent addition to the language of cosmology. Sir Fred's name has become well known to the general public because of his unusual ability to describe the ideas of science in a simple and accessible way. In addition to his scientific work, he has written more than a dozen works of popular science (many of them widely translated) and more than a dozen works of science fiction (most of them in collaboration with his son, Geoffrey). In all his work, Sir Fred has shown himself to be ready and able to challenge established thinking. In the author's amusing and memorable account of his childhood in Home Is Where the Wind Blows, the reader will see how this came to be true. Possessed since infancy with a strong streak of independence, he was encouraged by his parents, throughout his schoolyears, to trust his own judgment and to think for himself.

This is the story of the author''s unique scientific journey with one of the most remarkable men of 20th century science. The journey begins in Sri Lanka, the author''s native country, with his childhood acquaintance with Fred Hoyle''s writings. The action then moves to Cambridge, where the famous HoyleOCoWickramasinghe collaborations begin. A research programme which was started in 1962 on the carbonaceous nature of interstellar dust leads, over the next two decades, to developments that are continued in both Cambridge and Cardiff. These developments prompt Hoyle and the author to postulate the organic theory of cosmic dust (which is now generally accepted), and then to challenge one of the most cherished paradigms of contemporary science OCo the theory that life originated on Earth in a warm primordial soup.This new edition examines the many scientific developments that have transpired since the first edition was published. The discovery of bacteria in the upper reaches of the atmosphere, biological signatures in meteorites, spectroscopy of high-z galaxies and more all mesh with many of the ideas that had their origin in the first edition. Pushing into the future, the updated text examines the many experiments and probes currently operating or planned that will shed more light on the theory of planetary panspermia. A Journey with Fred Hoyle is an intriguing book that delineates the progress of a collaboration spanning 40 years, through a sequence of personal reflections, anecdotes and reminiscences.

From Simon & Schuster, Evolution from Space is Sir Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe's theory of cosmic creationism in this daring and fascinating sequel to Lifecloud and Diseases from Space. Evolution from Space presents the revolutionary theory that mathematics can establish the probable existence of God and suggests that life began in space under the direction of a great intelligence.