The Black Cloud by Fred Hoyle

This was recommended to me by my father in the library, he said it's a "classic" that I can't miss. Fred Hoyle was a renowned astronomer and physicist who wrote books as well, science fiction books. For this reason, I found this book extremely interesting, all of the fiction was backed up in scientific theory and often scientific fact. Some of the sections of the book even had footnotes where an equation to work something out was showed or similar.

The "black cloud" referred to in this book is one spotted by astronomers who seeing what effect it is going to have get a government-funded sanctuary to further research its effects and why it has come so close to Earth that it is in the same orbit around the sun. The characters are pretty delightful. I mentioned to my father at one stage the evident dislike of politicians, especially by Kingsley who has organised the sanctuary. My father then told me that this is shown in most of Hoyle's books, although there is always at least one likeable politician apparently.

This is definitely science fiction of the purest kind. Unlike Asimov, Scott Card or Clarke, Hoyle makes all of the events closer as her manages to ground them in explanations about what they mean. The characters become more and more engrossed as the book goes on and this results in an astonishing twist. I paticularly liked the inclusion of the character Joe, a simpleton who later features in an important part of the book.

Would highly recommend to anyone, paticularly if you are a space geek like myself.