Book Review:
Sir Fred Hoyle's
The Black Cloud
This
book written by Sir Fred Hoyle in 1957 is fascinating to say the least. Hoyle is the well-known British astronomer
that coined the term Big Bang to
describe the origins of the universe. In
this short book he creates a story of an extraterrestrial visitation to Earth
using real science concepts including calculus equations to show the alien's
pathway to Earth.I am amazed it was
never adapted to a Hollywood movie. It
is the first book in the science fiction genre I've read that held my
attention, made me wonder, and made sense. The simple differential calculus derivation of the time period before the cloud reached Earth had me swooning with delight. Tell me how many sci-fi books you ever read use actual mathematical formulae to set their plot? Few if any right? After that, I knew here is a book that is not directed at a shallow reading audience.
The
novel examines the possibility of alien life visiting Earth. This life form is a large gaseous
cloud that is on a collision course with Earth. A team of mathematicians, astrophysicists,
and humanities scholars in England assemble to study and determine the effects
of this cloud engulfing Earth. The
results are dismal. It will wipe out all
life on Earth should it reach the planet.
The team calculates the cloud will take 2 years to collide with Earth. From this point the novel examines many
moral-philosophic questions. The various
learning disciplines argue about whom should survive and why. As the cloud is at last only a few thousand
miles away from Earth, one scientist discovers it's not just an inanimate mass
of gas, but a sentient being. In fact,
it's a super-intelligent being. He
devises a plan to communicate with it and first
contact is made. The scientists
discover that the intelligent cloud is as surprised as they are, to see that a
sentient being could exist in the form of solid matter. Because of its huge size and lack of any
visual apparatus, the planets it visits never revealed any living matter. In fact, its initial probes showed nothing
but forms of inanimate matter, like minerals, water (remember to the Black Cloud water is not a form life as it couldn't detect microbial life), and combustible materials
(volcanoes). It concluded that the
planets it visits are prime material to fuel its existence as it consumes them
via a process of synthesis. The scientists respond that they could never see how a life form could evolve inside a gaseous mass. The cloud explains it's a
conglomerate of various sub-organisms that compose a superstructure and it has
evolved into this over a period of hundreds of millions of years. While the biological science is weak here,
the science idea is a novelty. The
story ends with the Black Cloud breaking off its engulfment of Earth and
heading to the aid of a fellow cloud in another galaxy.
The
Aspects of the Novel
I was
gripped by this novel from page one. As
I read it with increasing amazement, I kept asking myself, why hasn't anybody
ever made this into a movie? This is the
kind of science fiction that makes stories like Star Trek and Star Wars
seem trivial. As I thought about it, it
occurred to me, that many sci-fi films are based on it. The first Star
Trek in 1979 was a direct lift of this novel. Of course the screenwriters changed the cloud entity to be the Voyager probe sent back to Earth from an
intelligent alien society, but come on, it makes such use of the plot and theme
of this book it ain't funny, to use a
vernacular. I saw that B/S in rerun on TV just a few weeks ago, and couldn't help saying to myself and girlfriend: This is the Black Cloud, Debbie! The what honey? Nothing. No tell
me? Reluctantly, I did and she agreed, and to my amazement, she read the book which she found just as stimulating as I. Though, her religious baggage made her say: There are no aliens in Christianity. I like the book, but it goes against Christian Gospel. We postponed that argument. I don't know what Christian Gospel is but this is a hell of good sci-fi novel.
Nonetheless,
there are some flaws to the novel. First,
the principal point of the work is telegraphed long before it's revealed. A reader can tell by about the middle of the
work the cloud is alive and intelligent.
Yet, Hoyle keeps up an extended period of verifying the theory of it
being alive. Radio signals are sent back
and forth to test the theory it's alive.
This extension to plot makes for boredom. Second, the explanation of the biologic
structure of the cloud is weak and not as solid as the physics descriptions of
its trajectory with Earth. Third, the
sub-plot love story is very corny. Well,
my girlfriend didn't think that. But, of
course, she a woman and would think that.
Oops, did I make a sexist remark?
No matter, I'll keep it in. Anyway, this is 50's literature, what do you
expect but cornball romance? Why he couldn't even use profanity back then!
With
these stylistic shortcomings discounted, the Black Cloud is a masterpiece in
the science fiction genre.I was
particularly amused and engrossed to read about the state of technology at the
time. Computers were room-sized machines
and printers had to have their output encoded on keypunch machines, then fed in
a reader that sent the code instructions to a dot-matrix printer. I couldn't help but giggle reading that,
remembering all this was once true. What
is most profound about this book is its premise is a real scientific
possibility.If we are going to theorize about
alien life it most certainly would be something like what Sir Fred Hoyle
describes.
Return to Portal Philosophies, Science, Mathematics, and Music
Robleh Wais
8/2/10