EricW Posted July 22, 2021 Share Posted July 22, 2021 The Black Cloud was a story published in 1957, about a vast cloud of interstellar dust approaching the solar system. But the story takes an interesting twist when scientists discover the cloud is sentient. Its not a classic mythos story - no creeping horror, or dark alleyways, or repellent people with webbed fingers. But it does have people going insane, risking everything to touch the infinite, global geopolitical power plays, and the hint of a mystery beyond even the incomprehensible vastness of an immense being composed of gas and dust. So I think it deserves a long overdue place in the annals of the mythos. The author Fred Hoyle is an interesting person - although far less well known than greats like Einstein, he did groundbreaking scientific work on the nucleosynthesis of stars, performing the extraordinary feat of predicting the abundance of elements formed from the debris of supernova explosions well in advance of detailed observations. He didn't always get it right - his scientific reputation was somewhat tarnished by his support for the Steady State theory of cosmology, an early rival to the big bang theory. Or who knows - maybe he just saw things that others missed, and we just never understood what he was trying to explain. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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