Geoffrey Hoyle

Sir Fred Hoyle

The Incandescent Ones

Fred Hoyle

The year is 2087. The two great power blocs still face each other, with Britain having adopted the political role formerly occupied by Switzerland. For 75 years the world has known of the approach of another solar system which will pass between our sun and its outermost planets. The sun of the other solar system is named Helios by astronomers, and it too is found to have planets. Its fifth planet, Achilles, is the one most similar to Earth; and rival rocket ship expeditions are launched by the Euro-American and Communist blocs to explore this transient neighbour... From here on the story is weird and wonderful, the action lively; the scientific ideas are intriguing and the social satire is amusing.

Fifth Planet

The Scottish physicist Cameron saw a quasar in the sky over Australia. He dashed home to Scotland to find total catastrophe, and then he took over as natural leader.

The Inferno

Cameron, a tall, testy, whisky-drinking, nationalist-minded, Scottish physicist, may not have been an astronomer, but he knew the off things in the sky when he saw them. From an Australian mountaintop where he was advising on the location of a radiotelescope he saw what looked like Mars, in the wrong spot in the sky. But it wasn't Mars at all, it was a supernova ... no, not a supernova but a quasar. Knowing what would happen, Cameron dashed home to Scotland and found himself at a crossroads of his life. In the face of total catastrophe, and of intense heat, darkness and rain, he took over as natural leader with both the north and south of the United Kingdom turning to him for help. Sir Fred Hoyle, world-renowned astrophysicist, and his son, Geoffrey Hoyle, have set their newest science fiction thriller not only in London and Scotland, but also at the University of Charlottesville, and in Australia as well. The result is an intriguing, fast-paced novel written with a wry humour and offering some fascinating glimpses of and gibes at astronomy.

Originally written as a play and performed at the Mermaid Theatre, Easter 1962. It is the early 20th century. Man is seeking signs of life elsewhere in the universe, but all exploratory ships have been lost without a trace - except for DSP15. Thirty years after leaving earth, and given up for lost, DSP15 suddenly appears on radar screens at the space station at Mildenhall, England. Her crew had been frozen to prevent ageing, and as the ship settles to a landing, Dr Richard Warboys eagerly awaits with other scientists for word of what DSP15 has found. But there is no crew, only a message scratched into a metal surface, signed by the captain: "If this ship returns to Earth, then mankind is in deadly peril - God help you - " And so Earth becomes accidentally involved in a cosmic battle against a virtually omnipotent alien power, in a story suspenseful and exciting from cover to cover.

Geoffrey Hoyle

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