"One of the greatest works of science fiction ever written." - Richard Dawkins"Without a question the most intelligently written science fiction story I have ever read . . . A terrific yarn." - Charlotte Observer"An eerie story which demands the reader's attention from start to finish." - Denver Post"[A] rattling good story . . . a really thrilling book. There is a largeness, generosity, and jollity about the whole spirit of the book that reminds one of the early We...

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 e...

Young Peter, a student of Byzantine art forms at Moscow University, through a cryptic sentence in a lecture receives a message to buy two books of his choice at exactly 1.30 pm in the university bookstore. When he opens the package, a third book, 'The Life of Pushkin', a very special copy indeed, has been included. It is this third book that leads Peter to Armenia on a series of adventures of the sort that Fred and Geoffrey Hoyle know how to spin so skilfully and so spell bindingly. Peter'...

Returning to the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge after a spell at the nuclear research labs of CERN in Geneva, Professor Isaac Newton is plunged into the centre of a baffling mystery. One of his research students, Mike Howarth, has picked up strange signals on his satellite telemetry equipment, signals that appear to emanate from a passing comet. Not long after he has passed the vital data into Isaac Newton's hands, Howarth is found dead. Soon after that, it becomes clear that some peopl...

Sequel to Rockets in Ursa MajorFrom a great distance the Yela's recorded message crackled through on the micro-earpiece: 'For the time being you have won. But I am not defeated so easily.'That had been three years ago, after Dick Warboys had repulsed the invading Yela by firing a lithium bomb into the Sun. But now that threat seems near fulfilment as appalled scientists detect the rapid approach of a vast, engulfing cloud of hydrogen. Can humanity survive on Earth ...

Mike Jerome, a likeable young TV writer, visits Professor Smitt, a physicist, who gives him an idea for a TV script: using some source of light, perhaps a laser beam, one could reduce the human structure to a form that could be transmitted into the future as electrical pulses - and thus create time travel.On the way home Mike is hit by a taxi, and when he recovers he finds the date is 1979 - ten years in the future. This is but the beginning of a series of bewildering, fascinating ...

Dr John West, Cambridge don and private investigator, was present at the trial of an odd duck, R. A. Adcock, who was being most uncooperative in answering questions about a bank robbery. At length, Adcock had made a dash for it from the courtroom - through a glass window, and what should have been a three storey drop to the street. But suddenly, Adcock wasn't there, and at once a swarm of bees came into the courtroom.Thus begins The Molecule Men, which takes many fascinating and te...

The Westminster Disaster is based on the present world shortage of high-grade uranium and the action turns on a Soviet threat to use nuclear blackmail against London.When the British Ambassador to the U.N. seeks to veto a Soviet demand for sanctions against South Africa, the threat becomes a hideous reality.Writing from a position of intimate knowledge of advanced trends in research and science administration, in this novel the Hoyles give vivid expression to their deep fea...

Originally published in 1977 and as second edition in 1979, this book argues that without energy sources on a vast scale our present society cannot survive. According to the author, Fred Hoyle, the technology to tap solar, wind or wave power on a large enough scale just does not exist. He considers nuclear fission to be the only source currently capable of supplying our needs. The author fills in the scientific background necessary to appreciate his arguments in his lucid, direct ...

Originally published in 1979, written at a time when the world stood on the brink of (another) energy crisis, this book argued that an alternative primary fuel had to be found and that the answer lay in the exploitation of nuclear fission. The book sought to dispel the anxieties of environmentalists by correcting what the authors felt were basic misconceptions about nuclear energy. The book distinguishes carefully between nuclear energy and nuclear explosions, as the authors believed that ...

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 cr...

Originally published in 1957, this book offers a challenging intellectual experience to the reader who wishes to understand the broad historical trends that determine the future of humanity on this planet. The book examines natural laws that govern humanity by looking at communities over long periods of time and noting patterns which become evident. The book includes discussions of communism, the crisis in food and population growth, the significance of industrialism and man and his religi...