The Black Cloud by Fred Hoyle

I was reading recently one of the most impressive science fiction books I have come across for a long time, although it actually dates from 1957.  It is the Black Cloud by Fred Hoyle, the noted cosmologist.  While not without flaws, it really impresses me in two ways.

The first is it is very successful in portraying working scientists, which is quite rare in film and fiction.  The only really successful portrayal I can recall in film is the old Dambusters film (I hope Peter Jackson's turns out as good).  Arthur C Clarke can also be convincing in the regard, and certainly was amazingly prescient.  Novels that tackle the interchange of ideas are quite difficult to pull off as Aldous Huxley.  I suppose my favourites in that line would be Thomas Love Peacock's, although some might find that too close to a set of caricatures. 

The second is its imagining of an alien life form, which I find convincing as something entirely different from us yet still conceivable as an intelligence.  The edition I have has an afterword by Richard Dawkins, who although a general admirer was a critic of the supposed origin of the creature.  Hoyle supposes it gradually forming out of a cloud, which does not strike me as absurd, and I think might be seen as a form of evolution.  However, I find it harder to imagine Hoyle's ideas of many such creatures roaming about and I am not sure that they would have any interest in procreation.