I read this after reading the blog on the Penguin Classics website and then discussing it with my Dad, it was one of the first science fiction books he read when he was a teenager. This is a thrilling read, the science is clear and beautifully explained, the characters are only too real and understandable, the plot is excellent and keeps moving along with a lot of surprises. I would recommend this to anyone, whether they like science fiction or not, as just a wonderful read and a book that explains difficult ideas, both scientific and philosophical, in a clear and engaging way.

This novel may share many of the ingredients of a Wells or Wyndham classic, but it lacks that indefinable skill in the writing that such authors possessed. There is much in the way of dull science in the lengthy build up to the arrival of the Cloud, but then the drama of extreme weather and the deaths of a quarter of the Earth's population is dispensed with in no more than a page or three - suggesting perhaps that the expression of human emotion, so necessary to engage most readers, was not Hoyle's forte. If you want a novel with the words "The" and "Cloud" in the title (!) I would recommend "The Purple Cloud" by M.P. Shiel, if you can get hold of a copy.