Fred Hoyle was first and foremost a scientist, and a very good one at that. A professor of astronomy at Cambridge University with an international reputation in the fields of cosmology and astrophysics, he had made his name in the late 1940s with a paper on a revolutionary new 'steady-state' theory of the universe. Earlier theories that the universe is expanding had been confirmed by the work of the American astronomer Edwin Hubble in the 1920s, but this brought with it a problem. For this expansion meant that, going back in time, the universe had been progressively smaller, and this in turn implied a beginning when its volume was zero or very close to it.

Like many atheists Hoyle was strongly against the idea that the universe had a beginning, since this implied a cause, and a cause a creator. The appeal of the steady-state theory was that it allowed for a universe which has always been expanding with no beginning. Central to this was the proposition that as galaxies move apart new matter is created in the space between them, and the accretion of this matter over time eventually forms new galaxies.

The theory brought Hoyle to the attention of the media and in 1949 he was interviewed on BBC radio. It was during this interview that he coined the term 'Big Bang' to describe the notion that the universe had a beginning. He later denied he had meant the term derisively, but in a series of lectures for BBC radio in 1950 he again referred to "this Big Bang idea" and after that the name stuck. Whatever his intention, the radio series itself was very popular and a book based on it soon followed called The Nature of the Universe, an excellent read which Penguin published as a Pelican Book in 1963.

The chance discovery in 1964 of the Big Bang's afterglow, in the form of background radiation spread throughout the cosmos, effectively put an end to the steady-state theory, though Hoyle continued to defend it for some time after- wards. But by then few were listening and the Big Bang became the accepted paradigm, which it remains today.

Hoyle's busy academic career must have left him with little spare time to dash off sf novels, yet by 1971 he had eight to his name, along with two novellas and a collection of short stories. Some were co-authored by his son, Geoffrey, or the writer John Elliot, with whom Hoyle collaborated on A for Andromeda, a BBC television series screened in 1961, and a sequel, The Andromeda Breakthrough, which aired the following year, with Elliot then reworking both scripts into novels.

Hoyle's first novel, The Black Cloud, had been published by Penguin back in 1960 with the cover announcing, perhaps by way of a warning, that it was "science fiction by a scientist". Since then Penguin had published two more of his novels and in 1971 all three were reprinted. This time, however, David Pelham decided that instead of commissioning a designer to produce the covers, he would have a go himself.

The results more than did the books justice. Pelham's triptych of sleek black covers featured simple geometric designs based on shaded circles that cleverly linked to each book's contents. Colour was introduced for the stencilled typo- graphy, though in keeping with the covers' minimalist ambitions there was no sf banner, its absence further suggesting a comparison with the textbooks of Hoyle's day job.