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This is science fiction at its best. --Sunday Mail
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From two hundred light years across the universe comes a message of terror. Ten years from now, a new radio telescope picks up from the constellation of Andromeda a complex series of signals which prove to be a programme for a giant computer. When the computer begins to relay the information it receives from Andromeda the project assumes a vital importance, scientists find themselves possessing knowledge previously unknown to mankind, knowledge that could threaten the security of human life itself. Sir Fred Hoyle was Plumian Professor of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy at Cambridge University while John Elliott was a novelist, from their collaboration comes a work of major scientific interest and a remarkably original story that is as enthralling today.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Written in 1962, in the early days of radio astronomy, this novel describes what happens when a new radio telescope picks up a signal that appears to be the product of extraterrestrial intelligence. When the message is decoded, and turns out to be the blueprint for a supercomputer, opinion is divided as to whether the experiments it asks its operators to perform are intended for our benefit or our undoing.
At 173 pages this book is more of a novella than a full-length novel, and it fails to explore the issues raised as fully as one might like. However, it is a vivid and sometimes disturbing read and it remains a seminal work of the science fiction genre.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
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12 reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
A for Apotheosis
10 July 2002
Format:Hardcover
It is a sad fact that Fred Hoyle--astrophysicist, cosmologist, nucleosynthecist, panspermicist and generally polymath extraordinaire--is not better recognized as one of our greatest sci-fi authors. Without a doubt, this book is one of the best sci-fi novels I have ever read. (FYI, I also like Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Lewis Shiner, William Gibson, Philip K. Dick and H.G. Wells). All I can do is briefly outline the plot: An eccentric and somewhat egocentric radioastronmer...computer scientist detects a signal from the constellation Andromeda on Britain's largest radiotelescope that is obviously an intelligent message. Once decoded, it turns out to be a design for a highly advanced super-computer. Once built, the computer designs recombinant human DNA and grows highly advanced "human beings" with which it communicates in its apparent intent to take over the earth. Due to cold-war politics and the obvious advantages to the government of having a supercomputer, and not least to the protagonist's difficult personality, the government authorities won't believe him and refuse to pull the plug, moving this brilliant and exciting story inexorably along to its superb and tragic ending. The characters are complex and mutlifaceted and the story is a real thriller. Highly recommended.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Thought provoking and mind expanding
16 Mar 2005
Format:Paperback
I actually saw the TV series when I was a child. It was an amazing thing for me, it altered the way I looked at the world and the universe. The book is good, but the TV series was better. There are two main characters in the book. Dr Fleming and Andromeda. There also a female doctor Dawnay and others but I have to draw the line somewhere.
The story starts with Fleming, a radio astronomer, detecting an intelligent signal from space. It is discovered that squeezed in between the simple signal is an enormous amount of information. When decoded it is shown to be the plans for a powerful superconducting computer. OK obviously it looks like Contact ripped some of this off. So the govt decides to build the thing. They find that there is extra data which is intended to initialise the computer. After it is turned on the pace really starts to pick up. Slowly communication is establised. Then it finds out what we are made of and creates a living creature (well tells the humans how to make it), then eventually after a very suspicious suicide (a young girl seemingly hypnotised electocutes herself on two bars that project from the computer). The next thing we see is that the computer has analysed this girl and gives the instructions to create a new living creature , which turns out to be a clone of the girl. They christen her Andromeda.
Now the pace picks up. Always the scale seems to be expanding. The computer's influence is soon national, then global. Fleming becomes more and more convinced that it is evil. But you never actually know, and you don't know if Andromeda is human or something else, it is not certain what the purpose is ... but there is a purpose.
My appreciation of the book was influenced by the TV series so you might find it dry. There was a sequel called "Andromeda Breakthrough" which was nowhere near as interesting, though it did finally resolve the issue of "what was the motive" and "is it evil".
The story starts with Fleming, a radio astronomer, detecting an intelligent signal from space. It is discovered that squeezed in between the simple signal is an enormous amount of information. When decoded it is shown to be the plans for a powerful superconducting computer. OK obviously it looks like Contact ripped some of this off. So the govt decides to build the thing. They find that there is extra data which is intended to initialise the computer. After it is turned on the pace really starts to pick up. Slowly communication is establised. Then it finds out what we are made of and creates a living creature (well tells the humans how to make it), then eventually after a very suspicious suicide (a young girl seemingly hypnotised electocutes herself on two bars that project from the computer). The next thing we see is that the computer has analysed this girl and gives the instructions to create a new living creature , which turns out to be a clone of the girl. They christen her Andromeda.
Now the pace picks up. Always the scale seems to be expanding. The computer's influence is soon national, then global. Fleming becomes more and more convinced that it is evil. But you never actually know, and you don't know if Andromeda is human or something else, it is not certain what the purpose is ... but there is a purpose.
My appreciation of the book was influenced by the TV series so you might find it dry. There was a sequel called "Andromeda Breakthrough" which was nowhere near as interesting, though it did finally resolve the issue of "what was the motive" and "is it evil".
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Great story, believable characters
6 Nov 2004
Format:Paperback
Plot summary: a radio signal from the Andromeda "nebula" (galaxy) is a plan for a computer. The computer, when built, asks the scientists questions about what elements they are based on, etc. It then tells them how to build a cell from scratch, which multiplies until it becomes a dog-sized amoeba with a lidless eye and primitive brain. They hook it up to the computer as an input device. The computer then gives them instructions for building a human, who functions similarly. She helps the British build a great anti-missile missile and the British get all excited about becoming a great power again. But, of course, there is one scientist who knows what is really going on...the alien intelligence is using them, not vice versa....
This is a great story, in part because it is so realistic. Andromeda is about 1,000,000 light years away, so two-way communication with someone there would take too long. But to send instructions for building something to talk to is better. This inspired Carl Sagan's Contact, which is longer and more complicated but inferior in inspiration.
The characters are also fairly believable: the protagonist bucks all authority and is an alcoholic; the protagonist's girlfriend deceives him and feels terrible about it; the "scientists" who became mere bureaucrats decades earlier in their lives, and the earthy female biologist contribute to the background.
Another thing that makes this book so fun to read is that it was published in 1962, so all of the computer talk is very outmoded. It's so charming to read an author who believes he has to explain to the reader what a computer program is!
This is a great story, in part because it is so realistic. Andromeda is about 1,000,000 light years away, so two-way communication with someone there would take too long. But to send instructions for building something to talk to is better. This inspired Carl Sagan's Contact, which is longer and more complicated but inferior in inspiration.
The characters are also fairly believable: the protagonist bucks all authority and is an alcoholic; the protagonist's girlfriend deceives him and feels terrible about it; the "scientists" who became mere bureaucrats decades earlier in their lives, and the earthy female biologist contribute to the background.
Another thing that makes this book so fun to read is that it was published in 1962, so all of the computer talk is very outmoded. It's so charming to read an author who believes he has to explain to the reader what a computer program is!
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