conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What is a description for a book titled The Black Cloud about Lieutenant, Attorney, Generals with the genre: Mystery, Thriller & Suspense, Thrillers & Suspense?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The author has over 45 years of law enforcement experience as a Lieutenant with a sheriff's department and the Attorney Generals Office. He holds a BS in Police Science and Administration and is an Adjunct College Faculty member.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What is the first four paragraphs for this book?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The Black Cloud
  All the land to the east of this line, as far as New Zealand, was turned towards the Sun. In Australia, evening was approaching. Long shadows were cast across the cricket ground at Sydney. The last overs of the day were being bowled in a match between New South Wales and Queensland. In Java, fishermen were busying themselves in preparation for the coming night's work.
  Over much of the huge expanse of the Pacific, over America, and over the Atlantic it was night. It was three a.m. in New York. The city was blazing with light, and there was still a good deal of traffic in spite of recent snow and a cold wind from the northwest. And nowhere on the Earth at that moment was there more activity than in Los Angeles. The evening was well along there, midnight: the boulevards were crowded, cars raced along the freeways, restaurants were still pretty full.
  A hundred and twenty miles to the south the astronomers on Palomar Mountain had already begun their night's work. But although the night was clear and stars were sparkling from horizon to zenith, conditions from the point of view of the professional astronomer were poor, the 'seeing' was bad – there was too much wind at high levels. So nobody was sorry to down tools for the midnight snack. Earlier in the evening, when the outlook for the night already looked pretty dubious, they had agreed to meet in the dome of the 48-inch Schmidt.
  Paul Rogers walked the four hundred yards or so from the 200-inch telescope to the Schmidt, only to find Bert Emerson was already at work on a bowl of soup. Andy and Jim, the night assistants, were busy at the cooking stove.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What is five more paragraphs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: It was an odd commission. It came through Ann Halsey's agent. Would she accept an engagement on 25 February to play two sonatas, one by Mozart, the other by Beethoven, at some place in Gloucestershire? The fee named was high, very high even for an able young pianist. There would also be a quartet. No other details were given, except that a car would be waiting at Bristol for the 2 p.m. Paddington train.
  It wasn't until Ann went along to the restaurant car for tea that she discovered the identity of the quartet, which turned out to be none other than Harry Hargreaves and his crowd.
  The drive from Bristol to Nortonstowe passed very pleasantly. There was already a hint of an early spring. The chauffeur took them into the manor house, along corridors, opened a door. 'The visitors from Bristol, sir!'
  Kingsley had not been expecting anyone, but he recovered quickly. 'Hello, Ann! Hello, Harry! How nice!'
  The evening was a great success, both the dinner and the concert, and it was with great regret that the musicians prepared to leave the following morning.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What is the last five paragraphs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: In the evening he was sitting in his room gloomily when McNeil walked in, a McNeil gaunt and hollow-eyed.
  It was a cold day with driving rain, much the same sort of January day that Kingsley had experienced so many years ago, when I first read McNeil's astonishing account of the Black Cloud. All afternoon and evening I sat before an open fire in my rooms in Queens' College. After the conclusion, a conclusion reached in sadness, for McNeil had left us a few days earlier with the irrevocable permanency that only death can bring, I unsealed the last remaining packet. Inside was a small metal box that contained a roll of paper tape, yellowed by age. Punched in the paper were ten thousand or more tiny holes of the sort used by old-fashioned photo-electric readers. This was the code! With a flick I could have sent the paper into the fire, and in a brief second all possibility of any further communication with the Cloud would have been gone for ever.
  But this is not what I did. Instead I have had a thousand odd copies of the code made up. Should I distribute them throughout the world, in which event nothing can prevent someone, somewhere, sooner or later, getting into touch with the Cloud again? Do we want to remain big people in a tiny world or to become a little people in a vaster world? This is the ultimate climax towards which I have directed my narrative.
  Sir Fred Hoyle FRS (1915–2001) was a distinguished scientist, whose blunt, even abrasive, Yorkshire manner rubbed off on many of his science fiction heroes, including Christopher Kingsley, the lead character of this, his first and best-known novel. As an astronomer, Hoyle was famous for being wrong about the Big Bang theory of the origin of the cosmos. He was against it – the very name is his own sarcastic coining – preferring his own elegant and pugnaciously defended 'Steady State' theory. He was spectacularly right in his theory of how the chemical elements are forged, ultimately from hydrogen, in the interiors of stars. Indeed, many scientists feel that a serious injustice was done to Hoyle when he was denied a share in the Nobel Prize that was eventually given to others for this foundational theory. About his incursions into theoretical biology and evolutionary theory, the less said the better.
  The tragic ending of the novel is moving and deeply thought-provoking at the same time. It is followed by a gentle epilogue – again the contemplation by the log fire – which pulls the threads together and leaves us on a high. The last words leave us exhilarated, even stunned, as we look back on this astonishing novel: 'Do we want to remain big people in a tiny world or to become a little people in a vaster world? This is the ultimate climax towards which I have directed my narrative.'