The cosmic cloud

About the book

The galaxy's commerce has long avoided a vast dark cloud whose interior remains unknown. When passing ships begin to be dragged inside by an unexplained force, the familiar precaution of keeping one's distance no longer guarantees safety. Dur Nal and his companions are summoned to investigate after repeated losses defeat the authorities' first explanations. Their patrol belongs to a federation of strikingly different peoples, so cooperation across alien forms is already an ordinary condition of its work. Hamilton uses that established cosmic society as the background for an expanding external threat. The mystery combines a forbidden region, an earlier missing scientific expedition, and the urgent need to understand a power whose effects are visible even when its source cannot be seen.

• Unknown forces
• Interstellar cooperation
• Exploration and defense

Why read it

The mixed patrol crew gives the large-scale danger a practical team of investigators with contrasting physical capabilities.

English story text