Sociopathic personalities in the SF of Sir Fred Hoyle?

[major_clanger]

Has anyone ever written a serious study of characterisation in Fred Hoyle's sf? I've been re-reading The Black Cloud and something that's very striking is how the protagonist Prof Chris Kingsley is not just manipulative and arrogant but displays every trait of being an outright sociopath. Yet he is portrayed by Hoyle as an enlightened technocrat who simply arranges less rationally-effective members of society to suit the greater good.

Now, The Black Cloud was Hoyle's first novel, published in 1957 - slightly suprisingly, given its underlying theme, two years before C.P. Snow's 'Two Cultures' lecture. It may be that Hoyle was expressing, in his typically blunt and acerbic manner, his own take on the issues Snow was later to articulate. But I've read most of Hoyle's fiction, and as I recall Kingsley is an extreme but by no means atypical Hoyle leading man. It's tempting to review his work to see if his attitude to such personality traits evolves over time, but I wonder if anyone has already looked at this?

Comments

[perlmonger.livejournal.com]

Both, I'd say: Kingsley's intelligence was incapable of predicting the irrational response of politicians. He would have found the cover up utterly incomprehensible if he'd lived to witness it.

To quote another character (from memory: it's years since I last read the book): "Worst thing for Kremlin is losing power."