Fred Hoyle was a down-to-earth, argumentative Yorkshireman who became the voice of British astronomy. He devised the steady-state theory of the universe and worked out how the elements are formed in the nuclei of stars. This book tells the story of one of the twentieth century's most distinguished and controversial scientists.

Through the life of Hoyle, this book chronicles the triumphs, jealousies, rewards, and feuds of a rapidly developing scientific field, in a narrative animated by a cast of colourful astronomers, keeping secrets, losing their tempers, and building their careers here on Earth while contemplating the nature of the stars.

1. Coming to light
2. Hut No. 2
3. Into the limelight
4. New world
5. Under fire
6. New genesis
7. The end of the endless cosmos
8. Fighting for space
9. Storm clouds
10. 'Dear Mr Hogg'
11. His institute
12. The end of the beginning
13. The Astronomer Hoyle
14. The beginning of the end
15. Freelance scientist
16. Apocalyptic visions
17. Anti-Darwin
18. A new cosmology