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    Cover of In the Ocean of Night

    In the Ocean of Night

    Gregory Benford · 1977

    From the back cover Warner paperback February 2004: 2019: NASA astronaut Nigel Walmsley is sent on a mission to intercept a rogue asteroid on a collision course with Earth. Ordered to destroy the comet, he instead discovers that it is actually the shell of a derelict space probe -- a wreck with just enough power to emit a single electronic signal... 2034: Then a reply is heard. Searching for the source of this signal that comes from outside the solar system, Nigel discovers the existence of a sentient ship. When the new vessel begins to communicate directly with him, the astronaut learns of the horrors that await humanity. For the ship was created by an alien race that has spent billions and billions of years searching for intelligent life... to annihilate it.

    Science FictionFiction & Literature
    Open LibraryAmazon
    Stats for nerds
    2recommend
    4mentions
    2people
    2018–2023years
    50% recommend50% neutral

    Mentions per year

    201820192020202120222023

    What Hacker News says

    1. admissionsguyNov 2023
      "Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents" (Saw it recommended here, was hoping it would help me get unfucked. It didn't.)

      "In the Ocean of Night" by Gregory Benford. Very nice XXth century style sci-fi. Written by an academic, so it describes lots of nasty committee meetings.

      "The Fish That Ate the Whale" - about bananas

      "Count Belisarius" by Robert Graves - historical novel, Byzantium, early Christians

      "My World Line" by George Gamow - autobiography; not very relatable for someone with a lower class background

      thread
    2. abecedariusApr 2018
      And in the 1970s by Gregory Benford, In the Ocean of Night.
      thread
    3. abecedariusJul 2021
      > This particular proposed resolution to Fermi’s Paradox question is a very recent addition. It takes its name from the novel The Dark Forest

      The same idea was in Gregory Benford's novel In the Ocean of Night in the 1970s.

      thread
    4. abecedariusMay 2019
      The earliest I remember was by Greg Benford: something in the series that started with In the Ocean of Night (1970s). I think it was that novel, but I'm not sure; but towards the end of the one I'm thinking of, as this picture of the universe was coming together, a character thought of the nighttime sky as like the eyes of hungry predators surrounding a campfire.

      (Not to say I think this theory about the Fermi paradox is a very good one.)

      thread

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