Throughout the long history of astronomy, scientists have repeatedly written fictional stories, which often lend themselves to use in the classroom thanks to the authors' in-depth knowledge and an appealing storyline. This article uses the novel 'The Black Cloud', written by the well-known astronomer Fred Hoyle, to show which physical-astronomical tasks can be derived from it. For this purpose, the use of text excerpts as well as the whole novel is conceivable. Beyond the examples of distance determination and the thermodynamics of the atmosphere presented here, the book also offers interesting insights into the work of astronomers in the 1950s, which Hoyle was able to report on first-hand.