Today is May 30, and it is the birthday of two writers I want to highlight. Because they wrote such different types of fiction, I’m going to do two separate posts.

Hal Clement, Photo courtesy of Alchetron, The Free Social Encyclopedia

The first of these is Hal Clement (1922-2003). Clement wrote what is generally regarded as hard science fiction, and he was among the hardest of hard sf writers. Clement taught high school chemistry and astronomy at Milton Academy in Milton Massachusetts.

His work has sadly fallen out of print.

It was while he was an undergraduate at Harvard majoring in astronomy that he sold his first short story, “Proof”, to John W. Campbell, Jr. It was published in the June 1942 issue of Astounding.  Three more stories appeared in 1942

After graduating in 1943, Clement was a pilot in World War II and flew 35 combat missions. He would go on to earn master’s degrees in education and chemistry.

I had the privilege of meeting him at Conestoga. He attended in 2001 and caem back every year until his death.

Clement wrote several books that are regarded as classics in the field.  One of these was Mission of Gravity. I read it in junior high, so my memory is a little fuzzy on the details. It is set on a planet (Mesklin) with a rotation spin so fast that the planet is a flattened spheroid. The result of this is that the pull of gravity varies greatly from the poles to the equator. An astronaut is at the equator (where his weight is about three times greater than it is on Earth.) There is a probe or spaceship at the pole the astronaut needs access to in order to get off the planet. The gravitational pull is too strong there for him to survive.

So, in order to get what he needs, he makes arrangements with the local sentient lifeforms. The Msklenites resemble centipedes, although there are some differences. They make the journey for the astronaut.

The book is in many ways a travelogue of what Mesklin is like. As the gravity changes with latitude, what the Mesklinites can and can’t do changes. It spawned two sequels, a short story “Lecture Demonstration” and another novel, Starlight. Clement also wrote an essay about the science behind the story, “whiligig World”. NESFA published a three volume omnibus of Clement’s work. The first was a trio of novels. More on that below. The second was a collection of short stories. The third was the Mesklin novels.

The other novel that is regarded as a classic is Needle. It’s one of the novels in the first NESFA omnibus, Trio for Slide Rule and Typewriter. The other two novels are Iceworld and Close to Critical.

The legend goes that John W. Campbell said it was impossible to write a classic mystery witih clues and such in science fiction. I’m pretty sure Cammpbell made these kinds of statements because he knew it would provoke writers to take up the challenge.

Clement took up the challenge. Needle is about an interstellar cop looking for a criminal fugitive. The two aliens can live in a human. The story takes place on a small island. Clement plays fair with the reader and gives all the clues to solve the myster. It also had a sequel, Through the Eye of a Needle.

I was fortunate to get the NESFA volumes signed when I met Hal Clement. I had been reading his work since I came acorss it as part of the Ballantine Best of Series.

It’s been a while since I read any of his work. I have been wanting to read the Mesklin series all the way through, but I haven’t found the time.

I’ve also got the other novels he wrote. Clement continued to write until his death. His final novel, Noise, was published a month before he died.

Clement was a nice, approachable gentleman. He always had something interesting to say on his panels at Conestoga. I was surprised and a little angered in 2004 when the convention didn’t have a memorial panel for him.

I don’t read as much science fiction as I used to and certainly not as much as I would like. There aren’t too many writers writing the type of hard science fiction Hal Clement did. It’s a shame that his work is out of print.