This obit hit my email recently, prompting me to dust off two Hal Clement books I have - Mission of Gravity and Iceworld. Although "hard" sf has never been my particular love, Mission was one of those classics of the form that a young SF fan had to read, and I do remember it with fondness. Iceworld I recently obtained, but haven't read. It also dates from the early 50s.
Anyway, here is the sad news about the author:
November 5, 2003
PASSINGS
Harry Stubbs, 81; Wrote Science Fiction Novels as Hal Clement
>From Staff and Wire Reports
Harry Stubbs, 81; Wrote Science Fiction Novels as Hal Clement
>From Staff and Wire Reports
Harry Clement Stubbs, 81, a science fiction writer
whose most famous novel was "Mission of Gravity" underthe pseudonym Hal Clement, died Oct. 29 of natural causes in Milton, Mass.
Known for pairing information with imagination, Stubbs was a leader in the world-building science fiction genre ^× in which writers employ plausible science to create a fictional world.
"Mission of Gravity," first serialized in Astounding Science Fiction [now Analog] magazine in 1953, was set on a disc-like planet called Mesklin. The planet had a gravity 700 times that of Earth, and a 6-inch fall could be fatal to natives.
Born in Somerville, Mass., and reared in Boston,
Stubbs became intrigued with science and science
fiction in 1930 by a Buck Rogers comic strip. Seeking explanations, he checked out an astronomy book and Jules Verne's novel "Trip to the Moon" from the public library. He went on to earn a bachelor's in astronomy from Harvard, and after serving as Army Air Forces bomber pilot toward the end of World War II, obtained a master's in education from Boston University and a
master's in chemistry from Simmons College.
Stubbs, who taught high school science for 40 years, published about 18 Hal Clement science fiction books and numerous short stories, as well as scholarly science articles under his own name.
Anyway, here is the sad news about the author:
November 5, 2003
PASSINGS
Harry Stubbs, 81; Wrote Science Fiction Novels as Hal Clement
>From Staff and Wire Reports
Harry Stubbs, 81; Wrote Science Fiction Novels as Hal Clement
>From Staff and Wire Reports
Harry Clement Stubbs, 81, a science fiction writer
whose most famous novel was "Mission of Gravity" underthe pseudonym Hal Clement, died Oct. 29 of natural causes in Milton, Mass.
Known for pairing information with imagination, Stubbs was a leader in the world-building science fiction genre ^× in which writers employ plausible science to create a fictional world.
"Mission of Gravity," first serialized in Astounding Science Fiction [now Analog] magazine in 1953, was set on a disc-like planet called Mesklin. The planet had a gravity 700 times that of Earth, and a 6-inch fall could be fatal to natives.
Born in Somerville, Mass., and reared in Boston,
Stubbs became intrigued with science and science
fiction in 1930 by a Buck Rogers comic strip. Seeking explanations, he checked out an astronomy book and Jules Verne's novel "Trip to the Moon" from the public library. He went on to earn a bachelor's in astronomy from Harvard, and after serving as Army Air Forces bomber pilot toward the end of World War II, obtained a master's in education from Boston University and a
master's in chemistry from Simmons College.
Stubbs, who taught high school science for 40 years, published about 18 Hal Clement science fiction books and numerous short stories, as well as scholarly science articles under his own name.
posted by:
|
-
Re: Hal Clement, RIP
Wed, December 3, 2003 - 2:22 PMHe was a great man, and will be missed by the community. His impartial judgment will surely be missed from the Writers of the Future board. I had the privilege to meet Mr. Clement this past year at Conestoga, and he was as delightful as his reputation suggested. -
-
Re: Hal Clement, RIP
Tue, May 17, 2005 - 7:13 AMI read the book 'Mission of Gravity' slowly and carefully, like the mission of the title, plodding because I wanted to learn and understand everything carefully.
But the other half of the pleasure of his book was that he wrote so kindly and carefully, you just know he must've been a master science teacher.
While the worldbuilding of 'Mission' is superlative in originality and scientific precision, the wonder-inspiring tone is what makes it exceptional as literature. -
-
Re: Hal Clement, RIP
Mon, May 23, 2005 - 9:23 PMClement, (1922-2005) whose real name was Harry Clement Stubbs, comes by his position naturally. He earned a B.S. degree in astronomy in 1943 and, after piloting a B-24 in World War II, an M.Ed at Boston University in 1947. He has since acquired a M.S. in chemistry.
He taught high school science and mathematics for many years at Milton Academy in Massachusetts, and he had been a part-time writer of science fiction since he was a sophomore in college. "Proof" appeared in 'Astounding' in 1942, and he had sold most of his fiction to 'Astounding'/'Analog' ever since.
...
Clement's first novel was "Needle". Serialized in 'Astouding' in 1949, it concerned an interstellar detective who is a quasi-viral symbiote; it must co-exist with a boy in order to find a criminal hiding on Earth.
"Iceworld", which describes how Earth would appear to an interstellar narcotics agent who has evolved on a much hotter planet, was serialized in 1951.
"Mission of Gravity", serialized in 1953, was the first of Clement's alien-planet novels in which he constructed an imaginery planet and then fashioned a story to take place on it.
The novel tells the story of Mesklin, a planet with 700 times Earth's graviuty at the poles and, because of its rapid spin, only two or three times Earth's gravity at the equator. Earth explorers, whose experimental probe has crashed at one pole, play only a minor role; the important characters are the centimedelike Mesklinites, who have evolved under high gravity and must unlearn at the equator the attitudes their environment has instilled in them.
Other Clement novels include "Cycle of Fire", "Close to Critical", and "Star Light".
"Mission of Gravity" is a touchstone novel; if readers don't like it they probably won't like hard-core science fiction.
- Gratefully taken from James Gunn's excellent "The Road To Science Fiction, Volume Three."
-
-
