STILL RIVER

Rating:
Summary: Think You Know Your Science?
Review: Hal Clement practically defined the sub-genre of super-hard science fiction with his Mission of Gravity in the '50s. This book continues in that tradition. Still River is based on real scientific facts that you can go out and verify in your local high school science lab. It takes Jules Verne's old story of Journey to the Center of the Earth and creates a world where you really can travel to the center of the planet. For this purpose Clement assembles a group of very varied alien beings and one human, students sent on an (ostensible) assignment to the planet Enigma 88 to determine how such a small planet has kept an atmosphere. The story revolves around their various misadventures as the planet keeps upsetting all their assumptions and oversights, and thereby getting them into deeper and deeper trouble. A very good science puzzle story (and it really helps if you have a pretty good knowledge of inorganic chemistry under some fairly extreme conditions). The characters are not very well realized (though better than in some of Clement's works); this is a typical failing of his. But at least the portrayed motivations and modes of thought are logical and consistent for each type of being. Not up to the standards of Mission of Gravity or Needle, but entertaining. Recommended for those who enjoy seeing entire fantastic worlds built upon sound science.

Rating:
Summary: Hal gets the chemistry right for a scientific puzzle
Review: This is a slightly odd book.

Hal Clement has been renowned for writing SF with real science, and his early novel "Mission of Gravity" is a classic of physics and chemistry. If you can appreciate this ultra-scientific approach, with little emotional content, you might really enjoy "Still River".

The plot is fairly straightforward: five students from an advanced interstellar culture are left alone on the small planet Enigma 88 as a practical assignment towards getting their advanced degrees.

Enigma 88 is a weird place. It orbits an O-type supergiant, and stars like that aren't supposed to have planets at all. It also has an atmosphere, despite being small. Although the students are pretty capable, it doesn't take long for some of them to be in physical danger.

I said that there was little emotional content. That's because most of the species of this interstellar culture are extremely reserved by our standards and have strong codes of privacy. There is one human on the expedition, Molly, and we do learn a little more about her feelings. Perhaps deliberately, Clement doesn't give many details about this culture - it adds to the slightly odd, detached, understated tone of the book.

The author succeeds in what he surely set out to do - create a scientific SF adventure puzzle. His aliens have a definite reality about them, perhaps because they do seem to think differently to us.

If you've read anything by Hal Clement, please try this - its my favourite of his novels.

Rating:
Summary: Hal gets the chemistry right for a scientific puzzle
Review: This is a slightly odd book.

Hal Clement has been renowned for writing SF with real science, and his early novel "Mission of Gravity" is a classic of physics and chemistry. If you can appreciate this ultra-scientific approach, with little emotional content, you might really enjoy "Still River".

The plot is fairly straightforward: five students from an advanced interstellar culture are left alone on the small planet Enigma 88 as a practical assignment towards getting their advanced degrees.

Enigma 88 is a weird place. It orbits an O-type supergiant, and stars like that aren't supposed to have planets at all. It also has an atmosphere, despite being small. Although the students are pretty capable, it doesn't take long for some of them to be in physical danger.

I said that there was little emotional content. That's because most of the species of this interstellar culture are extremely reserved by our standards and have strong codes of privacy. There is one human on the expedition, Molly, and we do learn a little more about her feelings. Perhaps deliberately, Clement doesn't give many details about this culture - it adds to the slightly odd, detached, understated tone of the book.

The author succeeds in what he surely set out to do - create a scientific SF adventure puzzle. His aliens have a definite reality about them, perhaps because they do seem to think differently to us.

If you've read anything by Hal Clement, please try this - its my favourite of his novels.