Mission of Gravity, by Hal Clement

[Arwena]

My friend’s Dad gave me this book, and this is a real oldie, from 1953. I’ve read Clement before and his special talent was in conjuring up really wicked strange worlds. This one was about Mesklin, a kind of super-fast rotating planet that had 3x earth gravity on the rim and 700x earth gravity in the center. It was formed into a kind of disk. Clement was as about as hard pure science as you could get. The book is like totally technical. No major character development here, and, in fact, no females. The Mesklinites seems to be 15 inch long 2 inch high armored creatures with a fear of falling any distance whatsoever, or of objects suspended above them. Acrophobia carried to new heights - play on words intended. The story is a quest that a band of Mesklinites makes for an earth rocket that crashed near the center of the planet, impossible ro access for weak earth creatures. Clement doesn’t explain how these earthmen got to Mesklin, and no computers here! He shows the Mesklinites pictures of earth with a kind of movie projector. However, Clement’s worlds are always a lot of fun to read about, and he had a major talent in creating them.

 

[AE35Unit]

I have this on my bookmooch wishlist,really want to read this one!

 

[clovis-man]

I read this one when it first came out and then again in the past year. I thought I would be disappointed due to the updates in our knowledge of planetary bodies. But I was mistaken. Mission of Gravity makes as much sense to me now as it did in the days of my youth, i.e., it withstands the test of time.

 

[Quokka]

Always liked Mission of Gravity, first contact where we are the aliens. There was also a sequel, short story and an article he wrote discussing the science behind the stories (none of which I have read). The sequel was Star Light but I think they are all included in Heavy Planet: The Classic Mesklin Stories, thanks for another reminder that I need to add this to the to read pile .

 

[Arwena]

Thanks for the info. Used copies of Heavy Planet is on sale at Amazon for from $ 1.29 to $ 107.