[extropy-chat] Re: Hal Clement dead

[Christian Weisgerber]

Damien Broderick <thespike at earthlink.net> wrote:

> Famous `hard sf' writer Hal Clement (Harry Stubbs) has died at 81:
> http://www.locusmag.com/2003/News/10_Clement.html

I'm sad to hear this.  Hal Clement was one of my favorite authors.
His works have practically defined the hard SF subgenre.  Clement's
overall position in SF has been something of a paradox.  On the one
hand, weaknesses in his books are easy to point out (cardboard
characters, clunky prose) and he didn't receive any individual
awards for them, but on the other hand he was undisputely one of
the genre's greats.

In his non-writing life, Clement was a high school science teacher
and it shows in his novels.  No speculation about the nooks and
crannies of General Relativity, no, Clement remained firmly within
the borders of classical physics.  Elementary mechanics and
thermodynamics, a bit of chemistry.  The main topic of his novels
was the exploration of hostile environments by the protagonists,
sometimes human, sometimes alien, sometimes on Earth, sometimes
beyond.

-- 
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber                          naddy at mips.inka.de