Reviewing Star Light by Hal Clement

 

Star Light is a 1971 science fiction novel by Hal Clement. The novel is a sequel to his Mission of Gravity. In this book, an interstellar-exploring humanity is conducting a scientific expedition to a world named Dhrawn. This planet has a surface gravity forty times that of Earth, which is inconvenient for humans, but perfectly comfortable for their recent allies, the Mesklinites (encountered in Mission of Gravity). In collaboration with the humans, who have far superior technology, but physiology completely incompatible with Dhrawn, the Mesklinites are exploring the planet's surface. Even they are hampered by an atmosphere which contains oxygen, toxic to them, and must either work in sealed settlements and vehicles or in air-suits for extra-vehicular activity.

The story centers on Dondragmar, captain of one of the land-cruisers exploring Dhrawn. He repeatedly encounters unexpected obstacles in exploring the planet and must, with the help of human observers about 30 light-seconds away, protect his ship and crew from a world that nobody involved fully understands.

The most interesting thing about this novel, to me, is the hard s.f. aspects. Huge parts of the story turn on the chemical and physical interactions of atmospheric water and ammonia and the xenometeorology they create. Also quite important is the sheer physical distance of the humans' space station from the surface, which means even light-speed communication takes 30 seconds to go one way. I'm not aware of much hard s.f. being published these days, and it creates a very different feel to the story.

It does, however, have the usual shortcoming of such fiction: It doesn't have much in the way of character development. Practically, it seems like you could choose interesting, well-developed characters or profound technical competence in your story-telling. There are, however, interesting politics developed, both among the humans of the space station and between them and their Mesklin allies. The Mesklinites are quite happy to help the humans explore the planet, but have distinct goals of their own, some of which they hide from the humans, which, in turn, creates further dangers for them since they don't have high-speed communication of their own.

My verdict: It's a fun read and I like reading hard s.f. like this sometimes for the crisp, clean style of thinking. I wouldn't call it great literature, but not everything has to be. I enjoyed it, and I suspect someday I'll read this and the earlier book back to back. (I read Mission of Gravity several years ago.)