![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() From beginning to end he kept the faith, demonstrating that it was possible to extract artistry from the intricacies of physics and chemistry. He debuted with the short story “Proof” in 1942, written when he was still a teenager, and his final SF work, the novel Noise, was published in 2003-the year of his death. Clement was what we might call a planet builder, and he was one of the best.Ĭlement’s career is also one of the longest of any SF author, although except for a bright period in the ’50s he was never too prolific. Most famously with Mission of Gravity but palpable in so much of his work is this sense of a clockmaker or a sculptor who never tires of the delicate mechanics of his craft. Now remembered as a writer (he also did painting on the side), Clement was a trained astronomer and chemist who seemed eager (to the point of obsession) to convey his love for the wonders of the natural world to the rest of us mortals. I do, however, feel confident in giving a succinct and easily understandable definition for hard SF that will hopefully mellow the conversation: hard SF is Hal Clement. I took a chemistry course in college that I’ve basically forgotten everything about. Now, I’m just a lay reader I don’t have a degree in the hard sciences. There’s been an ongoing debate over the decades as to hard SF’s place in the context of SF literature, and even the basic question of what hard SF is. ![]()
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