From archive (archive) Subject: Still River by Hal Clement From: djl@pbhye.UUCP (Dave Lampe) Organization: Pacific * Bell, San Ramon, CA Date: 4 Jul 87 19:00:06 GMT This line deliberatly left blank. STILL RIVER by Hal Clement Mr. Clement writes stories about weird and wonderful environments such as the classic MISSION OF GRAVITY or CLOSE TO CRITICAL or about really alien aliens such as NEEDLE. Still River is a story about an environment used by Edgar Rice Burroughs and Lin Carter among others (I can't be more specific without spoiling it). In this book the environment is made believable. In the far future a group of students at a galactic university is assigned a project. They will be dropped on an enigmatic planetoid and must discover why it has an atmosphere. This assignment has been given to hundreds of students before but the reports are sealed to prevent cheating. Each student has his/her own theory and a plan of investigation, but the planet has a way of disrupting all the plans. This is not one of Clement's best books, but if you like hard science in your science fiction, even a mediocre book by Hal Clement is better than 95% of the rest of the bookstore. Ballantine Books ISBN 0-345-32916-3 $16.95 (hardcover) Dave Lampe @ Pacific Bell {dual,ihnp4,hoptoad}!ptsfa!djl (415) 823-2408 From archive (archive) Subject: _Still River_ by Hal Clement (mild spoiler) From: duane@anasaz.UUCP (Duane Morse) Organization: Anasazi Inc., Phoenix AZ Date: 10 Sep 89 01:13:11 GMT Time: thousands of years from now Place: planet Enigma 88 SF elements: advanced technology, different species working together Introduction: Enigma 88 is a planet which has an atmosphere which, given the planet's low mass, it shouldn't have. It's been used as a lab test for university-level science students for a long time. A group of 5 students, including one human, explores the planet in order to solve the enigma. Main storylines: exploring the planet, learning about the cultures and physical abilities of the participants. Critique: I'm a fan of this author, and I'm sorry to say this book's a real clunker. It's the most scientific of all the books I've read by him, but it's very, very dull. For example, one of the students, an alien, almost freezes. She says, "If temperature gets too low, my air starts to condense." The human replies, "That's right; nitrosyl chloride has an awful steep vapor pressure curve." Most of the story is dialogue, and not particularly interesting dialogue either. About half-way through, I started speed reading: I didn't care about the characters, and I wasn't even interested in learning the solution to the enigma. Rating: 2.0 out of 4.0 - dull, hard to finish. -- Duane Morse ...{asuvax or mcdphx}!anasaz!duane (602) 861-7609 From archive (archive) Subject: Oldie review: ICEWORLD From: davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (Wm E. Davidsen Jr) Organization: *IX Public Access UNIX, Schenectady NY Date: 12 Mar 90 04:18:08 GMT This is a review of a book which you may have to find in a used book store. If that bothers you, hit N now. There are some major spoilers. This is sort of a juvenile, which I read as a kid when it came out in 1955 or so. It was in paper a few times, as well as hardcover. Although there are adults in the book, some of the major human characters are children. It's pretty available, I've seen it at Boskone, Worldcons, and several used book stores. Iceworld Hal Clement The story is about a group of aliens trading with the earth, giving worthless metals in trade for organics which the aliens use for drugs. It seems that the aliens want to by pass the humans and get the drugs from the source. This is not because of the price, but the volume of drugs involved. It is helpful to bear in mind the public attitudes prevailing after World War Two. At some point it seems that one alien must make a trip to earth's surface. This has to be done without attracting attention or scaring off the "natives" who participate in the trade. The aliens have no "gut feel" for the chemical processes which occur at low temperatures, and what happens to chemicals on earth when raised to alien norms. Kind of obvious to us, but well done. The aliens have a hard time believing that life on a cold planet is really intelligent, or even that it exists at all. Hal Clement is known for creating alternate races and planets, and his aliens in this one have a higher temperature than is common on earth, so much so that they breath sulpher as a gas. The ability of a race which operates at those temperatures to interract with and understand humans is stretching their technology. To appreciate the problems I had to picture us trading with a race who sail their boats on liquid hydrogen. The aliens know about as much of earth temperature worlds as we do of gas giants. Like most of his books, this one has an orderly ending, all loose ends tied, and answers to all of the questions it raised. Since this is a book about the aliens problems with humans, rather than humans and aliens, the characters of the aliens are much better defined. Perhaps a younger Hal Clement didn't mean to leave the humans sketchy, or it may be for effect. At any rate I didn't feel as though I wanted to spend an evening with any of the humans. -- bill davidsen - davidsen@sixhub.uucp (uunet!crdgw1!sixhub!davidsen) sysop *IX BBS and Public Access UNIX moderator of comp.binaries.ibm.pc "Getting old is bad, but it beats the hell out of the alternative" -anon