| Hal Clement | |
|---|---|
| Born | May 30, 1922 Somerville, Massachusetts |
| Died | October 29, 2003 (aged 81) Milton, Massachusetts |
| Pen name | (legal name) Harry Clement Stubbs, George Richard |
| Occupation | Novelist, military pilot, science teacher |
| Genres | Science fiction |
| Literary movement | Hard science fiction |
| Notable work(s) | Mission of Gravity, "Uncommon Sense" |
Harry Clement Stubbs (May 30, 1922 – October 29, 2003) better known by the pen name Hal Clement, was an American science fiction writer and a leader of the hard science fiction subgenre.
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Stubbs was born in Somerville, Massachusetts and died in Milton, Massachusetts.
He went to Harvard, graduating with a B.S. in astronomy in 1943. While there he published his first story, "Proof", in the June 1942 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. His further educational background includes an M.Ed. (Boston University 1946) and M.S. in chemistry (Simmons College 1963).
During World War II Clement was a pilot and copilot of a B-24 Liberator and flew 35 combat missions over Europe with the 68th Bomb Squadron, 44th Bomb Group, based in England with 8th Air Force. After the war, he served in the United States Air Force Reserve, and retired with the rank of colonel. He taught chemistry and astronomy for many years at Milton Academy in Milton, Massachusetts.
Clement received the 1998 recognition as a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA). In 1996 he retroactively received a 1946 Hugo Award for his short story "Uncommon Sense".
His best-known novel, Mission of Gravity (1954), is the account of a land and sea expedition across the superjovian planet Mesklin to recover a stranded scientific probe. The natives of Mesklin are centipede-like intelligent beings about 50 centimeters in length. Various episodes hinge on the fact that Mesklin's fast rotational speed causes it to be considerably deformed from the spherical, and its effective surface gravity to vary from approximately 3 gn at the equator to approximately 700 gn at the poles.
Clement's article "Whirligig World" describes his approach to writing a science fiction story:
"Writing a science fiction story is fun, not work. ... the fun... lies in treating the whole thing as a game. ... the rules must be quite simple. They are; for the reader of a science-fiction story, they consist of finding as many as possible of the author's statements or implications which conflict with the facts as science currently understands them. For the author, the rule is to make as few such slips as he possibly can ... Certain exceptions are made [e.g., to allow travel faster than the speed of light], but fair play demands that all such matters be mentioned as early as possible in the story..."
He also painted astronomically oriented artworks under the name George Richard.
Clement was a frequent guest at science fiction conventions, especially in the eastern United States, where he usually presented talks and slide shows about writing and astronomy. The Hal Clement Award for Young Adults for Excellence in Children's Science Fiction Literature is presented in his memory at Worldcon each year.[1]
Clement died in Milton Hospital at the age of 81. He died in his sleep, most likely due to complications of diabetes.
Compared with contemporary science fiction authors like Isaac Asimov or Poul Anderson, Clement was parsimonious in naming fictional planets.[2] Those that he created as settings include a number of notably unusual worlds. They include: