Hal Clement
Mission of Gravity (1954)
Reviewed: 1997-11-16

A science fiction classic and Hal Clement's masterpiece. Mission of Gravity is one of the most memorable books of the genre and the epitome of hard SF.

Central to the story is the misshapen giant planet Mesklin, one of the most extreme worlds ever conceived in SF (now known to be impossible but physically plausible at the time of writing). At the poles, it has a crushing gravity some 700(!) times that of Earth. However, the planet spins so fast, one revolution every 18 minutes, that the counteracting centrifugal force results in a mere 3g at the equator. Incredible storms plow the cold hydrogen atmosphere and liquid methane seas. Human scientists have landed a probe at Mesklin's south pole, expecting to learn more about the nature of gravity. Unfortunately, the custom-engineered rocket with its expensive payload of specialized instruments has failed to take off again, and most of the information gathered is not accessible by telemetry.

By a stroke of sheer luck Charles Lackland, a scientist exploring Mesklin on the surface in the barely human-accessible equator region, runs into a group of natives. Some 40cm long, with a caterpillar-like body sporting many sets of legs with sucker feet and several sets of arms ending in pincers, these Mesklinites are really at home in the 200..700g region of their planet. Barlennan, captain of the Bree, is a free-lance trader-explorer(-pirate?) from a pre-industrial society. On the search for profit and adventure he has taken his ship and crew to the nearly weightless region at the Rim of the World. Barlennan agrees to help the alien explorers and, equipped with some radios, travel to the pole in exchange against weather forecasts and whatever other help and advice the humans may be able to provide, mostly from orbit.

The voyage of the Bree is an odyssey across the surface of an incredible world. Clement makes ample use of the ramifications of Mesklin's extreme conditions. There is no rocket science, just the occasional thorough application of school physics, which gives startling results. The human characters remain lackluster throughout, but the Mesklinites, led by their shrewd captain Barlennan and his smart second-in-command Dondragmer, are gorgeous. Far from being content with the meager help the humans promised them these sharp traders are fully intent on stealing the secrets of a superior science from their alien partners.

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