Mission of Gravity

By Hal Clement

   As I understand it from the prologue of the edition I read, Mr. Clement was a high school physics teacher when he wasn't writing hard science fiction. That goes a long way towards explaining his writing style. Its a style I don't particularly enjoy, but that might be my failure and not that of the author. I found it to be condescending and simplistic - "You wouldn't understand the science, so take my word for it". But then again, I might not understand the science, but gravity and centrifugal force aren't all that much of a mystery to me, I don't think. Newton explained them fairly well several hundred years ago.

   All that aside. the story is a good premise, but the telling leaves a bit to be desired. Mr. Clement had a solid grasp of the elements of his story, but lacked the imaginative verve to make it a spell-binder. Its a completely linear story with little or no sub-plot, very little character development, and -well- no "pizz-azz". It is an easy to read light study into the effects of gravity and centrifugal force on a body that is roughly the size of Jupiter but rotates at roughly 1000 times faster than Earth...imagine Jupiter with a 10 minute "day". Now, populate it with intelligent centipedes that know English and you have the beginnings of this story...

   To be honest, I had a hard time sticking with this one. I read two other novels while reading this one, simply to take a break from the single-minded plot. It did make for good bed-time reading though. No trouble sleeping after a chapter or two...quite the reverse. I suppose that I should mention that this is considered a classic. So is Moby Dick, but its still boring. At least Moby Dick has memorable characters and dialog ("Call me Ishmael...") as this one did not. As I write this, I cannot recall a single characters name. Maybe that's because they had no character.