Previous Shows
June 2003
Hour 25 Home Page
This Week's Show
Upcoming Shows
Audio Index
Current Calendar
Last Month's Calendar
On-Going Events
Authors on Tour
Literacy Education
Hour 25 Background
Links
Index to our previous shows
Hal Clement
|
On Tuesday - June 24th, 2003 - our guest on Hour 25 was one of the Grand Masters of Science Fiction, Hal Clement. It was my great pleasure to have the chance to sit down with Hal at this year's WorldCon in San Jose and chat with him about his books and other subjects. And now we get to share that conversation with you. Hal Clement is one of the persons who has done much to forge science fiction into what it is today. His books always appear on the lists of classic science fiction stories and are some of the defining works of our genre. From one of the first 'real' science fiction mysteries, to stories that put humans into contact with some of the most wonderfully weird but scientifically plausible alien worlds and creatures, his stories always delight, entertain and teach. Hal Clement's writing has done much to define what science fiction is and set a high standard for comparison for everyone else working in the field. |
And in case you were wondering what Hal's button says... Click here.
|
Hal accepting the First Fandom Lifetime Achievement Award for Sir Arthur C. Clarke at the 2002 WorldCon in San Jose. |
 Hal Clement's most recent book. He has a new book coming out this fall. Watch for it. |
 |
 |
 |
|
If you are new to the field of science fiction and have not yet discovered the joy and wonder of Hal Clement's writing, then the best way to get a quick introduction to his work is through this three volume set from NESFA Press. {And if you are a long time reader of Hal's, these books are a well produced and wonderful compendium of stories that you know and love.} These books contain classic stories that will delight, amaze and teach. And while doing that, they're also great 'reads'. Volume 1, Trio for Slide Rule and Typewriter contains three classic novels that were discussed in tonight's show. Needle, perhaps the first 'real' science fiction mystery, is a novel in which a an alien detective crash lands on Earth while pursuing a criminal. He must find this criminal and bring him to justice. But how is he to do this when his ship and all his equipment are destroyed and he and his quarry are both intelligent symbiotic viruses who could take up residence in any of Earth's teeming billions? To quote the detective, he is looking for a needle in a haystack, "except that the needle is camouflaged as a wisp of hay". Ice World deals with a group of drug smugglers who get their contraband from an almost unimaginably cold world and who have to find ways to deal with that world's alien natives to secure their source of illicit goods. But, this being a Hal Clement book where everything is turned on its head in the most logical of ways, that frigid alien world is the Earth. Close to Critical is a tale of adventure and friendship set on a world with a wickedly unpredictable environment. Volume 2, Music of Many Spheres, showcases Hal's short fiction. As he mentioned during the interview, Hal mostly writes novels so that he can have the space to explore all the implications of the ideas that he comes up with. But his short fiction maintains that sense of wonder and joy of intellectual exploration that characterizes his novels, its just that they're... well... er... shorter. {Think of them as snacks or appetizers and his novels as full seven course meals.} Within this volume you will find Hal's first published story, Proof, along with many other stories that take interesting ideas and follow them to their logical, if surprising, conclusions. Volume 3, Variations on a Theme by Sir Isaac Newton, contains all of Hal's writings about the heavy gravity world Mesklin and its strange inhabitants. This includes his classic novel Mission of Gravity, along with its sequel Starlight, a couple of short stories and a long out of print essay in which he describes the background for Mission of Gravity and shows the calculations behind the creation of this world. In Mission of Gravity a research rocket has landed in the polar regions of Mesklin, where the gravity is about 700 times greater than that of the Earth, and then failed to take off again with its cargo of data. The human scientists cannot go down to recover the rocket and its data, so they enlist the services of the intelligent natives of Mesklin to do the job for them. This brings Barlennan, a 10 inch long intelligent centipede - at least that is what he looks like - who is a trader who sails the seas of Mesklin, into contact with the humans. Although there are no villains in a traditional sense, each group has their own motivations for working together and they are sometimes at odds with each other because of this. Between the unique problems posed by this high gravity world and the conflicts caused by conflicting goals, Barlennan has his work cut out for him in trying to accomplish the job he has undertaken. This story does everything a good science fiction story should do. It is based on a reasoned extrapolation from the science we know, follows the logical consequences of the ideas behind the story, develops everything rigorously and does not bring in a solution to the problem by a deus ex machina that is revealed at the last minute. The conflicts between the characters are based on their backgrounds and motivations, not by the need to have "good guys" and "bad guys". Along the way your sense of wonder gets rewarded as Hal Clement explores all the logical, but unobvious, consequences of the story's premise. Take it from me, Mission of Gravity is a true classic of science fiction and is a story not to be missed. Contained within the covers of The Essential Hal Clement are some of the defining stories of the science fiction genre. They get my highest recommendation. The easiest way to get these books is by going directly to the NEFSA Press web site. They are not set up for on-line ordering <sigh>, but provide you with ways to order by fax or snail mail. |
||
 |
|
Listen to this week's show |
|
|
|
If you enjoyed this show and would like to know when other interviews are uploaded to the Hour 25 web site, then send an email to me at wwjames@earthlink.net and I will add your name to the free Hour 25 Newsletter mailing list. That way you'll get a brief notice in your email every time a new show gets uploaded to the web.
The Great Hour 25 Disk Crash of 2002 - On-Going News
As a result of our recent hard disk crash the Hour 25 newsletter mailing list has vanished into the digital darkness. It would be very helpful if subscribers to the Hour 25 Newsletter would resend their email addresses to me {wwjames@earthlink.net} so I can reconstitute the Newsletter mailing list. {If you have done this "post-crash" then I have your email address and you don't need to do anything.} New editions of the newsletter will start coming out "real soon now". In the same vein, if you previously sent in an entry for the Karen Willson Five Word Challenge, now would be a good time for you to fish around in your "sent mail" folder and resend your entry. Or come up with a new one and send it in. {And please put "Five Word Challenge" or some approximation thereof in the subject line of your email to make it easy for me to keep track of your entry.}
Links for more information relating to this week's show
|
Hal Clement
The Columbia Accident Space News - Mars Space News - Other For On-Going Updates on Space News ISS News |
Jack Hagerty and Jon C. Rogers
|
On Friday - June 6th, 2003 - our guests on Hour 25 were Jack Hagerty and Jon C. Rogers, respectively the author and illustrator of one of the absolutely coolest books I have ever laid my eyes upon, The Spaceship Handbook. At the Worldcon in San Jose a few months ago we set up shop in a room at one of the convention's hotels and then from morning till night Suzanne would bring in people for interviews and I would spend my time chatting with them for Hour 25. |
|
 |
Schedules being what schedules are, there were a couple of times when we had an hour free and no one scheduled for an interview. During one of those brief moments of free time I ran over to the Dealer's Room to do an experiment to see just how much money I could spend in a limited amount of time. But when I got to the Dealer's Room I discovered that Jack Hagerty was there selling copies of his book. Having just bought a copy of The Spaceship Handbook a few weeks before, this was an opportunity I could not pass up. So I ran over to his booth and spent most of my 'experimental time' chatting with him and getting him set up for an interview. Of course this did put a crimp in my plan to experimentally determine just how fast one could spend money at a WorldCon. But the other dealers' loss is your gain, because that gave you a chance to hear an interview with a couple of guys who have produced one of the most amazing and wonderful books I have ever read. |
So what is The Spaceship Handbook you might be wondering? Simply this, it is a lovingly researched encyclopedia of all those spaceships that never were. From the imaginings of the early pioneers of astronautics, through designs for real or conceptual vehicles that didn't get built, all the way out to rocketships that appeared in Science Fiction books, movies, TV shows or comic strips. {If you don't believe me, then just check out the Table of Contents for The Spaceship Handbook.}
I was astounded, as well as 'amazed' and 'thrilled' - to borrow some words from the titles of the great pulp magazines of years gone past - to discover both the range of material covered by this book along with the depth of the individual articles. In this book you will find information about the spaceships imagined by Konstantin E. Tsiolkovsky , the Father of Cosmonautics, along with the spaceships imagined by Herman Oberth in his book The Rocket into Interplanetary Space, the various designs developed by Wernher von Braun and which appeared in books, magazines and Disney TV shows. As well as many others.
Science Fiction spaceships don't get short-changed because you will find the classic spaceships from Destination Moon, The Conquest of Space, First Spaceship on Venus, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Thunderbirds and even Wallace and Gromit. To name just a few.
And there are even articles on 'real spaceships' that were designed, but never built, such as the NOVA Launch Vehicle, Dyna-soar and the Manned Orbiting Laboratory. Also included are articles about Reuseable Launch Vehicles that may yet be built, such as the Pathfinder from Pioneer Rocketplane and many others.
These articles are filled with a wealth of information about the vehicles and the people who designed them. They made fascinating reading and by themselves they make the book worth much more than its cover price. But then there are Jon Rogers' illustrations....
Each article is accompanied by a series of design drawings that illustrate the vehicle and provide a wealth of information. These illustrations are absolutely wonderful. The vehicles described in the text come alive when shown in the form of fully dimensioned, scaled, three-view illustrations. Jon's pictures are a delight for the eye and the imagination.
The Spaceship Handbook is an invaluable resource for anyone who is interested in building models of spaceships - both real and imagined. But more than that, it is an essential reference for anyone with an interest in the spaceships that have filled our dreams and imaginings.
This book is a delight for the imagination, a feast for the eyes and a joy for the spirit of anyone who has ever looked up into a star filled sky and imagined voyaging to 'strange new worlds'. This book gets my unqualified highest recommendation.
 |
 |
|
Here are just two examples of Jon's many illustrations from The Spaceship Handbook. On the left is a moonship designed by Wernher von Braun for his book First Men to the Moon. And on the right is another moonship designed by Von Braun. This one having appeared in various places, most notably Colliers magazine and the book The Conquest of the Moon. I must note that the images above are taken from larger and more complete illustrations and that they have had their resolution reduced and some text and other detail removed to make these illustrations more 'web friendly'. Both of these illustrations are Copyright © 1999 by Jon C. Rogers, All Rights Reserved. |
|
 |
|
The image above is a very small scale reproduction of a large poster that Jon Rogers has done illustrating the spaceships featured in The Spaceship Handbook. The actual poster is 31" x 21" and is filled with detail. It is a one sheet celebration of the spaceships of our imagination and a great way to revisit Jon's art. Trust me, this is a way cool picture. The poster itself was done as a very limited edition print and can only be purchased from ARA Press. I spoke with Jack Hagerty a few days before this show went up, and as of then, there were just a handful of these posters left unsold. If you want one, you better move fast. If you snooze, you lose. Image Copyright © 2002, Jon C. Rogers, All Rights Reserved. |
 |
|
|
Listen to this week's show |
|
|
|
|
If you enjoyed this show and would like to know when other interviews are uploaded to the Hour 25 web site, then send an email to me at wwjames@earthlink.net and I will add your name to the free Hour 25 Newsletter mailing list. That way you'll get a brief notice in your email every time a new show gets uploaded to the web.
The Great Hour 25 Disk Crash of 2002 - On-Going News
As a result of our recent hard disk crash the Hour 25 newsletter mailing list has vanished into the digital darkness. It would be very helpful if subscribers to the Hour 25 Newsletter would resend their email addresses to me {wwjames@earthlink.net} so I can reconstitute the Newsletter mailing list. {If you have done this "post-crash" then I have your email address and you don't need to do anything.} New editions of the newsletter will start coming out "real soon now". In the same vein, if you previously sent in an entry for the Karen Willson Five Word Challenge, now would be a good time for you to fish around in your "sent mail" folder and resend your entry. Or come up with a new one and send it in. {And please put "Five Word Challenge" or some approximation thereof in the subject line of your email to make it easy for me to keep track of your entry.}
Links for more information relating to this week's show
|
The Spaceship Handbook
The Columbia Accident Space News - Mars Space News - Other For On-Going Updates on Space News ISS News |
Copyright © Warren W. James, 2000-2003. All rights reserved.