Talk:Hal Clement

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Superjovian[edit]

I am not convinced that Mesklin is truly Superjovian. Even Clement had to revise his calculations regarding its maximum gravity. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.68.94.86 (talk) 09:58, 8 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Untitled[edit]

I believe Hal Clement is known better for his short SF rather than his novels. Does anyone think it's worthwhile to start a subsection of the biblio for these? Jon Dowland 21:53, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

definitley worthwhile 00:28, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
I will write it, very soon :) Jose Brox (talk) 08:05, 18 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I would find that kind of a subsection very helpful if it also included authorities stating which of his shorter stories were worthy of reading. Probably they are all worth reading, but including an authority's name would lend credence to the subsection. Dexter Nextnumber (talk) 10:01, 12 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Mesklin, the first shared world?[edit]

Hal Clement opened his world of Mesklin to anyone who wanted to write stories set on the planet. Apparently nobody took him up on the offer. Shared worlds/universes like C.J. Cherryh's 'Merovingen Nights' and Ropert Asprin's 'Theives World' didn't become popular until decades after 'Mission of Gravity'.

Is it possible to get a complete map of Mesklin and copies of all the information he compiled before writing that book? He made a 'globe' of Mesklin before he started writing so he could keep the geography straight. Having new Mesklin stories, written by today's best hard SF authors would be a wonderful thing!

Personal stuff that doesn't belong in Wikipedia, but I wanted to share[edit]

As far as I could tell, Hal Clement had a camera surgically attached to his body. At least, for the better part of 20 years I never met him without one. He was also fond of snakes, and if I happened to have one with me at an SF con (back in a more laid-back era) I usually wound up having to retrieve it from him at least once.

Did he ever swallow a fiber optic line attached to a digital camera? Dexter Nextnumber (talk) 10:03, 12 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(SFHOF biography)[edit]

I'm not familiar with your layout and am not sure this is the place to note this ... but ... I notice that the external link at the bottom of the page that is supposed to point to the Hal Clement entry in the Science Fiction Hall of Fame instead opens the entry for John Campbell (not Hal Clement).
— Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.255.32.25 (talkcontribs) 16:08, 20 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Fixed.
Beside rescuing this Extlink ("Hal Clement biography". Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.), I fashioned the Boston Globe obituary and Rosetta Books blurb as formal references [ref name=long; name=rosetta]. These three sources may support all of the information in the Biography and certainly enable some expansion of the article.
--P64 (talk) 19:03, 23 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Planets[edit]

"Compared with contemporary science fiction authors like Isaac Asimov or Poul Anderson, Clement was parsimonious in naming fictional planets." I'm a fan of both Asimov and Clement, but I don't understand that sentence. He was stingy when it came to making up names for planets? What does that even mean? WaxTadpole (talk) 20:41, 26 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think it actually means he didn't create many named fictional planets compared to Asimov or Anderson. This si true, but then it is true of almost all SF writers. It should probably be copy-edited. DES (talk) 22:27, 22 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sections on Short Stories, Novelettes and Novellas and on Articles and Introductions (which needs more work)[edit]

I have created and filled the "Short stories, novelettes and novellas" section; I hope to have done an exhaustive work. I have improved the "Works" section (now called "Books") with as much information as I have found; and I have started the "Articles and Introductions" section. In this one, however, work remains to be done: In the webpage http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?233, under Essays, there are much more articles penned by Hal Clement, which should be added to that Wikipedia section. Jose Brox (talk) 16:16, 18 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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