Hal Clement

Hal Clement (May 30, 1922 – October 29, 2003) was an American science fiction author.

Quotes

Short fiction

Assumption Unjustified (1946)

Originally published in the October 1946 issue of Astounding. Page number from the reprint in Crossroads in Time, edited by Groff Conklin.

• It seems that these men are primitive enough to have a marked tendency toward superstition—ascribing things they don’t understand to supernatural intervention.
  • p. 17

Hot Planet (1963)

Originally published in the August 1963 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction. Page numbers per the reprint in Judith Merril (ed.), The 9th Annual of the Year’s Best S-F.

• I am resigned to living in a chess-type universe—few and simple rules, but infinite combinations of them. But it would be nice to know an answer sometime.
  • p. 269

• If you want adventure, you made a mistake exploring space. The only space adventures I've heard of are second-hand stories built on guesswork; the people who really had them weren't around to tell about it.
  • p. 270

Mission of Gravity (1954)

• The captain, thinking over this event afterward, realized that by his own lifelong standards he had a crew composed entirely of lunatics, with himself well to the front in degree of aberration; but he was fairly sure that this particular form of insanity was going to be useful.
  • Chapter 9

• No one likes to be watched constantly by someone he can’t see.
  • Chapter 11

• What’s the use of a high school education if you can’t recall it when needed later on?
  • Chapter 14

• Maybe we’ve been taking nova precautions for a red dwarf.
  • Chapter 15

About Clement

• [Clement] could imagine very alien worlds, but he could never imagine a protagonist who was not reasonably bright and open to logical persuasion.
  • James Nicoll, reviewing Close to Critical (2017)