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The Best of Hal Clement
Hal Clement, one of the all-time greats of science fiction, was defining hard science fiction before such distinctions were even being thought of. He once described his approach to writing: "[T]he rules must be quite simple. They are; for the reader of a science-fiction story, they consist of finding as many as possible of the author's statements or implications which conflict with the facts as science currently understands them. For the author, the rule is to make as few such slips as he possibly can." He was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 1999 and an annual award for Excellence in Children's Science Fiction has been established in his memory and is presented each year at the annual Worldcon.
This collection presents some of his finest shorter pieces as collected by his friend and colleague, Lester del Rey.
This collection presents some of his finest shorter pieces as collected by his friend and colleague, Lester del Rey.
370 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 1945
17 people are currently reading
225 people want to read
About the author
Hal Clement
178 books116 followersHarry Clement Stubbs better known by the pen name
Hal Clement
, was an American science fiction writer and a leader of the hard science fiction subgenre.
Further details at Wikipedia.
Further details at Wikipedia.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
August 20, 2024
Great collection of problem solving, hard science fiction stories. In the intro, Hal says he is a teacher first and author second, his teaching skills shine in a lot of these short stories. Mostly upbeat, fun, intelligent and thought provoking.
August 21, 2022
Hal Clement books are always interesting. This collection of short stories is particularly so. I'm not familiar enough with the bulk of his work to dispute the … best-ness of these tales. I've only read one of them ("Dust Rag") previously.
Clement was a practitioner of what's usually called "Hard" SF. Stories stick as closely as possible to the best scientific details available (at the time. Obviously the vacuum tube orbital computer in "Answer" isn't nearly as futuristic as it must have first appeared), and generally feature some arcane technical point as their centerpiece. At their best, they can be wonderfully imaginative and intellectually stimulating. At their worst, they can be dreadfully dull and pedantic. Clement wrote mainly the former kind.
My favorites are probably "Technical Error," "Uncommon Sense," "Assumption Unjustified" (which the book's cover depicts), "Mistaken For Granted" (which, with its themes of scouting and space, feels like something that might have run in Boys Life), and "Stuck With It." There's also an Author's Afterword, where Clement talks a bit about himself.
All in all, this is a wonderful collection of stories, whether you're a long-time Hal Clement fan, or just someone who's curious about his work. Highly recommended!
Clement was a practitioner of what's usually called "Hard" SF. Stories stick as closely as possible to the best scientific details available (at the time. Obviously the vacuum tube orbital computer in "Answer" isn't nearly as futuristic as it must have first appeared), and generally feature some arcane technical point as their centerpiece. At their best, they can be wonderfully imaginative and intellectually stimulating. At their worst, they can be dreadfully dull and pedantic. Clement wrote mainly the former kind.
My favorites are probably "Technical Error," "Uncommon Sense," "Assumption Unjustified" (which the book's cover depicts), "Mistaken For Granted" (which, with its themes of scouting and space, feels like something that might have run in Boys Life), and "Stuck With It." There's also an Author's Afterword, where Clement talks a bit about himself.
All in all, this is a wonderful collection of stories, whether you're a long-time Hal Clement fan, or just someone who's curious about his work. Highly recommended!
May 19, 2020
This is one of the few "Best of" books that I can't find any fault with the selections. The book contains ten stories ranging from 1942 to 1976, the first six of which appeared in John Campbell's Astounding Science Fiction Magazine. Clement was the acknowledged master of the hard-sf story, and the puzzles and problems he presents in these stories are all fun, challenging, and thought-provoking. He excelled at creating alien environments and situations, and the reader will remember the scientific processes of the stories long after the names of the characters have faded. Some of his later novels feel padded, and seem to have some extraneous sections or situations added to flesh out the ideas he was interested in exploring to book length, but all of the stories here are just the length they need to be. It's the best short fiction of the best hard-sf writer the field produced.
January 21, 2021
*Review for the short story 'Uncommon Sense'*
This one is a work of an engineer and feels like a puzzle with only one viable solution.
The Good
* Both twist with extra-terrestrial life anatomy are fine.
*
The Bad
* The writing is weird by modern standards. And unnecessary complicated.
* The characters are more or less missing here. No human drama. And Cunningham himself is even nicer than Captain Kirk. The ending feels very unearned. More like a sitcom happy ending than an actual take on possible events.
Also, we made a podcast about this book (in Russian, though). You can check it out here: https://share.transistor.fm/s/0aac34ac
This one is a work of an engineer and feels like a puzzle with only one viable solution.
The Good
* Both twist with extra-terrestrial life anatomy are fine.
*
The Bad
* The writing is weird by modern standards. And unnecessary complicated.
The discovery of animal life—medium-sized, crablike things, covered with jet-black integument, that began to dig their way out of the drifts as the sun warmed them—completed the job of dragging Cunningham's attention from his immediate problems.
* The characters are more or less missing here. No human drama. And Cunningham himself is even nicer than Captain Kirk. The ending feels very unearned. More like a sitcom happy ending than an actual take on possible events.
Also, we made a podcast about this book (in Russian, though). You can check it out here: https://share.transistor.fm/s/0aac34ac
December 15, 2025
A solid collection of "hard" sci-fi stories by one of the recognized masters of the sub-genre. I found the writing a bit tiresome, personally. Each story could have been 15% shorter without anything lost. Considering that publications in '40s-'70s usually paid by the word, I can understand the verbose approach. My favorite story is "A Question of Guilt," which is a sci-fi story in terms of the context of the action of the story. A man in Ancient Rome is confronted by a medical mystery and must experiment to discover a solution. It's equally a work of historical fiction, and I enjoyed the conceit. I'm looking forward to Clement's novels as I expect that they will be more tightly written, ironically. At least I hope so.
January 20, 2017
Hal Clement was pretty much the king of hard science writers, ensuring that science fiction had a scientific basis. Usually to the point where the plot itself revolved around it. Connie Willis would be the opposite end of that spectrum, where a future setting is the closest she comes to science as all. Although I haven’t read everything either author has produced, since I’m not completely enamored by either one. SciFi horror is another such sub-genre, and there are many others, so that there’s room enough in the SciFi inn for everyone. I think Hal’s fans are willing to overlook where his stories fall short in character and plot due to his consistently high standard of science. However, I think that his failure to foresee elementary scientific advances is less forgivable. These stories are an excellent look into the sub-genre and his writing.
May 7, 2018
There are bits in a few of the stories that feel a little dated but overall even the older stores seem very modern. Especially good if you like non-traditional protagonists in stories.
It is also refreshing to read a story where the central conflict is not entirely because of the stupidity of the characters or unmotivated maliciousness of a bad guy.
It is also refreshing to read a story where the central conflict is not entirely because of the stupidity of the characters or unmotivated maliciousness of a bad guy.
September 13, 2017
Sort of Martian-esque, in short form.
September 4, 2023
If you like hard science fiction, you can't pass this one up. Hal Clement is the touchestone you test other hard science fiction authors against, because nobody is harder.
Clement doesn't handwave his way through a science fiction story, conjuring up magical technology to solve every story problem. Instead he puts the scientifically impossible or improbable in the tiniest black box imaginable, and then works outthe story premise with extraordinary ingenuity and strict faithfulness to scientific accuracy. At times the premise is downright bizarre, e.g., what would a creature be like if it saw with its nose instead of eyes ("Uncommon Sense")?
As essays in the art of working out hard sci-fi story premises with total faith to known science, Hal Clement stories are sheer perfection. As *stories*, however, they fall a bit short of perfection. Clement's characters, except the alien ones, aren't that interesting. The problems they face, while daunting from a physical sciences standpoint, aren't very psychologically complicated, e.g., I'm stuck in a cave on a barren planet whose star is 200,000x as bright in the sky as the Sun is on Earth. How do I use the resources of the planet to get my spaceship back from the mutineers who hijacked her?
This is not necessarily a flaw; maybe complicated emotions and conflicting priorities aren't things you want in a story. But even if they *are* things you want, you should check this out. It's not everyone's cup of tea, but it's always interested to see someone whose the best at what they do at work.
Clement doesn't handwave his way through a science fiction story, conjuring up magical technology to solve every story problem. Instead he puts the scientifically impossible or improbable in the tiniest black box imaginable, and then works outthe story premise with extraordinary ingenuity and strict faithfulness to scientific accuracy. At times the premise is downright bizarre, e.g., what would a creature be like if it saw with its nose instead of eyes ("Uncommon Sense")?
As essays in the art of working out hard sci-fi story premises with total faith to known science, Hal Clement stories are sheer perfection. As *stories*, however, they fall a bit short of perfection. Clement's characters, except the alien ones, aren't that interesting. The problems they face, while daunting from a physical sciences standpoint, aren't very psychologically complicated, e.g., I'm stuck in a cave on a barren planet whose star is 200,000x as bright in the sky as the Sun is on Earth. How do I use the resources of the planet to get my spaceship back from the mutineers who hijacked her?
This is not necessarily a flaw; maybe complicated emotions and conflicting priorities aren't things you want in a story. But even if they *are* things you want, you should check this out. It's not everyone's cup of tea, but it's always interested to see someone whose the best at what they do at work.
February 21, 2019
a lot better than iceworld, this stuff works much better in short story form than it does in novels. clement likes to write problem stories and is good at coming up with alien worlds and scenarios, but doesn't really write characters very well. with iceworld, the scientific problem wasnt enough to sustain an entire novel, and a lot of the scenes with the humans felt like padding, but that is largely avoided here. the characters are still dull golly gee whiz 1950s types, and the stories that work the best deal with protagonists pulling themselves out of science-based jams, rather than any kind of character drama. "mistaken for granted" is the only real dud here, the best of the lot probably being "a question of guilt", which is completely unlike the others, set in rome contemporary with marcus aurelius and galen, dealing with more history of science fiction rather than speculative future fiction. a great take on the vampire story, which would really make for a fantastic film
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April 12, 2025I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that the stories here were puzzles in a light narrative wrapper rather than actual stories with real people. Although I’ve enjoyed some of the author’s other work, this collection didn’t gel with me. I bailed after “Uncommon Sense”. Overall, the environmental descriptions were presumably there to lay out the issue being demonstrated so the reader could follow along with the problem-solving. But without actual diagrams, they meant nothing to me. I also got a weeny bit tired of judgemental statements along the lines of, “For some reason, despite this information, our intrepid protagonists didn’t spot some obvious issue…” when I certainly couldn’t see whatever he meant either. I freely admit my ignorance, but having my nose rubbed in it wasn’t helpful or fun.
November 1, 2025
I have read a number of Hal Clement's books over the years and enjoyed some very much while others were more meh. This collection of stories is very much in the meh category. The stories are mostly built around various scientific problems which I assume to be accurate, but I found it very hard to care about what was going on in any of them, especially as in many cases the people (or aliens) involved seemed be making very questionable decisions.
I did not finish this book, only getting about half way though.
I did not finish this book, only getting about half way though.
February 7, 2026
My first exposure to this hard SF master was positive. These are stories from a long span, the 1940s to the '70s, in which scientific principles are at play. As with other stories of that era, they are upbeat, setting up problems that need to be solved, and are. I liked them, especially "Impediment" and "Assumption Unjustified," without thinking I need more of them.
December 24, 2021
Great science fiction mostly from the Golden Age.
-Gregory Kerkman
-Gregory Kerkman
May 28, 2023
A fine collection from Golden Age Hard SF pioneer Hal Clement, applying his rigorous logic to topics as varied as telepathy and vampirism.
February 25, 2016
I came into this expecting that Clement would try to ground his stories in what was possible and was not disappointed. This makes his best stories that much better. However, many of the older stories highlight the problem with hard science fiction. Unexpected advances in technology make these stories more outdated than the so-called “magical” science that is more common. Most of the time this is trivial: it was funny reading about characters in a space station having to deal with thousands of tubes in their computers (Clement himself notes, in the afterword, that he was wrong in assuming analog would beat digital in computer technology.)
But in Mistaken for Granted, the whole story hinges on two problems that a less-grounded author would have assumed would be solved: that our tendency to measure time in 12-hour increments creates dangerous ambiguities, that lack of positional and directional awareness is also very dangerous and costly, and that the protective suits necessary to move about on the moon will also hide personal information devices such as watches.
On the moon in that story, there are no GPS satellites circling the moon, no communications satellites circling the moon, no digital watches, and no heads-up displays. And the lack of each of those are critical to the course of the story. But the problem of communication on a dangerous place like the moon is so critical that you pretty much have to assume it will be solved, even if you don’t know how it will be solved. And while the problem of locating people and equipment precisely is perhaps less obviously critical, the lack of compasses was not. So even though the author didn’t know how it would be solved, it would have been safer to guess that it would be and hand-wave away the mechanics.
The same with the inability to read a wristwatch in a spacesuit. Some form of heads-up display or simply building a time-piece into the suit should have been assumed.
Obviously, this would have made the story more difficult to write, and in his defense, according to the (very interesting) afterword he thought up this story around a Boy Scout campfire.
His best stories are the ones where he goes furthest afield: Stuck With It, for example, about an intelligent race that lives mostly underwater, and so has developed different building styles and different technologies to deal with their environment. A Question of Guilt was so far afield it was barely science fiction/fantasy, and is one of the best stories in the collection.
But in Mistaken for Granted, the whole story hinges on two problems that a less-grounded author would have assumed would be solved: that our tendency to measure time in 12-hour increments creates dangerous ambiguities, that lack of positional and directional awareness is also very dangerous and costly, and that the protective suits necessary to move about on the moon will also hide personal information devices such as watches.
On the moon in that story, there are no GPS satellites circling the moon, no communications satellites circling the moon, no digital watches, and no heads-up displays. And the lack of each of those are critical to the course of the story. But the problem of communication on a dangerous place like the moon is so critical that you pretty much have to assume it will be solved, even if you don’t know how it will be solved. And while the problem of locating people and equipment precisely is perhaps less obviously critical, the lack of compasses was not. So even though the author didn’t know how it would be solved, it would have been safer to guess that it would be and hand-wave away the mechanics.
The same with the inability to read a wristwatch in a spacesuit. Some form of heads-up display or simply building a time-piece into the suit should have been assumed.
Obviously, this would have made the story more difficult to write, and in his defense, according to the (very interesting) afterword he thought up this story around a Boy Scout campfire.
His best stories are the ones where he goes furthest afield: Stuck With It, for example, about an intelligent race that lives mostly underwater, and so has developed different building styles and different technologies to deal with their environment. A Question of Guilt was so far afield it was barely science fiction/fantasy, and is one of the best stories in the collection.
October 6, 2015
Impediment (1942): a classic problem story. A certain lack in the alien's knowledge of physics is extremely implausible given their level of technology (compare to a similar implausibility in the much later story Neutron Star by Larry Niven). However, the central idea of communication and assumptions made is very clever and carries the story despite the clunky and dated prose (which may be part of its charm).
Technical Error (1943): the crew of a wrecked spaceship, stranded on an airless asteroid, come across an abandoned ancient alien ship and they have to puzzle out its workings to survive. This seems to be a story written for engineers. We don't really learn what the aliens looked like or what they were doing in the Solar System, although there are some clues that are left hanging...
Uncommon Sense (1943): The theme so far seems to be downed spacecraft. This time, the protagonist is alone on an airless, hot planet with only his spacesuit and must find a way to get his ship back before his treacherous crew take off, leaving him to die.
Assumption Unjustified (1946) Sort-of-comedy-of-errors about alien tourists secretly messing with Earth people for reasons of their own. The cover of one of the editions is based on this story.
Answer (1947) Space-based "supercomputer" tackles psychology. Lots of attention to details that appear very dated to a contemporary reader but are technically correct.
Dust Rag (1956) Another physics puzzle set on the Moon; the characters exist just as vehicles for the neat idea.
Bulge (1968) A rather well constructed hostage thriller set on a space station.
Mistaken for Granted (1974) Juvenile (or "young adult" although it does not have the YA tropes we all know and ...) story set on the Moon. The writing seems to get slicker and more entertaining through the decades.
A Question of Guilt and Stuck With It (1976): Finally I finished this collection, which I put aside for a long while. Somehow it almost escaped me that Question was supposed to be a vampire story of sorts (there are no vampires at all, although the main character does mess about with blood, with the best intentions but with imperfect understanding). Stuck I had read before in some best of the year anthology or another. What struck me was that I had big difficulties picturing the world for myself from the author's descriptions. The theme is ecological.
As a whole, the collection is a good example of hard science fiction.
Technical Error (1943): the crew of a wrecked spaceship, stranded on an airless asteroid, come across an abandoned ancient alien ship and they have to puzzle out its workings to survive. This seems to be a story written for engineers. We don't really learn what the aliens looked like or what they were doing in the Solar System, although there are some clues that are left hanging...
Uncommon Sense (1943): The theme so far seems to be downed spacecraft. This time, the protagonist is alone on an airless, hot planet with only his spacesuit and must find a way to get his ship back before his treacherous crew take off, leaving him to die.
Assumption Unjustified (1946) Sort-of-comedy-of-errors about alien tourists secretly messing with Earth people for reasons of their own. The cover of one of the editions is based on this story.
Answer (1947) Space-based "supercomputer" tackles psychology. Lots of attention to details that appear very dated to a contemporary reader but are technically correct.
Dust Rag (1956) Another physics puzzle set on the Moon; the characters exist just as vehicles for the neat idea.
Bulge (1968) A rather well constructed hostage thriller set on a space station.
Mistaken for Granted (1974) Juvenile (or "young adult" although it does not have the YA tropes we all know and ...) story set on the Moon. The writing seems to get slicker and more entertaining through the decades.
A Question of Guilt and Stuck With It (1976): Finally I finished this collection, which I put aside for a long while. Somehow it almost escaped me that Question was supposed to be a vampire story of sorts (there are no vampires at all, although the main character does mess about with blood, with the best intentions but with imperfect understanding). Stuck I had read before in some best of the year anthology or another. What struck me was that I had big difficulties picturing the world for myself from the author's descriptions. The theme is ecological.
As a whole, the collection is a good example of hard science fiction.
July 15, 2014
I decided to read this when attempting to get an introduction to the idea of hard science fiction, and I'll be the first to say that it was incredibly dense. The author managed to completely design a world, discuss the physical facts about the world, and how the protagonist uses it to his advantage in what both qualifies as a short amount of writing but also a considerable depth of knowledge regarding the situation. The concepts weren't difficult but he never retreated from using full-fledged scientific details to approach the subjects. The story itself was pretty awesome as well, the characters were mostly one dimensional but the point wasn't about their hopes and dreams but more about the singular individual's ability to utilize a unknown world in order to gain the upper hand on mutineers.
April 29, 2019
This collection of hard science fiction short stories is well worth reading for any hard scifi fan. Hal Clement is a master of the genre, and does an excellent job of creating scientifically interesting settings for each of these stories.
While there is some lack in character development, this is not unusual in short stories, as there generally isn't enough time to permit substantial change. Much more disappointing is Clement's continual use of sexism -- but this was standard practice in his time, and no scifi novels of this period really did any better on that front.
Despite these flaws, these stories are still well worth reading. Definitely recommended.
While there is some lack in character development, this is not unusual in short stories, as there generally isn't enough time to permit substantial change. Much more disappointing is Clement's continual use of sexism -- but this was standard practice in his time, and no scifi novels of this period really did any better on that front.
Despite these flaws, these stories are still well worth reading. Definitely recommended.
July 29, 2012
Just what the title says - a collection of Hal Clements' best short stories and novelletes.
Hal Clement was a master at exploring extreme physical conditions through the medium of science fiction, but with a hard science rational to support his speculations - enjoy!
Hal Clement was a master at exploring extreme physical conditions through the medium of science fiction, but with a hard science rational to support his speculations - enjoy!
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August 22, 2008The Best of Hal Clement by Clement (1979)
January 25, 2012
Grade B. Short stories.
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May 20, 2015Science-Fiction
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