News Archive
Penned by Hal himself with personal photos
Short stories, novels, anthologies, and collections, plus links to online works
Meet Hal at these conventions, new and upcoming publication announcements, reviews and articles, and science fiction resource links
Hal's Worlds | We Remember Harry Stubbs | The Last Novel: Noise | The Essential Hal Clement | Half Life | Lamps on the Brow | Hal is a SFWA Grand Master!
Hal's Worlds: Stories and Essays in Memory of Hal Clement
The following is taken from Amazon.com's entry for the book.
NESFA Press: The Essential Hal Clement
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The story is set in the future where the population of the Earth has been decreasing steadily over the past centuries. A group of brilliant (and dying) scientists decide to travel to Saturn's largest moon, Titan, to explore this formidable little world. A deadly journey, these brave scientists will spend their remaining days studying a world which no one else has dared to explore.
At Readercon 1998, Hal read a portion of this tale which revealed, in classic Hal Clement style, that there is a greater mystery on Titan, other than the unknown volatile surface itself, and the scientists are having to risk much more than they suspected...
Hal's quips:
Inside Scoop:
Lamps on the Brow
One of Hal's short stories, "Options", appears in the extremely limited edition anthology, Lamps on the Brow (James Cahill Publishing) which also includes shorts from such authors as Gene
Wolfe, Andre Norton, and and introduction from Ben Bova.
Hal Clement receives the SFWA Grand Master Award!
Announced at the 1999 Boskone Convention. Here's the official press
release (special thanks to SFWA President, Paul Levinson):
Science Fiction Writers Name Hal Clement a "Grand Master"
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) announced today
that Harry Clement Stubbs, who writes under the name Hal Clement, will
be named 1998 Grand Master at the Nebula Awards banquet this May 1st in
Pittsburgh.
The highly-covetted Grand Master award represents the pinnacle of peer
recognition in the genres of science fiction and fantasy. It is awarded
by SFWA in recognition of a lifetime of achievement in science fiction
and/or fantasy writing. Past Grand Masters include Isaac Asimov,
Arthur C. Clarke, and Robert Heinlein.
Harry Stubbs, born in 1922, taught high school science for many years; in
addition to his science fiction, he writes science articles under his
proper name, and paints astronomical scenes under the name George Richard.
He is a resident of Milton, Massachusetts.
SFWA's President, Dr. Paul Levinson, said "We're extremely pleased to
extend this honor to a man who more than any other author of the golden
age was responsible for putting the hard science in science fiction,
and whose exploration of the implications of chemistry and planetary
evolution continue to fascinate readers today."
The Grand Master award will be presented to Mr. Stubbs at this year's
Nebula Awards Ceremony (to be held May 1st in Pittsburgh). At the same
ceremony, SFWA will present Nebula Awards for the best science fiction
or fantasy novel, novella, novelette, and short story of the year; the
winners are selected by vote of the active writer members of the
organization.
SFWA is an organization of nearly 1400 science fiction and fantasy
writers, editors, and allied professionals. Founded in 1965 by Damon
Knight, the organization's primary goals are to promote the interests of
science fiction and fantasy writers and encourage public interest in the
genres.
Previous Grand Masters include Robert A. Heinlein (1974),
Jack Williamson (1975), Clifford D. Simak (1976),
L. Sprague de Camp (1978), Fritz Leiber (1981), Andre Norton (1983),
Arthur C. Clarke (1985), Isaac Asimov (1986), Alfred Bester (1987),
Ray Bradbury (1988), Lester del Rey (1990), Frederik Pohl (1992),
Damon Knight (1994), A. E. van Vogt (1995), Jack Vance (1996), and
Poul Anderson (1997).
Hal Clement published his first story, "Proof," in 1946, in Astounding
Science Fiction, then the premier magazine of the field. His best-known
novel, Mission of Gravity, is one of the seminal works of `hard' --
scientifically rigorous -- science fiction; it deals with a mission to
recover a vital component from a space probe that has crashed on Mesklin,
a fast-rotating, massive planet where the effective gravity varies from
three times that of Earth's at the equator to 700gs at the poles. It
typifies Clement's imaginative creation of scientifically plausible but
truly weird worlds, a recurring theme of his work. A clean, spare writer
with an ability to dramatize complex scientific ideas in a compelling way,
Clement invariably leaves the reader with the sense that the universe is a
fascinating and wonderful place -- and the laws that govern its behavior
are equally fascinating and wonderful. Consequently, his work has
influenced and inspired a whole generation of scientists and engineers as
well as a whole generation of writers.
News Archive Penned by Hal himself with personal photos
Short stories, novels, anthologies, and collections, plus links to online works