Heavy Planet: The Classic Mesklin Stories

4.5 stars, Metaphorosis reviews

Summary
Humans are investigating Mesklin, a disklike planet with gravity a crushing 700g at the poles, but only 3g on the equator. With the help of a native centipedal species, they struggle to recover key scientific equipment. Later, Mesklinites help them to explore yet another planet with a human-hostile environment. Includes two novels, some short stories, and the author's detailed explanation of his calculations for Mesklin.

Review
You can't get much harder in hard SF than Hal Clement's Mission of Gravity (which makes up the first half of this book). When he casually mentions sitting around with Isaac Asimov, trying to come up with a suitable liquid to use as the base for Mesklin biochemistry, you definitely get the feeling that the burgeoning SFF scene has let something fall by the wayside. Clements' afterword article, Whirligig World, captures the seriousness with which he took developing his setting, and is open about the liberties he allowed himself.

I read Mission of Gravity when I was in my teens, and I remember being impressed when my high school chemistry teacher told me that Clement was actually Harry Stubbs, also a high school chemistry teacher. I know now that the schools were only 100 miles apart, and I suppose they knew each other. It didn't occur to me to follow up for an introduction, and I'm just as happy I didn't; not everything needs to be turned to personal advantage.

I've read several of Clements' other novels, and Mission of Gravity stands out as the best. He seems to have recognized this in saying that he's happy to let his reputation as a writer rest on it. This edition includes a handful of Mesklin-related short stories, as well as the novel Star Light.

Mission, in the best tradition of hard SF, is an adventure story backed up by credible science. It's a fun and engaging read that introduces just enough science to make the reader think, but not so much that it becomes an academic exercise. Star Light comes from the opposite side, and reads much more like a science exercise in search of a story and not quite finding it. The short pieces are largely undemanding filler – fine, but not essential.

An oddity is Clements' treatment of Mesklinite behaviour, and that of Barlennan in particular. In Mission, Barlennan is a relatively honest trader. In Star Light, he becomes substantially more underhanded. While that could have been sold as part of his or his culture's nature, it feels much more like a theme that Clements considered, partly developed, and then abandoned at the last minute; that whole arc feels unresolved, and the book is poorer for it.

Heavy Planet (which perhaps should be Heavy Planets, since there are two) is a handy compendium of Mesklinite stories, and it was fun to read the short pieces I hadn't previously seen. But the star of the show is very much Mission of Gravity. If you haven't read that, it's a true SF classic that I strongly recommend, and this volume is a good way to get it. If you have read Mission but not Star Light, I wouldn't worry about it.

There's another book that's often listed as part of the Mesklin series, Close toCritical. It's set in the same universe as Mission and Star Light, but I don't recall that there's really any connection aside from a few passing references in Star Light.