Just a short note to pay homage to a work of the hardest ‘hard’ science fiction I have read in many a moon. Mission of Gravity is that rarest of birds, a gripping adventure story on an almost impossible world, backed by meticulously calculated speculative science. The hero of the book, a wily trading captain named Barlennan, is only fifteen inches long with dozens of legs, his body a cylinder two inches in diameter. (The dust jacket presents a pretty accurate depiction of the alien adventurer, which in itself is a rarity, especially for book club editions of this era.) Oh, but what cleverness and drive this adventurer has, as he drives his crew on a journey through a world as foreign to himself as it is to us readers. These indefatigable sailors traverse the liquid methane seas of the planet Mesklin, where changes in gravity are used as aids to navigation just as changes in a compass are used by earthly ships and boats.
I really shan’t say much more about this novel, as I believe I enjoyed it more because I came to it knowing nothing at all about the bizarre physics underlying the strange planet crafted by Hal Clement. There were many assertions which puzzled me—including some basic facts about centripetal force which completely escaped me until I read the scientific background of this strange world after completing the novel. But the details of science always stayed in their proper place, which is to say, those facts remained an ancillary background to the compelling story of the heroic trader Barlennan and his interactions with the strange human ‘Flyer’ he and his crew encounter at the edge of the world.
Perhaps some may find the aliens ‘not alien enough’ in their thinking; I found them to be very believable traders, a role which has all but disappeared from our always online world. Who today can assume the career of Marco Polo, can wrest fortune from the unknown through bold travel and shrewd dealing? The story reads like another of the great travelogues, with Barlennan taking the role of Ibn Battuta, Richard Burton, or Lewis and Clark. Fortunately, there are more stories of this strange planet and its small yet strong inhabitants. I look forward to reading them.