Book detail for The Best of Hal Clement

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The Hard-Core Science of Hal Clement

The supreme practitioner of "hard" science fiction, Hal Clement combines ingenious problem-solving with suspenseful drama and action. These ten stories show the mastery of science and fiction that Clement has displayed in such favorites as Mission of Gravity, Iceworld, and Needle.

Uncommon Sense
If your back's to the wall, even a deadly predator can be useful.

Answer
"Know thyself" is a great advice ... if you don't follow it all the way.

Question of Guilt
Was he a medical pioneer ... or the first vampire?

Dust Rag
They knew moondust could choke them or swallow them up ... then they found something else deadly it could do.

Impediment
Mind-reading makes for perfect trust — as long as it works both ways!

— And lots more!

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Interior text

Survival Problem

The mutineers had the spaceship and the weapons. Cunningham was effectively marooned on the alien planet with its superheated days and frozen nights — even though the ship was only a few hundred meters away.

In a day the ship would leave, and Cunningham would die in any one of a number of unpleasant ways — unless he could use what he had at hand, and what he knew, to change the situation.

What he knew was that the strange native life made no sense — unless his wild assumption were true. And on that assumption he would have to stake his life.