Most helpful customer reviews
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Meet the crew of the Bree., May 5 2004
The Bree is a fine ship, crewed by brave, if slightly greedy natives of the planet of Mesklin. They must explore uncharted waters, trade with dangerous tribes and deal with strange events. And they're only fifteen-inch caterpillars!
The Captain, the brave and greedy, Barlennan has promised to help the humans, aliens of enormous size, to find a rocket they lost on the planet. The rocket is full of equipment which was to run tests and then return to orbit. The problem was that the rocket, designed to handle the high gravity, couldn't handle the gravity. The humans are willing to do anything to get it back.
And in the end, they just might. A great ending.
GREAT book. I love the hard science, the cool alien race, the bonus article- "Whirligig World" - in which Hal Clement tells us how he came up with the amazing, fantastic planet and the life that lived on it. Lots of humor.
Funny Note: I just reviewed the book, The Jupiter Theft, a few days ago. In it the aliens are from the system of Cygnus. That's the same binary system Mr. Clement was thinking about when he started to design the planet of Mesklin.
He did such a good job that the Mesklinites are in Barlowe's Guide To Extraterrestrials, Aliens And Alien Societies edited by Ben Bova, and Clifford Pickover's The Science Of Aliens.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
A classic. A "must-read", Dec 16 2001
This is one of the great classics that I found and read b/c my father strongly recommended it to me. It is a very interesting look at how the laws of physics come together to make for an interesting world, peopled by interesting folk. It is a HUGE, squat world that is spinning very rapidly. Therefore, the sensation of gravity is much, much greater at the poles that at the equator. Heavy gravity poses all sorts of interesting predicaments. It is set in the distant future but written in the 50's; it's fun to see how anachronisms sneak in completely unaware to the author (e.g. the scientists whip out their slide rules when some quick calculating is needed). This is a "must read" classic of science fiction.
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3.0 out of 5 stars
Trading pirates surmount great odds to get a big treasure, Jul 22 1998
By A Customer
Poor humanity is unable to get their precious probe off a strangely shaped planet. That stupid rocket just won't start again. 700g at the Southpole are a little too much to land and bring it on board of a rescue craft. Kinda dumb that anti-gravitics are not discovered yet and that probe might just be the solution for that! So our human scientists find themselves some dumb(they think) native sailors and persuade them into a rescue operation for the rocket. Due to the shape of the planet, roughly like a very flat smartie, the gravitational forces on the equator amount only to a measly 3g and even the frail humans can land there. The Meskilinites are a race of acrophobic, hydrogen-breathing centipedes accustomed to high pressures and high gravitational forces.
This book describes the adventures of a crew of natives in search of a short way toward the probe, aided by their human friend in the vicinity of the equator, they have to venture previously uncharted parts ! of their planet, meeting strangeness throughout their journey. Only a limited view of the planet and the mesklinites is presented, at first they are pretty alien to the reader with time they lose that trait a bit. The book is a product of the early fifties and it shows in the technological section. The characters are a little two-dimensional, depth is missing. The end is refreshing.
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