Copyright 2013 by Paula S. Jordan
Used to be that Hal Clement was the Bureau of Rates and Standards point-to example of the hard science fiction writer. He and others–Larry Niven, Poul Anderson, and Jerry Pournelle among them–did excellent work in depicting the science in their stories and extrapolating its implications for whatever “what if” scenario they were writing about.
But science fiction has changed around them.
It’s well-known that sf in its early decades paid little attention to the human aspects of story, and Hal and company were no different. The interest in the “softer” sciences and the introduction of real, three-dimensional characters brought much-needed growth, both in reader appreciation and in the literary values of the work. But as these new elements developed, they often seemed to overshadow the kind of seriousness about the science that typified a Hal Clement story.
That’s not to say that the quality of the science in science fiction has faltered. But it’s taken a while for writers to find a balance between the human and the scientific that would satisfy the hard science fiction reader. Greg Bear, Catherine Asaro, Joe Haldeman, and C.J. Cherryh are among those who have done that for me.
And now I’ve found another one.
I have just finished Survival, book one of Julie E. Czerneda’s Species Imperative series, and it is stunning. As a former biologist, she interleaves her intense story lines and characterizations–both Human and not–so deftly with the underlying science that you get it all at once. In descriptions of a Canadian coastal wilderness the beauty and the ecological interdependencies are inseparable. With her alien species–and there are many of those–their ingenious, scrupulously logical design is revealed in detail as their resulting behaviors move the story forward. The plot line both rises from and vividly illustrates the imperatives of a species’ innate survival strategies.
The science is alive on every page.
Best of all are the insights that her scientist-characters provide into the minds, lives and insatiable curiosities of research analysts teasing out the wonders of worlds beyond imagination.
Hal Clement may forever be the patriarch of hard science fiction writers, but he has some kick-ass younger company.
