Hal Clement - Planets

Planets

Compared with contemporary science fiction authors like Isaac Asimov or Poul Anderson, Clement was parsimonious in naming fictional planets. Those that he created as settings include a number of notably unusual worlds. They include:

  • Abyormen – A planet circling a dwarf star (Theer), which in turn circles a blue giant. This produces a hot and a cold season, each of 65 years' duration. The native intelligent life forms undergo a seasonal mass death. From Cycle of Fire.
  • Dhrawn – A high-gravity world settled by Mesklinites in Star Light.
  • Habranha - A planet that is tidally locked with its sun, such that the far side is a mix of solid CO2, solid methane, and ice, and the other side completely ocean, in Fossil.
  • Hekla – An ice-age planet in Cold Front (short story, Astounding July 1946).
  • Kaihapa – An uninhabited ocean planet, twin of Kainui, in Noise.
  • Kainui – An inhabited ocean planet in Noise.
  • Mesklin — A planet with ultra-high gravity (up to 700 g) in Mission of Gravity. Clement later corrected his model of Mesklin and determined that the maximum surface gravity would be "only 250 gravities".
  • Sarr – An extremely hot planet with an atmosphere of gaseous sulphur ('air') and liquid copper sulphate ('water') in Iceworld
  • Tenebra – A high-gravity world with a corrosive atmosphere in Close to Critical.
  • Enigma 88 - A small planet near η Carinae in Still River. The interior of the object is honeycombed with caves, due to evaporation of accreted ice-rich planetoids. Unusually for Clement, Enigma's structure is not fully consistent with the laws of physics.

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