Close to Critical

I will give Clement some due praise for his humanistic writing of not only women, but really anybody else other than adult men, something that was and continues to be sparse in genre fiction. One of the main protagonists of the novel, 'Lucky', is the daughter of a human diplomat that gets stuck inside the crashed life pod. Throughout this experience, Celment writes her with strength, capability, and determination through difficult situations. She outshines many of the adult scientists trying to save her, and consistently proves that she may very well be the brightest bulb on the three. Despite the hard science shell there is some notes of humanity here that Clement could've expanded upon should he have wanted to.

Outside of this surprising fact from a novel written in 1964, I was mostly bored and distracted by the deeply mediocre plot line, and characters that mostly just served to explore the weird world and explain how things might work with chemistry and biology subtext. Close to Critical tells the strange story of human explorers, who seemingly are already part of a galactic alliance of sorts, stealing, raising, and educating a group of scaled aliens. These aliens, all with Anglo names, are trained in math and science through the use of a robot guided by scientists out of orbit because the surface is immensely hot and atmospherically compressed. After these aliens are mature and struggling to maintain a herd of livestock to continue their education, the offspring of two diplomats crash to the surface in an experimental life pod. What little plot there is revolves around trying to rescue the children while also interacting with a group of 'native' aliens that don't speak the same language as the human raised group.

It's just simply not that good. It's dry and focuses on the science of this alien landscape to it's own detriment. Hard science is something that expected from Hal Clement, but it just wasn't strong enough to capture my attention. Perhaps it isn't my cup of tea, but I think there are better examples of the sub genre out there.