The Best of Hal Clement

Hal Clement, one of the all-time greats of science fiction, was defining hard science fiction before such distinctions were even being thought of. He once described his approach to writing: "[T]he rules must be quite simple. They are; for the reader of a science-fiction story, they consist of finding as many as possible of the author's statements or implications which conflict with the facts as science currently understands them. For the author, the rule is to make as few such slips as he p...