Mission of Gravity

Mission of Gravity

Cover of first edition (hardcover)
Author	Hal Clement
Cover artist	Joseph Mugnaini
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre	Hard science fiction novel
Publisher	Doubleday
Publication date	April–July 1953 (in serial) & 1954 (in book form)
Media type	Print (Magazine, Paperback & Hardback)
Pages	224
Followed by	Star Light

Mission of Gravity is a science fiction novel by Hal Clement. The novel was serialized in Astounding Science Fiction magazine in April–July 1953. Its first hardcover book publication was in 1954, and it was first published as a paperback book in 1958. Along with the novel itself, many editions (and most recent editions) of the book also include "Whirligig World", an essay by Clement on creating the planet Mesklin that was first published in the June 1953 Astounding.

Clement published three sequels to Mission of Gravity: a 1970 novel called Star Light, a 1973 short story called "Lecture Demonstration", and a 2000 short story, "Under". Mission of Gravity was nominated for a "Retro Hugo" Award for the year 1954.

The story is set on a highly oblate planet named Mesklin, which has surface gravity that varies between 700 g at the poles and 3 g at the equator. The story is told from the points of view of one of the local intelligent life forms and a human explorer. The locals are centipede-like, in order to withstand the enormous gravity, and terrified of even small heights (because in 700 g even a tiny fall is fatal). (See Mesklin for a more comprehensive description of the planet's characteristics.)

The native protagonist, Barlennan, captain of the Bree, is on a trading expedition to the equator, where the gravity is a tiny fraction of what his culture is used to. Prior to the story's opening, a human scientific probe has become stranded at one of the planet's poles, and team member Charles Lackland is dispatched to the equator where he has met Barlennan by chance. Lackland is barely able to survive (machine-aided) what to the captain is the incredibly light gravity, but has managed to teach the Mesklinites English, and enlist the Bree to journey to the pole and recover the probe, in return for information about the violent weather which often plagues such expeditions. Communication is achieved through an audio-visual radio built to function in a high-gravity environment, which is treated as magical by other intelligences encountered on the planet.