Cycle of Fire

by Hal Clement

Book Overview

Ballantine Books, 1981, sixth paperback printing. This is Clement's 1957 tale of a human and alien joining to fight for survival in a harsh alien landscape. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0345291727
• ISBN13: 9780345291721
• Release Date: May 1981
• Publisher: Del Rey Books
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Lean Mean Sci-Fi

This is an old style science fiction novel in the old sense. A stranded earthman, a native of the planet trying to make it back to safety before the planet goest through a massive change in temperature which will, as far as we know, kill every living thing on the planet. The native and the Earthman develop a friendship against the background of struggling against time. The interesting subplot about the planets odd cycle and the evolutionary diversions it had caused was interesting. When at first one of the planetary scientists heats up a sample terrarium full of native plants, animals and dirt, only to watch them wither and die while at the same time tiny new creatures obviously built for the heat emerge from under the soil was an interesting way to start this section of the novel.If you are interested in a nice read without a lot of the unecessary bells an whistles many authors are fond of putting in you will enjoy this one.

A quick read through old-style Sci-Fi

The late 50's were overrun with novels of this style: an unknown world, with unknown inhabitants, and a human or humans facing realizations and discoveries which are all woven around a mesh of standard science. Comparable to Mission of Gravity, in the science respect, Cycle of Fire tends to stay within the bounds of "believability" through much of the story, not creating vast new cultures and histories where it is not needed. Where the main story is of the cooperation between a stranded Earthman and a marooned native far from his home continent, the story slowly moves towards the cooperation among the inhabitants of the planet itself, with many fearing what the random, unasked for third element of a human being will do to the balance of things. This book fits nicely into the "classical" science fiction category, and will be of interest to those looking to learn from this era.