Star Light (Ballantine Books science fiction)

by Hal Clement

Book Overview

The return of Barlennan Dhrawn was a giant rockball, more than 3,000 times the mass of Earth. Perhaps a planet, perhaps a nearly dead star, the 17 billion square miles of mystery cried out for... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0345023617
• ISBN13: 9780345023612
• Release Date: September 1971
• Publisher: Ballantine Books Science Fiction
• Length: 280 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.

Customer Reviews

An underrated hard SF pleasure

Clement's *Mission of Gravity* was the engaging tale of the adventures of Barlennan, a sea captain among his caterpillar-like people, on the high-gravity world of Mesklin. In *Star Light* Barlennan and his sailors go with humans to the even stranger world of Dhrawn, a "crusted star" of the type mentioned by Harlow Shapley. Dhrawn circles the feeble red star Lalande 21185, which actually exists (although the planet is fictionalized). Most of the book is the story of a huge landship crossing Dhrawn's solid surface crewed by these nonhuman sailors, amidst bizarre dangers, and trying to keep Barlennan's strange plan secret from humans.The characters, despite being mostly from Barlennan's world, Mesklin, are well drawn and the setting is well realized. Readers bewildered by the melting and freezing of Dhrawn's ammonia-water hydrosphere will do well to consult a phase diagram. These can be found in textbooks or in Forward's *Flight of the Dragonfly*. (Much of Forward's writing is homages to Clement.