Mission of Gravitas

Cover illustration by H. R. Van Dongen.

Contents of this issue are available at https://archive.org/details/Astounding_v51n02_1953-04_starhome/mode/2up

I've been sniffing around Hal Clement's Mission of Gravity for a little while. I started reading it about three years ago when I was subscribing to Scribd. But I only got about one fourth of the way through it before I stopped my subscription. *

I found it to be a pretty enthralling story, and always intended to get back to it.

About a year ago, I found out that the public library had a copy--in the omnibus The Essential Hal Clement Volume 3: Variations on a Theme by Sir Isaac Newton: The Mesklin Stories. One copy, I must point out. I checked it out... but, as so often happens, I ended up returning it after numerous renewals, still unfinished. 

I still found myself thinking about the book from time to time, and always intended to finish reading it. I was starting to think that it'd be wiser to buy a copy, since that changes the relationship between reader and book. And I found a very cool old paperback copy on eBay and put it into my cart...but never pushed the BUY button, so it went to someone else. 

This morning I was doing a Mission of Gravity sweep, just to see what I could see, and found a beat-up copy of Astounding Science Fiction April 1953. (Turns out the novel was initially issued in four installments, from April to July of 1953. I hadn't known that before.)

And I wanted that issue...but $15 (plus shipping) seemed a bit steep for a raggedy magazine that only had 1/4th of the story. So I went back to looking for copies of the novel. Old copies, because the covers were cooler back in the day.

And lo and behold, I found out that the Internet Archive, which has served me well several times now,  has the full novel:

https://archive.org/details/galaxy_novel_number_33_mission_of_gravity

And hey, this cover illustration is by Wally Wood! So I'm going to see if I can get around to that in the near future.

While I was at it, I poked around to see if I could find the other issues of Astounding Science Fiction in which Mission of Gravity was first serialized. They look like this:

Cover illustration by Austin R. Baer.

Cover photograph by G. Harry Stine aka Lee Correy.

Cover by Walt Miller. Hmpf. I would have guessed Kelly Freas.

And guess what? I found the entire set on eBay. In pretty decent shape, too. For a mere $58.99. And free shipping. Hmmmm. That's $14.75 per issue. Well, that's a lot. But still. You know, I DO have a birthday coming up.... 

Now why do I have such a longing for four issues of a 68 year old magazine when I can read the entire story for free? I don't know. 

But I do.

Yes, I do.

Yes, I do.

It's become a mission, I suppose.

News as it happens.

* I liked Scribd quite a bit, actually, but unfortunately I am in an income bracket which makes me think about paying $10 a month...and I was already reading so much other stuff (library and bought) that I wasn't really making good use of Scribd...and there were quite a few things that I wanted which weren't available--no judgment, as I have pretty quirky reading desires.