Noise

by Hal Clement

Hal Clement, the dean of hard science fiction, has written a new planetary adventure in the tradition of his classic Mission of Gravity. It is the kind of story that made his reputation as a meticulous designer of otherworldly settings that are utterly convincing because they are constructed from the ground up using established principles of orbital mechanics, geology, chemistry, biology, and other sciences.

Kainui is one of a pair of double planets circling a pair of binary stars. Mike Hoani has come there to study the language of the colonists, to analyze its evolution in the years since settlement. But Kainui is an ocean planet. Although settled by Polynesians, it is anything but a tropical paradise. The ocean is 1,700 miles deep, with no solid ground anywhere. The population is scattered in cities on floating artificial islands with no fixed locations. The atmosphere isn't breathable, and lightning, waterspouts, and tsunamis are constant. Out on the great planetary ocean, self-sufficiency is crucial, and far from any floating city, on a small working-family ship, anything can happen. There are, for instance, pirates. Mike's academic research turns into an exotic nautical adventure unlike anything he could have imagined.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction

Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Harry Clement Stubbs better known by the pen name Hal Clement , was an American science fiction writer and a leader of the hard science fiction subgenre.

Further details at Wikipedia.

Reviews

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting but somewhat listless book.

[Lis Carey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mike Hoani, a linguist/historian from Earth, has come to Kainui, a true water world, to study the languages of the Polynesian-descended inhabitants. Kainui is an interesting world, and a challenging one to live on. Tsunamis, waterspouts, and electrical storms with accompanying thunder are all constant. It is, as the title implies, noisy. There's no land at all, and the inhabitants live on artificial floating islands that maintain generally the same latitude, but otherwise have no fixed position. The main economic activity is mining the ocean for its dissolved metals, which the cities can trade among themselves as well as with other planets. The technology is mostly biotech pseudolife, and essentially all forms of long-distance communication are impossible because of the constant electrical activity of the atmosphere. Mike is conducting his research as a passenger-cum-junior crewman on a small family trading ship.

It's an interesting experience, and it gives him wonderful opportunities to encounter and learn the ways that the original languages of the colonists have evolved in the generations since. He's also valuable to the crew as a translator when they encounter other ships, because he knows, at least, all of the original languages.

But when they have ship damage and drift further than normal into the southern hemisphere while repairing it, they meet a totally unfamiliar city--living on a carefully maintained iceberg, speaking almost pure Maori, harvesting an unfamiliar metal from the oceans, and oddly uninterested in the kind of trading that is the lifeblood of most Kainui cities--they wonder if they've found a city of pirates, and if they'll ever get home again.

As is typical with Clement, Noise has good, serviceable, likable characters, but the real main character is the world itself, and the plot is an excuse to explore it. I enjoyed it, and I think any fan of Clement's work will.

Recommended.

I borrowed this book from a friend.

[Jeff Greason · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been a fan of Hal Clement's writing as long as I can recall, and I'll put "Mission of Gravity" and "Needle" on any list of great SF books. So I really wanted to like this one. Plus I'm an amateur student of Polynesian culture due to its relevance to future starfaring societies, and Polynesian culture is a centerpiece of this book, so I really, really wanted to like it.

But I just can't.

Hal Clement has always gone heavy on worldbuilding, light on plot and character. In this case, he seems so intrigued by both the interesting world he's created and the interesting society, that he breathes a bit more life in to his characters as well. And as a result, he completely forgot about the plot.

This is a 'story' in which, to first order, nothing happens. Oh, the point of view character witnesses and plays a part in a development which may have some effect on the world in which he lives, but what happens happens largely by chance rather than choice, there are no actions of note, there is some "human vs. nature" struggle against the world but never are the characters in serious peril nor are their actions or sacrifices integral to dealing with the hazards revealed.

It's more like a travelogue through an imagined society and world.

Not one of Clement's better books.

[Ryan · Rating 1 out of 5]

I found this book on a list of the five best aquatic based sci-fi novels. If this one is on the five best, there’s a market for future writers.

Part of my beef has to do with my expectations to be sure: I wanted an alien ocean with all kinds of cool xeno-fish. This ocean is devoid of life. I wanted a rollicking nautical or submarine adventure. This story did not rollick in any way.

But part of my frustration is that I also wanted an engaging plot, and the loose plot that this tale does relate is far from engaging.

This book, however, will be really good for folks who are super into buoyancy.

Me? I’ll keep looking for an awesome sci-fi in an alien ocean with cool and maybe even dangerous fish.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Archetypal Clement---composed almost entirely of logical and scientific extrapolations from the setting (lifeless ocean world) and back story (settled by Polynesians of diverse lineages) and so rich in "head" appeal...but with so little plot, character nuances or development, suspense, exciting events or late twists that its hard to have a sense of involvement beyond the purely cerebral. Competent, low key reader.

[merlin513 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Was not aware that this was Hal Clements final novel.
Fascinating world-building from a hard science-fiction master of the genre.

I’m a land locked ground grubber. Most of my sailing knowledge comes from Moana movies and Errol Flynn classics. I found this far flung future of Polynesian colonists on a world ocean quite intriguing. 3.5 stars

[Sarah Sammis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hal Clement is at his best when he's writing about alien worlds from alien perspectives. In Noise he choses to populate his densely salty ocean world with Maoris and it just doesn't work. Clement spends so much of the book explaining how the science of the planet works and how the ships are built (or grown) that he fails to adequaetly explain how these people live on this planet or why (beyond Maoris liking the ocean) they would want to live under such harsh conditions. How do they eat? Do they trade with other planets? How did they get to this planet? Do they ever leave?

Two much better Clement novels I recommend are: Mission of Gravity and Ice Planet.

[Dan Smyth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is really more a milieu piece and not really character driven. Because of that, I really didn't enjoy it as much as I would have otherwise. The first half was pretty long, and really didn't have a lot that grabbed me. By the last third or so, I had developed enough knowledge of the world to at least appreciate it. But I wouldn't exactly say that I enjoyed reading this one. Still, quite well written and a decent plot, if not incredibly intriguing.

[Steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sometimes I'm just in the mood for a neat hard-sci fi without milsf trappings or space opera derringdo. Clement delivers in his last novel, about a linguist/historian on an oceanic planet settled by various Polynesian cultures.

[Owen · Rating 5 out of 5]

super cool hard sci-fi

[Charl · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting exploration of a culture where all the normal methods of long-distance communication simply aren't usable.