If one visualizes hard SF as a monolith of shimmering granite whose flawless surface is unyielding to any probing scientific discrepancy, then its sculptor is surely Harry Clement Stubbs, better known as Hal Clement. World building is well-chartered territory in science fiction. However, the environments that Clement crafted were a world apart from others in their extreme and unearthly physical conditions and remarkable adherence to scientific principles.

Among his more famous works, Mission of Gravity (1954), a critically-acclaimed classic, explored life on a planet whose gravity was 700 times that of the Earth's. "Proof" (1942), his first published story, was based on a sentient race residing on the surface of the sun, while "Uncommon Sense" (1945), for which he won a retro-Hugo award in 1996, used a planet that was so hot that its inhabitants had liquid metal running through their veins. Though all these complex, yet scientifically sound worlds reveal the limitlessness of Clement's imagination, they may also contain the seed of an interesting question surrounding his work: does Clement, in his efforts to remain scientifically rigorous, sacrifice the development of his characters and, consequently, their ability to win the empathy of his readers?

While The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction finds that the "most memorable images of other-worldly life are often highly artificial" (Clute, Nicholls 722) and Hartwell and Cramer remark that the reader of "Proof" need not identify with its radiation-ingesting solar residents "more than provisionally" (Hartwell, Cramer 92), critics like Joanna Russ argue that Clement's "characters are always rational, humane, and highly likeable" (Russ, "Towards Aesthetic Science Fiction"). These arguments, among others, illustrate the varying opinions that the science fiction community has on the humaneness of Clement's protagonists. This project shall critically examine Clement's work to determine whether the extremeness of his worlds compels his readers to regard his characters merely through a "god's-eye point of view" (Hartwell, Cramer 92) or with loyal compassion.