Poul Anderson contributes a new introduction that knowledgably notes the stories' strengths, mentions a few technical points where they've become dated, and rightly adds that some scientific obsolescence is both inevitable and not terribly important. Volume 2, Music of Many Spheres , assembles a mass of short fiction and should appear in 1999. So much for mere facts. It's hard to stand back and say objective, reviewerly things about Hal Clement's first novel Needle , since reading it was among my own formative experiences. I babbled something of the sort to the great man when I finally met him at the 1992 Boskone, and probably caused him considerable alarm.
Shadows are excellent hiding-places in space.
A spaceship crash-landing on Earth passes through the atmosphere too quickly to notice major storms. Needle is a fair-play sf detective story whose hidden goals are the identity of the Killer's host and the means by which the invader can be ejected. Being inhabited by four pounds of slimy alien jelly is rather a viscerally disturbing idea, and Clement works hard to establish the Hunter as a sympathetic and ethical viewpoint character well in advance of his initial mistakes in communicating with Bob. But, leaving aside the question of whether they could have been adequately plumbed in the Astounding of 1949, Clement is temperamentally not inclined in that direction. The affably didactic tone of Needle is continued in Iceworld , whose bright if unsophisticated lead character actually is a schoolmaster.