Needle (was Re: A different trans****tation threada (Re: Aside from THE ROLLING STONES)

"Lawrence Watt-Evans" <lwe@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote
> On Sun, 4 May 2008 15:14:51 +0000 (UTC), jdnicoll@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 (James
> Nicoll) wrote:
>
>>In article <wodTj.2452$Eh7.1174@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
>>Dan Tilque <dtilque@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>>
>>>In _Needle_ (Hal Clement), the kids mostly get around by bike when on
>>>land.
>>
>> That's set on an island, isn't it? Although I can't recall
>>if we're talking something like Hans Island (1.3 km^2 and still
>>devoid of human life since the rapacious Danes got done with it),
>>PEI (5700 km^2, rejected as a possible site for the Island Games
>>on account of being too large) or even larger, like New Zealand
>>(Less likely because anything that big would have to be a known
>>spot of land and I think Clement made it up). Potentially, the
>>kids could range all over the island on a bike.
>
> I remember it, possibly incorrectly, as being an L-shaped Pacific
> atoll roughly three miles long, with a reef forming a lagoon in the
> interior of the L.

That's basically it. Located somewhere in French Polynesia.

One of the interesting things is why the kids and their families (all 
Americans) are on this island in the first place. It seems that they are 
on a secret project during WWII to produce more fuel for the war effort. 
They're doing it by harvesting fast-growing plants and then fermenting 
them with special microorganisms that produce the fuel directly. I 
believe the fuel produced was either gasoline or diesel, but the story 
doesn't actually say. I'm fairly sure it's not ethanol, though, since 
they wouldn't need special microorganisms to produce that.

The part about it being a secret WWII project was not in _Needle_, but 
rather in the sequel. (I suspect that part was a retcon, mainly because 
families don't normally accompany workers on secret war-time projects.) 
Just reading _Needle_, you have no idea when it actually takes place. 
Clement manages to avoid specifics about various technologies so it 
could be anywhere from the mid-20th century to the 1980s or possibly 
later.

I first read the book during the first oil crisis in the 70s. At the 
time, all sorts of alternative methods of producing fuel were being 
proposed. So the story fit easily into the gestalt of the times. I 
hadn't checked the copyright date, so had no idea it'd been written in 
the late 40s. I figured it'd been written in the previous year or so.

Hmm, just checked ISFDB and find the sequel was written, or at least 
published, in 1978. So I wonder why the retcon, unless it'd been written 
in the 50s but not published until later.

-- 
Dan Tilque