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Title: Through the Eye of a Needle

Author: Hal Clement

Narrator: John Nelson

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6 hrs and 44 mins

Language: English

Release date: 02-26-13

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 7 votes

Genres: Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Sci-Fi: Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

Time was running out for Bob Kinnaird. Without much warning, the Hunter - the green protoplasmic alien that lived inside him and cured all his ills - had suddenly become his destroyer. Day by day Bob grew weaker and weaker, and only specialists from the Hunter's distant world would know what was wrong with him and, more importantly, how to save him. But the only way searchers from his planet could find him was to locate his missing spaceshipa spaceship that had crashed beneath the ocean years before, its location still very much a mystery. Once again leading an investigation against time - as he had done so many years before - the Hunter knew he had to find comrades and find them fastbefore someone murdered his best friend.

Members Reviews:

Good, Bad and Ugly

I read Needle many years ago, probably in the 60's (it was published in 1950, when I was five). More recently I read this sequel, and just now I've reread it. I see there is one review of it, five stars, and I have to disagree. Needle was pretty interesting, and the sequel is not too bad either, though like most sequels, it's not as good as the original. However, both novels are severely flawed. Basically, this seems to be an alternate universe with an alternate race of humans who have no emotions, like the Vulcans in the original Star Trek series, and speak and think like hyper-rational machines.

(mild spoilers)

The science, fine, and mildly interesting. Not very believable in an absolute sense, but it's pretty easy to suspend disbelief. The detective aspects, OK, pretty good; better in the original than the sequel. But the way people act and talk!!!!! Basically no one ever bats an eye when they find out about these alien parasites-- "well, symbionts", but even the good guys among them frequently enter people and spy on them without their knowledge or consent. (btw, Clement accidentally coined the term "symbiote" in the first book. He's sorry, but the damage is done). The protagonist Bob, in the original, accepts his symbiont, when he finds about him, without complaint, accepts having a passenger looking through his eyes, listening through his ears, and monitoring all his bodily functions 24/7/365, for years. He's not mad, or apparently even upset, when he finds out that his symbiont, Hunter, has made him extremely and probably fatally sick. His friends and family allow Hunter to go into them, too, and no one makes a peep. And everyone talks in exactly the same hyperintellectual way. When Bob, his mother, his father, the doctor, and the Betty and Veronica who are contending for his affections get together in a circle and discuss strategy, it might as well be one person talking out loud. Well, that's Hal Clement for you. He's all about the science, and does really cool world-building and aliens, but his characters are always like this. But you wouldn't put it up with it from anyone else; it's a serious flaw in all his books, and especially glaring here.

Also, Hunter, the intrepid interstellar detective, who flew his own spacecraft here from his home planet, knows nothing about the stellar density of this part of the Galaxy, how his ship works, or even how fast it goes!!

It gets much worse.