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The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association reports that Jerry Pournelle died on September 8 at age 84. The article didn't list the cause of death.
He was the first winner of the "Best New Writer" category of the Campbell award, and was a former president of the SFWA, a writer's guild.
I thought his best stuff was his Niven collaborations, like A Mote in God's Eye. What was your favorite?
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Jerry Pournelle Dead at Eighty Four
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HELP! Man trapped in a human body!
(Score: 5, Informative) by bzipitidoo on Sunday September 10 2017, @06:15AM
The Mote in God's Eye and its sequel The Gripping Hand are the only Pournelle books I've read. Gripping Hand suffers badly from "sequelitis", wandering off into an extended tribute over the death of one of its significant characters. Was decent up to that point.
The Mote in God's Eye is basically a Malthusean fear fest. There's more to it than that, but that's the main theme. OMG these aliens reproduce at exponential rates! Lucky for us, they're unable to get out of their home system with the FTL tech both themselves and humans discovered. But if they ever get loose, they will overwhelm humanity.
Thing is, well, we also reproduce at exponential rates. The plotting was clever to have aliens that suffer collapse from overpopulation. Rather neat to explore the problems of overpopulation and collapse through a fictional alien race rather than ourselves.