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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(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 10 2017, @02:02AM (1 child)
I read his writing in the Byte Magazine - didn't know anything about his SF career.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 10 2017, @04:58AM
Similar here, read him in Byte every month for a few years, one of his favorite lines was (iirc), "At least one processor per person". Tried some of his SF, but wasn't impressed enough to really become a fan.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Tara Li on Sunday September 10 2017, @02:17AM
Over all, I really liked his individual work, especially the CoDominium Universe. However, my favorite single book is actually a collaboration - Oath of Fealty. It, and thinking about the movie version of Logan's Run, made me realize that actually, that grimdark super-crowded urban thing that first caught my attention in Soylent Green (though I'm fairly sure it started before that) just wasn't really that necessary.
(Score: 2) by Sulla on Sunday September 10 2017, @03:11AM
Well that sucks. Pournelle is one of my favorite SF authors.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Snotnose on Sunday September 10 2017, @03:40AM
I read some of his books with Niven, loved them, then devoured his column in Byte. Chaos manor was right. I was in my 20s and living through the same crap he was. "Compatible" boards that weren't, software that evidently worked for everyone that had a different hardware config than me, etc etc. And I was an engineer in the middle of all those little explosions at the time, so I was much more technically competent than he made himself out to be.
RIP Mr Pournelle, you will be missed. Not to mention reminding me I'm really getting up there.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Sunday September 10 2017, @04:15AM
2. West of Honor/Falkenberg's Legion etc. series.
3. Lucifer's Hammer.
Here's to you sir,
going before as always.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 10 2017, @04:42AM (2 children)
Lucifer's Hammer, a collaboration with Niven, was my favorite. Jerry had insightful commentary on politics, as well, and devised the Pournelle Chart:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pournelle_chart/ [wikipedia.org]
which is much better than thinking in a one dimensional left-right paradigm. I'm sixty now, myself. So many of the heroes of my youth are dying off.
(Score: 2) by Appalbarry on Sunday September 10 2017, @05:50AM (1 child)
The wiki page seems to be blank, but you're right. It was a much more sensible way of looking at political orientation.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Appalbarry on Sunday September 10 2017, @05:52AM
This one works:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pournelle_chart [wikipedia.org]
(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.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Sunday September 10 2017, @06:40AM
Like others mentioned above, I read his column in Byte magazine. Towards the end of that magazine's days, Jerry's column was the only reason to subscribe, it was that good. His degrees weren't even technical, and yet he was on top of the small computer revoluation, as well as aerospace science and so much more.
This, plus his military experience, fed into his science fiction writing. He merged fact and fiction beautifully in his series "There Will Be War" [goodreads.com]. Many of the essays are now dated, but I understand that Castalia house has issued an update (haven't bought it yet, so I don't know for certain what has changed).
He began his Chaos Manor blog [jerrypournelle.com] before the word "blog" existed, and kept it up until the end: his last post was the day before he passed away. He wasn't feeling well, and parted with the words "bye for now".
In short, he was a huge fan of technology, and a believer in humanity's potential to get out in space and expand beyond this one, single little rock floating in the universe. Here's hoping he's somewhere out in the stars, seeing the future he so often dreamed and wrote about.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday September 10 2017, @07:26AM
If I had to choose a favorite, I may have to go with Bradley13, and 'There will be war'. That, or 'Go Tell the Spartans'.
Pournelle has been a mainstay in Sci-Fi for a long time. He will be missed.
Oh, he was a Cajun, from Shreveport. Those Cajuns, Creoles, Coonasses, and assorted swamp people get into everything, don't they?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 10 2017, @09:06PM
Yes, MiGE, OoF, LH are great reads. He was great to talk to.
Got to meet him in person with Nevian 30 years ago in a small book shop in Berkeley just South of UC. SMALL book shop was not a misnomer. About 20 of us sat on floor and talked, and passed around books to sign.