You spit a lot when you talk, don’t you? At least Pournelle has both fans and detractors who will remember him. When you die there will probably just be a collective yawn.
Boojum2k
boojum2k
I’m still trying to figure out how to draw that damn ship!
I expected to hate it, and all the terrible reviews had me ready to enjoy a train wreck, because in general I don’t care for Seth MacFarlane’s stuff so I was prepared for a little schadenfreude. But it was ok. I wouldn’t say it was good, but for a pilot, I think it showed some potential. As for the lame sex jokes,…
Always glad I ran into Larry Niven walking around at a con and introduced myself, if somewhat incoherently.
I’m a progressive. Hell, in any, other civilized Western democracy I’d be a member of whatever the local Social Democratic party was called. And even I think Eric is a full of himself troll and wish he’d go away...
For some people, cough”progressives”cough everyone who doesn’t agree with them IS Hitler. Don’t we know this by now?
We lost Anne McCaffrey in 2011, Sir Terry Pratchett in 2015, now Jerry Pournelle. I better write my fan letters to Larry Niven and Spider Robinson soon before we lose them. And maybe tell John Ringo I enjoyed the first few books in the council wars series (haven’t read the others yet).
Niven and Pournelle’s Inferno was the shit!
This is a memorial for a writer that some of us really love. Please troll elsewhere.
When I was 15 I had to spend a day at the doctor’s office getting a bunch of tests and my mom picked Legacy of Heorot for me from a magazine rack in the pharmacy. She thought I would like it because it looked “sciency”. Loved it and enjoyed the sequel as well. Always wished they would have had a third installment.
We’re memorializing a writer whose work entertained us but who we may not have agreed with on other topics. We’re not fondly remember Hitler here. Save your venom for actual enemies of the state.
“Legacy of Heorot” was also good. By himself: the couple Mercenary novels, King David’s Spaceship, and his early High Justice collection. It’s a shame he didn’t do more solo stuff after the Niven-partnership money started rolling in. The original Falkenberg stories are so lean compared to similar stuff out today.
Jerry Pournelle was a GIANT...
The comet as an “ice cream sundae” discussion in Lucifer’s Hammer really opens your eyes on how smeared we would be by even a relatively small comet.
Oh man! I just reread A Mote in God’s Eye last week! Such a good book. Pournelle and Larry Niven were great together.
And if you like Lucifer’s Hammer, then you can read Footfall and get a very similar experience but with added aliens.
I’m sad that this means we’ll likely never see a follow-up to The Legacy of Heorot and Beowulf’s Children.
I absolutely love Footfall, and Lucifer’s Hammer still frightens me. RIP.
He and Pournelle repeatedly hit it out of the park in the 1970's and 1980's by taking cliched SF tropes like giant asteroids (Lucifer’s Hammer), alien invasion (Footfall), and first contact (The Mote in God’s Eye)and handling them in a grounded, realistic, detailed, modern, way.
I’ve mentioned my love of his collaborations with Larry Niven on another list. I think that Lucifer’s Hammer was among the first science fiction novels I read. It was a great introduction to the genre.