Meh. Offering alternative suggestions on a path to citizenship for people brought here as children and acknowledging a need to find relief from deportation for their parents as well is pretty mild “Trump apologetics.”
No, the Trump apologetics was saying that Trump doesn’t want to deport the Dreamers, he has no choice, because Obama’s EO was unconstitutional and Trump must obey the law.
And of course now he has the perfect excuse for not finishing the Janissaries series.
Bastard.
Not wishing to participate in a thread derailment but doesn’t every President decide, through underlings, etc., which laws are going to be enforced and which aren’t. I seem to recall that Ronald Reagan didn’t enforce anti-trust laws too vigorously. It’s called setting priorities.
No one has mentioned “Legacy of Heorot” yet.
Also, in the political realm, he did come up with the “Pournelle Axes”, an attempt to look at political positioning in a manner beyond the traditional left-right dichotomy.
An honest asshole is still an asshole.
Since I’ve never had the ‘pleasure’ of talking with him, I’ll just enjoy his writing without the excess baggage.
The first I ever heard of him was way back in The Avalon Hill General, where he and Jim Dunnigan had a letters-column debate over the role of strategic air power in WWII. Pournelle’s education as a historian served him well there…and ever since.
One of my favorites of his is King David’s Spaceship, which nicely showcases his historical education. (Also one of the more astonishing spaceship designs… From an engineering standpoint, holy cow!)
From what Jerry wrote on his blog, the third book from Avalon is/was mostly done.
Don’t know how I feel about that. IMO, Legacy was pretty good but Beowulf’s Children sucked grendel balls.
Oh, well. I’ll always have Oath of Fealty to remember him by.
Jerry may have passed on, but The Colonel will live on forever.
Book 3: Company is coming.
Is it true what I’ve heard, that in his books with Niven, one of them wrote the humans, and the other wrote the aliens? And if so, which did what?
Huh, I thought Legacy of Heorot was just Niven and Barnes, not all three of them.
And Oath of Fealty was one of the stinkers I mentioned. First they get this great idea for this concept called a “city”, except for some reason they don’t think it’s called a city, and then they go and have absolutely everyone in the book do completely stupid things just because that’s the only way to make the plot move.
From Niven’s Laws, “Collaboration” - Jerry handles politics, warfare and conversations among large groups of people better than I do, while I run aliens and oddballs and small, revealing conversations. A hero working his was through a sea of troubles on sheer guts, is Jerry’s. Where a character gets hysterical, that’s me.
Chronos - To each his own. I also love the Prince of Sparta/Falkenberg’s Legion sequence, even if they are filled with Jerry’s deranged politics.
Good for me to hear. I hadn’t read that one yet. I found them (and Larry too, TBH) hit or miss in later years. I am looking forward to someone like Brandon Stephenson (sp?) finishing up the not-sequel to Lucifer’s Hammer that he and Larry were working on.
Although, Niven could stick with Matthew Harrington, if The Goliath Stone exemplifies their co-authoring, and I’d be happy.
I deliberately did not discuss Pournelle’s politics here; just that he was a giant of sci-fi, and now he’s gone.
I love reading all of everybody’s stories of interacting with him. I was really looking forward to Exapno Mapcase chiming in, given IIRC, that s/he had a large role with SFWA at some point.
Silenus, I think there’a a passage in something like N-Space, where Niven comments that, if you want the calculations on what kind of tidal wave will result from X size rock hitting near Santa Monica, Jerry wrote that, but if you liked ‘elephants hang gliding under paper airplanes, wearing bright pink elevator shoes,’ that was Larry.
Need to find the exact quote.
I didn’t like “Beowulf’s Children” but I still thought it was better than “Escape from Hell”, the sequel to “Inferno” (which is one of my favourites).
I didn’t like “The Gripping Hand” either, for that matter.
Beowulf’s Children was certainly a very different book from The Legacy of Heorot. I liked both of them, but I could very easily see how someone else could like either one but not the other.
And are you sure it sucked grendel balls? Grendel ovaries are so much worse.
Larry put a surfer on a tidal wave. Jerry put an apartment building in front of him.
I’ve set myself a task of rereading all of Jerry’s work I have on hand, starting with Red Heroin (as Wade Curtis).
By the way, last year, Larry and Jerry wrote a short story in that universe, which mentions the surfer - it was in Analog (Title: Story Night at the Stronghold), called “Story Night at the Stronghold”
Jerry’s “A Step Farther Out” got me writing science fiction. I liked his collaboration with Niven more than his individual stuff, but as a speculative nonfiction article writer, he was incredible. He will be missed.
The Mote in God’s Eye is still one of my all-time-favorite first contact novels, and I remember Lucifer’s Hammer and Footfall being pretty good reads back in the day. Thanks for all you wrote, Jerry, and may you rest in peace.