Jerry Pournelle

[Dave]

Jerry Pournelle was employed in the space program for 15 years. He is Chairman of the US Citizen's Advisory Council on National Space Policy.

He is probably better known for his collaborations with Larry Niven and Steven Barnes which include: 'The Mote in God's Eye', 'Lucifer's Hammer', 'Footfall', 'Oath of Fealty', and 'The Legacy of Heorot'.

But his own novels: 'King David's Spaceship', the 'War World' series, the 'Falkenberg' series, and the 'Janissaries' series are worth a look too.

Pournelle's novels often feature an honorable military genius in a period of civilian stupidity. Pournelle has obvious advantages over Larry Niven in the technical field with his engineering degree and space program experience. When the two authors team up, they put Pournelle's technical and military experience to good use.

 

[BAYLOR]

I read Lucifer's Hammer when it first came out. First rate disaster novel. It would made a great film.

 

[Mark Ragland]

I read Lucifer's Hammer when it first came out. First rate disaster novel. It would made a great film.

I read Lucifer's Hammer in paperback years ago. Great book.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

Despite my horror of Niven & Pournelle's infantile politics, The Mote In God's Eye is a great book.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Footfall is amusing.

 

[SilentRoamer]

I read The Burning City by Niven and Pournelle. It was a weird read - great premise and really interesting but for some reason I just found the writing formulaic and boring resulting in a feeling of disappointment in the end (also the allegories to a petro god and Capitalist commentary was a bit too in your face).

Mote in Gods Eye is on my hit list however.

 

[Vertigo]

Despite my horror of Niven & Pournelle's infantile politics, The Mote In God's Eye is a great book.

Took the words from my mouth, Stephen. Same applies to The Burning City and it's possibly weirder sequel Burning Tower.

 

[SilentRoamer]

Took the words from my mouth, Stephen. Same applies to The Burning City and it's possibly weirder sequel Burning Tower.

I found Burning City to be really Opaque in places. Sure I know there are a bunch of people called Lordkin and another called Kinless and that they behave like x y and z but I never saw a "why?"

I don't know maybe I just missed the mark with this book but it just didn't do it for me.

I would give Burning City 2.5/5

 

[Vertigo]

That didn't give me

I found Burning City to be really Opaque in places. Sure I know there are a bunch of people called Lordkin and another called Kinless and that they behave like x y and z but I never saw a "why?"

I don't know maybe I just missed the mark with this book but it just didn't do it for me.

I would give Burning City 2.5/5

I'd probably only give them a 3 myself, but I didn't have your particular problem as I just saw it as being a fairly typical caste system, of which we still have plenty of examples around today and those modern day equivalents seem to me just as senseless but that doesn't make them less real.

 

[SilentRoamer]

Yeah I can see the modern day equivalents I just never saw them transferred well to the page.

One of the big problems I had with this book was that the main character Whandall spends a number of his formative years off page. So we see a young, violent and angry Lordkin, see little change to him and the next time we meet him he's running some sort of trade caravans and morphed into a decent guy.

It may have just missed the mark with me.