Jerry Pournelle facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Jerry Pournelle
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Pournelle at NASFiC in 2005
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| Born | August 7, 1933 Shreveport, Louisiana, United States |
| Died | September 8, 2017 (aged 84) Studio City, California, United States |
| Pen name | Wade Curtis (early work) |
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| Nationality | American |
| Period | 1971–2017 |
| Genre | Science fiction |
Jerry Eugene Pournelle (born August 7, 1933 – died September 8, 2017) was an American scientist. He worked in areas like operations research and human factors research. He was also a famous science fiction writer, essayist, and journalist. He was even one of the very first bloggers!
In the 1960s and early 1970s, Jerry worked in the aerospace industry. This means he helped design and build things that fly in space. Later, he focused mostly on his writing. One newspaper called him "a tireless ambassador for the future."
Jerry Pournelle's science fiction stories won many awards. He wrote some books by himself. He also wrote many popular novels with other writers, like Larry Niven. Jerry even served as the President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.
His journalism often focused on computers, space, and astronomy. For many years, he wrote for Byte magazine. He wrote from the point of view of a smart computer user. He famously said, "We do this stuff so you won't have to." He also created one of the first blogs, called "Chaos Manor." Here, he wrote about politics, computer tech, space tech, and science fiction.
Jerry Pournelle had strong conservative political views. Sometimes, these views appeared in his stories. He helped start the Citizens' Advisory Council on National Space Policy. This group helped create some of the space plans for the Reagan Administration. This included early ideas for what became the Strategic Defense Initiative.
Contents
Growing Up and Education
Jerry Pournelle was born in Shreveport, Louisiana. This city is in northwestern Louisiana. He later lived with his family in Capleville, Tennessee, near Memphis. His father, Percival Pournelle, worked in radio advertising. His mother, Ruth Pournelle, was a teacher. During World War II, she worked in a factory making ammunition.
He went to St. Anne’s Elementary School in Memphis for first grade. Then he attended Coleville Consolidated Elementary School. He went to high school at Christian Brothers College in Memphis. It was a high school back then.
Jerry served in the United States Army during the Korean War. After his military service, he went to college. He studied at the University of Iowa and then the University of Washington. He earned several degrees there. He got a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in psychology in 1955. He also earned a Master of Science (M.S.) in psychology in 1958. Finally, he received a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in political science in 1964. A Ph.D. is the highest university degree you can get.
His Family Life
Jerry Pournelle married Roberta Jane Isdell in 1959. They had five children together. His wife, Roberta, also wrote science fiction. Two of his children, Phillip and Jennifer, also wrote science fiction with him. Phillip became a naval officer, and Jennifer became an archaeologist.
In 2008, Jerry had a brain tumor. It seemed to get better after treatment. In 2014, he had a stroke. This made it harder for him to type. But by 2015, he was writing again! Jerry Pournelle passed away peacefully in his sleep on September 8, 2017. He was at his home in Studio City, California.
His Beliefs and Worldview
Jerry Pournelle was raised as a Unitarian. He later became a Roman Catholic while in college.
He learned about Malthusian ideas by reading a book called Road to Survival. This book talked about how Earth's resources might run out if people didn't manage them well. Jerry later left the Catholic Church for a while. He became an Anglican. But he eventually returned to the Catholic Church. He often wrote about attending church with his family.
Jerry Pournelle's Career
Jerry Pournelle worked closely with Russell Kirk and Stefan T. Possony. He wrote many books with Possony, including The Strategy of Technology (1970). This book was used as a textbook at important military schools. These included United States Military Academy (West Point) and the United States Air Force Academy.
In the late 1950s, Jerry worked at Boeing. He imagined a powerful weapon called “Project Thor.” It would drop huge tungsten rods from space. These rods would hit targets with massive force. They wouldn't cause radioactive pollution like nuclear bombs. His team at Boeing also did important work on how much heat astronauts could handle. They also helped make sure the passenger oxygen system for the Boeing 707 airplane was safe. He also analyzed new weapon systems.
In 1964, Jerry joined the Aerospace Corporation. He was the editor of "Project 75." This was a big study about missile technology. It helped the US Air Force decide where to invest money for missiles. After this, he managed several advanced concept studies. He also worked at North American Rockwell’s Space Division. There, he helped with the Apollo program.
He was the first President of the Pepperdine Research Institute. In 1989, Jerry and other experts met with Vice President Dan Quayle. They promoted the development of the DC-X rocket. This was a cool rocket designed to be reusable.
Jerry Pournelle also wrote articles about military tactics and war games. He wrote for The General magazine, which was about military simulations. This led him to connect with the early creators of Dungeons and Dragons and other fantasy role-playing games.
Two of his books written with Larry Niven became bestsellers. Lucifer's Hammer reached number two in 1977. Footfall reached number one in 1986.
Jerry was the President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 1973.
He had a good relationship with Newt Gingrich, a politician. In 1994, Gingrich helped Jerry's son, Richard, get a government job. Jerry and Gingrich were even planning to write a science fiction political thriller together.
After Byte magazine stopped printing, Jerry continued his "Chaos Manor" column online. He helped launch Byte.com with other journalists. He later moved his column to his own website, Chaos Manor Reviews. He also helped launch aNewDomain, a tech and political news site. He worked with young writers there.
Jerry kept a daily online journal called "View from Chaos Manor." This was like a blog before the word "blog" was common. He used it to share his thoughts and answer questions from readers.
His Fiction Writing
Jerry Pournelle started writing science fiction short stories while working at Boeing. He sent them to John W. Campbell, a famous editor. Campbell finally accepted one of his stories, "Peace with Honor," in 1971.
From the start, Jerry's stories often had strong military themes. Several of his books are about a fictional group of soldiers called Falkenberg's Legion. These stories are similar to other military science fiction books, like Starship Troopers.
Jerry was a close friend of H. Beam Piper, another science fiction writer. Piper gave Jerry the rights to write stories set in Piper's "Terro-Human Future History." Jerry worked on a sequel to Space Viking for some years. Later, other authors finished it, and it was published in 2011.
In 2013, a movie company bought the rights to Jerry's novel Janissaries. A screenplay was written for it.
Pen Names and Teamwork
Jerry Pournelle sometimes wrote non-science fiction books using a different name in 1965. His early science fiction was published under the name "Wade Curtis." Some works also appeared as "J.E. Pournelle."
In the mid-1970s, Jerry started working with Larry Niven. They wrote many successful novels together. He also worked with other writers like Roland J. Green and Steven Barnes. He edited a series of anthologies (collections of stories) with John F. Carr.
In 2010, his daughter Jennifer R. Pournelle published a novel called Outies. It was an authorized sequel to the popular Mote in God's Eye series.
Journalism and Tech Writing
Computers at Chaos Manor
Jerry Pournelle wrote a popular column called "Computing at Chaos Manor" for Byte magazine. In this column, he shared his experiences with computer hardware and software. He wrote about things he bought and things companies sent him to review. He was one of the few writers for Byte who was just a user, not a computer builder. So, his column was first called "The User's Column."
He often wrote about his family, friends, and his many computers. He gave his computers nicknames. For example, "Ezekiel" was his first computer. "Zorro" was his "colorful" Zenith Z-100. "Lucy Van Pelt" was a "fussbudget" IBM PC. He called other similar computers "PClones." Jerry often criticized companies that announced products that were never released. He would sarcastically say they would arrive "Real Soon Now" (or "RSN"). He also disliked software that used copy protection.
In 1984, the column was renamed "Computing at Chaos Manor." A memorable column from 1989 was about a huge power surge. It described how his electronic equipment was damaged when power lines fell.
After Byte magazine stopped printing in the US, Jerry continued his column online. In 2006, he moved the column to his own website, Chaos Manor Reviews.
Other Technical Writing
Jerry Pournelle said he was the first author to write a published book using a word processor on a personal computer in 1977.
In the 1980s, he was an editor and columnist for Survive magazine. He also wrote a monthly column called "The Micro Revolution" for Popular Computing. This column looked at how microcomputers were changing society.
In 2011, Jerry joined other journalists to launch aNewDomain. This was an independent tech and political news site. He served as a director there until he passed away.
After 1998, Jerry kept a website with a daily online journal. He called it "View from Chaos Manor." It was a blog before the word "blog" was widely used. He said he didn't like the word "blog." He felt his "View" was more about writing than just sharing links.
His Political Views
Jerry Pournelle worked as a campaign research director for Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty in 1969. He was briefly an Executive Assistant to the Mayor. He later worked as a consultant for a group that opposed school teacher unions in Los Angeles.
He sometimes joked that his politics were "somewhere to the right of Genghis Khan." He didn't like being put into specific political groups. But he agreed that the term "paleoconservatism" roughly described him. He was different from "neoconservatives." For example, Jerry was against the Gulf War and the Iraq War. He believed the money would be better spent on developing new energy technologies for the United States. He once said that for the cost of the Iraq war, the US could have built enough nuclear power stations to become energy independent.
The Pournelle Chart
Jerry Pournelle created the Pournelle chart in his Ph.D. paper. It's a special chart that helps explain different political ideas. It uses two lines, like a graph. One line shows how people feel about government power. The other line shows how much people believe that all problems can be solved with careful planning.
Strategic Defense Initiative
The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) was a plan to protect the US from missile attacks. It was sometimes called "Star Wars." Some people said Jerry Pournelle helped write parts of President Ronald Reagan's speech about SDI in 1983. Jerry said his group, the Citizens' Advisory Council on National Space Policy, provided ideas for the policy. He said they were trying to help win the Cold War, not just get more money for space. Their reports helped shape the Reagan administration's space plans.
Politics in His Stories
One writer, James Wheatfield, said that Jerry Pournelle liked to create complex situations in his stories. He would then lead the reader to a solution that might not be what people usually expect. He would challenge readers to find where they would have done things differently.
Pournelle's Laws
Jerry Pournelle suggested several "laws" or rules.
- One "Pournelle's law" was "One user, one CPU." He later changed this to "One user, at least one CPU." This means each person using a computer should have their own computer processor.
- Another law was "Silicon is cheaper than iron." This means it's usually cheaper to upgrade parts of a computer than to buy a whole new one. He also predicted that hard disk drives would be replaced by faster solid-state memory.
- He also said, "You'll find by and large, the trouble is a cable." This means that when a computer isn't working, often the problem is just a loose cable.
- Another law is "If you don’t know what you’re doing, deal with those who do." This means it's smart to get help from experts when you're unsure.
Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy
This is a special "law" Jerry came up with. It's similar to the idea that groups of people, especially in government, can become focused on keeping themselves going rather than their original purpose. His blog often showed examples of this law. Some of his common themes in stories were:
- Welfare systems can become self-sustaining.
- To build a strong technological society, you need a strong defense and fair laws.
- ""Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it"." This means if you don't learn from the past, you're likely to make the same mistakes again.
Awards and Recognition
Jerry Pournelle never won a Hugo Award, which is a big science fiction award. He famously said, "Money will get you through times of no Hugos better than Hugos will get you through times of no money." But he did win many other important awards:
- Bronze Medal, American Security Council, 1964
- Inkpot Award, 1979
- John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer of 1973
- Prometheus Hall of Fame for The Survival of Freedom (as editor), 1991
- Prometheus Award for Fallen Angels, 1992
- Seiun Award (a Japanese award) for Fallen Angels, 1998
- Heinlein Society Award (with Larry Niven), 2005
- National Space Society Robert A. Heinlein Memorial Award for his work promoting space exploration.
Images for kids
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Pournelle at NASFiC in 2005
