Comments on: It was something we could all talk about together

By: Graham

Graham — Sun, 24 Nov 2019 20:30:26 +0000

That looks interesting- made a note to try it.

By: Bruce

Bruce — Sat, 23 Nov 2019 06:56:55 +0000

John Sandford and Ctein's Saturn Run is the only thing in Niven and Pournelle's tradition I've read, and it is Good — it had a Niven plug that said so. Niven is from the Hydra Club tradition merging detective stories and SF, logic puzzles. Pournelle was a really smart conservative, Russell Kirk's student, strong military background from Korean war artillery experience, political manager for an LA mayor, strong aerospace background and space travel proponent. That was the old SF tradition — detective story writers who were also SF writers who were also writing technothrillers who also had a fantasy streak from the folk music crowd of the 1950s and 1960s — Poul Anderson, Heinlein, Niven, Pournelle, Zelazny. All gone from today's D party flack Hugo crowd. Any art dies every generation unless someone passes it on.

By: Graham

Graham — Sat, 23 Nov 2019 04:51:25 +0000

I think I noted on this site at one point that I only read The Peace War (IIRC). But even from that I see the distinction.

Pournelle was certainly engaged with science and technology and an enthusiastic advocate, but his fiction was more space opera/military SF. And excellent examples. Vinge seemed more hard sf and a bit of philosophical sf, beyond the more political side Pournelle engaged.

Vinge is perhaps in the same lineage that produced Iain Banks, for example. I’m not sure Pournelle and Niven have a tradition- it seems to have gone more fantasy.

By: Kirk

Kirk — Sat, 23 Nov 2019 01:34:47 +0000

Different sub-genre, in my belief. Not to mention, different era–Pournelle epitomizes the space opera of the late 1960s and 1970s, along with Niven. Vinge is from a shallower layer, the 1980s, and while his work is perhaps more fully realized and immersive, I don’t think that he and Pournelle are really writing in the same sort of genre, at all–Pournelle is more pure entertainment, while Vinge is more “hard SF” in a lot of ways, although I’d have trouble laying out why it “tastes” that way to me.

For whatever reason, Vinge’s work just seems like it has more “depth” to it, than Pournelle’s or Niven’s oeuvre. Although, that may be a poor way to phrase it…

I like both of them, but… They’re not the same flavor of SF, at all. At least, to my tastes.

By: CVLR

CVLR — Sat, 23 Nov 2019 00:54:53 +0000

There’s no question of Pournelle’s absolute greatness, but in relative terms he loses out to Vinge, or so I humbly opine.

By: Isegoria

Isegoria — Fri, 22 Nov 2019 14:14:09 +0000

Yes, There Will Be War is available in digital form! In fact, all the excerpts I've shared have been from the Kindle edition. (Anything I want to excerpt now I get on Kindle. Otherwise I get the audiobook.)

By: Graham

Graham — Mon, 18 Nov 2019 15:34:49 +0000

TWBW is available in digital form?

By: Sam J.

Sam J. — Sat, 16 Nov 2019 08:42:57 +0000

“Speaking of Jerry Pournelle, The Best of Jerry Pournelle has come out.”

Thanks for this. I loved Jerry Pournelle. I bet I’ve read damn near close to all he has written. Most of it anyways.

See the link and it’s fiction. As much as I like his fiction, alone he is not as good as when he collaborates or is an editor, in my humble opinion. Not sure why. Maybe it’s like certain people that get together in a band and it makes magic for that combination.

The “There Will be War” series has got to be some my favorite books ever. I think I still have them. I certainly do in digital form.

By: Graham

Graham — Sat, 16 Nov 2019 00:01:54 +0000

Not without a reminiscence of Spandrell, as well.

By: Graham

Graham — Sat, 16 Nov 2019 00:00:40 +0000

I managed to read all of rat faced man’s posts.

Very engaging stuff when in a dark mood. And I had no idea juggalos loomed so large in the dystopian future of America. Great.

He’s made good points on generational and career stuff and you can certainly see the broader implications for political economy all over it. Although he is rightly down on traditional boomer family life as a real possibility, he’s obviously darkly wistful about it.

It was in some ways as if Heartiste, and whoever put in my head the idea of dividing society into the “Craves Experience” Richard Florida People and the “Traditional Life Stations” Alan Jackson People, had merged, made money in finance, and decided to go into attack mode.