Emperor of Ideas. Story-telling Master.
"I loved it," mega-seller Tom Clancy said of Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven's Footfall. He was only echoing the New York Times Book Review (of a saner era), which proclaimed Pournelle and Niven's work "rousing, the best in the genre." And then there is the understated play on words of the Cleveland Plain-Dealer on Lucifer's Hammer: "massively entertaining." Massively. Especially after the "mass" slams Earth into a new Dark Age!
A Pournelle refresher course (as if you needed one—but it's fun to be reminded!): Politically incorrect. Provocative. A proponent of uncompromising scientific thought as opposed to scientism and malarkey. A political and social thinker who belongs among the greats. A story-teller in every sense of the word.
But you know this. Who doesn't Who couldn't Dr. Jerry E. Pournelle has passed the status of "bestseller": He's become a world-wide institution. A writer who creates and recreates entire genres. A thinker who fearlessly follows the logic to its ultimate conclusion (a species that's vanishingly rare these days). And did we mention he's hilarious when it suits his purposes
It's all here. The "Pournelle Continuum." Footfall. Lucifer's Hammer. Collaborations with Larry Niven that defined the science fiction blockbuster. "The Imperial Stars" tales, massive multi-volume collections of stories by cutting-edge writers (many of them legends themselves) brought together by Pournelle's vision and illuminated by his masterful discussion, contained between the stories, of republic, empire, of what it means to make war, to negotiate. To lose. To win. To advance as a civilization. And there are more astounding essays in A Step Farther Out, Pournelle jewels gleaned from the pages of Galaxy magazine. The books, the essays—in aggregate an extended argument for settling the solar system. The galaxy beyond. For getting out there. For living out there in style. As humanity's birthright.
Want more How about Pournelle's "Warwold" novels Blood Feuds and Blood Vengeance (co-written with such writers as Harry Turtledove, S.M. Stirling, Susan Schwartz and Judith Tarr.) Pournelle's take on the battle for a humane civilization on a lost planet at the long end the galaxy.
And don't forget Pournelle's espionage and political thrillers. Red Heroin. It's a book Robert A. Heinlein once called "the most realistic counterespionage story I've read in a long, long time." It's here—along with its sequel, Red Dragon.
Ten books. No shipping costs. No dead tree crumble. Big thought. Huge adventure. Massively wonder-inducing ideas. Characters who are amusing, torn, noble—and always courageous and resourceful in the face of a very tough, extremely unforgiving universe. It's a recipe for the best of the best in science fiction. And, of course, it's all presented in the reader-friendly, unencrypted formats Baen Ebooks is known for.
