Jerry Pournelle
Jerry Pournelle
Jerry Eugene Pournelleis an American science fiction writer, essayist and journalist who contributed for many years to the computer magazine Byte. Pournelle served as President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 1973...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth7 August 1933
CountryUnited States of America
american-journalist best seller stranger york
Heinlein never had a best-seller. Even, I think, with Stranger in a Strange Land, I don't think it was actually on the New York Times best seller list.
answer damn few future guess hard novel people
So, I guess the answer to your question is very few people can bring off a novel of the future because it's just so damn hard to make it look like the future.
american-journalist hundred publishing trend
One the other hand, the publishing trend is ghastly, isn't it? Two hundred and something distributors are now down to 10 or 12? And what's the recruiting drive?
believe both convenient equally necessity
To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection.
american-journalist fantasy hard science
We do a hard fantasy as well as hard science fiction, and I think I probably single-handedly recreated military science fiction. It was dead before I started working in it.
american-journalist couple hundred members whom
There were probably, what, 300 science-fiction members in the SFWA, of whom probably a hundred were active members in the sense that they were selling something every year, or every couple years.
american-journalist business lecture talk
Somebody's always getting me to come lecture to their writing class, and I don't talk about writing at all, I talk about the business of making a living at this racket.
american-journalist asimov changed convinced
Asimov was the reason why we changed some rules in the SFWA, and I'm not convinced we changed it for the best.
american-journalist basically joe likes
We're basically after Joe's beer money, and Joe likes his beer, so you better make sure that what you give him is at least as pleasurable to him as having his six-pack of beer would be.
american-journalist early heard nobody racket science sixth writers
I started in this racket in the early '70s, and when I was president of the Science Fiction Writers of America, of which I was like the sixth president, I was the first one nobody ever heard of.
american-journalist people
And meanwhile, the storytellers like me and Anderson, Silverberg... we tell stories. People like them. They want to know how it comes out, they want to know what the ending is.
years people fundamentals
It's not only possible, but likely that the Nobel Prize in economics will go in alternate years to people who disagree on nearly everything fundamental.
teacher children writing
In any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach children, vs. union representatives who work to protect any teacher including the most incompetent. The Iron Law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions.
government long people
It's the nature of government, to build enduring institutions, structures that stay long after their purpose is over. If you pay people to help the poor, you have people who won't be paid if there aren't any poor, so they'll be sure to find some.