Dr. Jerry Pournelle
Jerry Pournelle, Ph.D., FAAAS, FBIS, FRAS is an accomplished
American science fiction
writer, essayist, and journalist. He
wrote the “Chaos Manor” column for Byte magazine for over 20 years where
he described his experiences with computer hardware and software,
and he has
been maintaining his own
website/blog since 1998.
He chairs the Citizen’s Advisory Council on National Space Policy and
The Lunar Society. He has served as Advisor on Space Policy to the
Republican Congressional Leadership and as a Board Member of the L-5
Society.
Jerry served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War as an artillery
officer. After Korea, he earned advanced degrees in psychology,
statistics, engineering, and political science, including two PhDs. He
acquired political experience by serving as Executive Assistant to the
Mayor and Director of Research for the City of Los Angeles, campaign
manager for Congressman Barry Goldwater, Jr. (Republican), and campaign
manager for the third (successful) campaign for Mayor Samuel William
Yorty (Democrat).
Jerry was an intellectual protege of Russell Kirk (Kenneth C. Cole,
his mentor at the University of Washington, was cofounder with
Kirk of
Modern Age) and Stefan T. Possony with whom he wrote
numerous publications including
The Strategy of Technology which
was required reading in the U.S. service academies during the
latter half of the Cold War. His work in the
aerospace industry included editing Project 75, a 1964 study of
1975
defense requirements. He worked in operations research at Boeing, The
Aerospace Corporation, and North American Rockwell Space Division, and
was founding President of the Pepperdine Research
Institute.
In his books Jerry delights in again and again creating situations
and dilemmas from which the only solution (at least, the only one
offered to the reader) is taking an action which is decidedly not
“politically correct”. However these stories are not mere one-sided
polemics. The protagonists are at the mercy of forces they may
understand but cannot control, forces which are very real and which
operate in our world today.
If he has specific targets in mind, they are those who for ideological
or personal reasons ignore or bypass these truths. The forces involved
are the need for resources, especially energy, the inevitable
stratification of societies and the consequences of disturbing
the existing order, and the tendency of cultures to drift towards the
politics of entitlement, as demonstrated by Welfare
States throughout history as well as economic
oligarchies. Similar themes occur in the work of H. Beam Piper, who was
an influence on him.
Jerry’s novels and other books include
1001 Computer Words You Need to Know,
After Armageddon (There Will Be War, Vol. IX),
Armageddon (There Will Be War, Vol. VIII),
Beowulf’s Children,
Black Holes,
Blood Vengeance (War World),
Burning Tower,
The Children’s Hour,
Exile—and Glory,
Falkenberg’s Legion,
Fallen Angels,
Footfall,
The Gripping Hand,
Guns of Darkness:
(There Will Be War, Vol. VI (Eternal Guardians),
Higher Education (Jupiter Series),
High Justice,
The Houses of the Kzinti,
Inferno,
Janissaries,
Legacy of Heorot,
Lucifer’s Hammer,
The Mercenary,
The Moat Around Murcheson’s Eye,
The Mote in God’s Eye,
Oath of Fealty,
The Prince,
Prince of Sparta,
Red Dragon,
Starswarm (Jupiter Series), and
Tran.
Read the
full list of his books!
His articles and musings include
A Day At EPCOT,
The First
Dark Age,
The Dean Drive and other Reactionless Drives,
Getting to Space: Prizes,
Growing up Smart,
How To Get My Job,
Megamissions and Space Power,
National Review and Global Cooling,
Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy,
Pournelle’s Iron Law and a Defense of the Teacher’s Unions,
The SSX Concept,
Star Wars,
Steroids! Will I look like Arnold?,
The Voodoo Sciences,
Why have NASA?,
William F. Buckley, Jr, RIP,
Work In Progress at Chaos Manor, and
XCOR and Space.
His awards include the Bronze Medal from the American Security
Council in 1964, the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1973,
the Prometheus Award for
Fallen Angels in 1992, and the
Heinlein Society Award in 2005. He is a
Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science,
the British Interplanetary Society, the Royal Astronomical Society, and
the
Operations Research Society of America.
He is also a
Senior Member
of
the American Astronautical Society and the American Institute of
Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineers. He has served as a past
President of the Science Fiction Writers of America and as Science
Editor for Twin Circle Magazine and Galaxy SF, and as a columnist for
Analog Science Fiction and Infoworld Magazine. His other writing
associations include membership in the Author’s Guild, National
Association of Science Writers, Aviation/Space Writers’ Association, and
the Mystery Writers of America.
Jerry
earned his B.S. in psychology and mathematics, his M.S. in experimental
statistics and systems engineering, and his PhDs in both psychology and
political science — all from the University of Washington.
Read
Sci-fi writers join war on terror,
The facts of fiction,
and the
Science Fiction Weekly interview
Jerry Pournelle wields his Hammer on the current state of science
fiction.
Check out his
Chaos Manor Reviews.