X-Nico

15 unusual facts about Jerry Pournelle


Attack Vector: Tactical

All these factors combine to completely eliminate its effect on gameplay, making it similar to the Alderson Drive of Jerry Pournelle's CoDominium Universe.

Dan Alderson

A member of the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society, an Official Editor of the comic book APA CAPA-alpha, and an early member of gaming fandom, he came into contact with a number of science fiction writers, notably Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, who, in their books, credit Dan Alderson with ideas that inspired some of their science fiction, notably the Alderson drive and the Alderson disk.

Dean drive

In the 1950s Jerry Pournelle, working for an aerospace company, contacted Dean to investigate purchasing the device.

EAS Pournelle

It is most likely named for science fiction writer Jerry Pournelle.

Freemartin

In Footfall by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, a lithely built woman doubts her sexuality with misgivings as to whether she is a freemartin, although she is not a cow.

Invasion Orion

Although he reported that the computer opponent in Invasion Orion played slowly, sometimes requiring several minutes per move, Jerry Pournelle praised the Orion games' realism: "Classical principles of fleet warfare work, and strategy and tactics are more important than luck".

Nika riots

The novel The Mercenary (1977) by Jerry Pournelle is inspired by the riots, recreating the events in the setting of a future colonial world.

Phlegethon

In the novel Inferno by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, Phlegethon is guarded not by centaurs, but by military officers taken from all eras of history (with instructions to shoot anyone who tries to escape).

Political spectrum

This very distinct two-axis model was created by Jerry Pournelle in 1963 for his doctoral dissertation in political science.

Roland J. Green

Tran (1996) (with Jerry Pournelle) (omnibus of the two novels above, the second and third in the Janissaries series)

Springville, California

In the science fiction novel Lucifer's Hammer, written by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, fragments of a comet strike the Earth, causing massive tidal waves to destroy most of the planet's coastal cities.

Star Fleet I: The War Begins

Jerry Pournelle wrote in BYTE that Star Fleet I "is likely to drive me crazy but I keep coming back for more".

Starfleet Orion

Jerry Pournelle praised the Orion games' realism: "Classical principles of fleet warfare work, and strategy and tactics are more important than luck".

The Burning City

The Burning City is a fantasy novel of social and political allegory by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle set in an analogue of Southern California in an imaginary past shortly after the sinking of Atlantis about 14,000 years ago in the twilight of a civilization then struggling and now vanished for lack of a crucial natural, and essentially non-renewable resource upon which almost all of its economy and technology depended.

Zenith Z-100

Jerry Pournelle in June 1983 praised the Z-100's keyboard, and wrote that it "had the best color graphics I've seen on a small machine".


Janissary

:For the Janissaries series of novels by Jerry Pournelle, see Janissaries series.

McDonnell Douglas DC-X

According to writer Jerry Pournelle: "DC-X was conceived in my living room and sold to National Space Council Chairman Dan Quayle by General Graham, Max Hunter and me."

Panzerfaust Magazine

The magazine published articles by notable industry figures such as Jerry Pournelle, Gary Gygax, Lou Zocchi, Mike Carr, Jack Scruby, and Dave Arneson.

Stefan Thomas Possony

He was with William Kintner and Robert Strausz-Hupé a coauthor of the influential Cold War strategy treatise The Protracted Conflict, and in 1968 was co-author with Jerry Pournelle and Francis X. Kane of The Strategy of Technology.