2024 the best jerry the best review

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Short stories by a master of science fiction. Includes over a dozen stories by SF legend Jerry Pournelle, and remembrances by Pournelle collaborators and admirers.

For the better part of five decades, Jerry Pournelle's name has been synonymous with hard-hitting science fiction. His Falkenberg's Legion stories and Janissaries series helped define the military SF genre, as did his work as editor on the There Will Be War series of anthologies. With frequent collaborator Larry Niven, he cowrote the genre-defining first contact novel The Mote in God's Eye, which was praised by Robert A. Heinlein as "possibly the greatest science fiction novel I have ever read".

Now, for the first time, all of Pournelle's best short work has been collected in a single volume. Herein you will find over a dozen short stories, each with a new introduction by editor and longtime Pournelle assistant John F. Carr, as well as essays and remembrances by Pournelle collaborators and admirers.

Reviewer: Bubba Pearson
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: What a book!
Review: This is one of the best compilations of short stories and essays I have ever read. I was so drawn in to some of the fictional tales that I could easily envision most as exciting, full blown novels, although they remained excellent short works in their own right. Great stuff, particularly the story about the cthulus and the folks that made a life on another world, as well as the final, very exciting fictional adventure. Even the essays and short non-fiction blurbs were interesting, something I often skip or skim over in other books. When I was a software engineer back in the day, I used to make a point of reading Jerry's columns in Byte (or whichever mag in which he was featured), and a best buddy and I used to eagerly trade and devour most of his (and co-efforts with Larry Niven) excellent novels, after which we often would discuss them in great detail at parties or around a campfire. Best of all, I'm fairly certain most, if not all of the tales in this compendium, were new to me. An outstanding anthology to seek out and enjoy for SF fans, and now one of my all-time favorites.

Reviewer: tholty
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Good stuff!
Review: A good collection of Pournelle (and Niven's) best work and background to his life and thinking. I enjoyed it greatly. I have just downloaded 'Mote' again as I read it years ago, but this book reminded me how much I had enjoyed it! A small (not so small, actually) complaint however. No mention at all of the old masters'? Not even a nod to Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke, van Vogt? I can understand the wish to concentrate on the later generations, but these are the authors who opened my mind to sf all those years ago and still have me reading it 70+ years later!!

Reviewer: Happy Reader
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Great stories and fond memories
Review: Pournelle was known for his novels but he wrote his share of shorter fiction while getting established. I found the sexism in his submission to The Last Dangerous Visions to be annoying...but what the heck...society has evolved in the 40 or so years since it was written. As a whole, the tales are entertaining and worth reading. A huge bonus are the remembrances of Jerry’s life as told by the people who worked with, and respected him. He was a true Renaissance Man.

Reviewer: Beverly Nuckols
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: A tribute, a survey & review if his works
Review: Dr. Pournelle could read the present and write the future. Truly the genius and polymath he's called in the book. The stories are excellent, some never published before. The guest essays and comments by the editor are just as enjoyable - which isn't always the case for this genre.

Reviewer: Eric
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: An excellent collection
Review: This collection of works by Jerry Pournelle is amazing! It is a must read and one that I would recommend to anyone who wants a look into the mind of an amazing sci-f author!

Reviewer: Preston P. Dubose
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: A fine collection
Review: This book is a wonderful tribute to a first class SF writer. It is a combination of short stories by Pournelle and essays by people who knew him well. Having been a Pournelle fan for decades, I deeply regret never getting to meet him in person at a convention and getting to shake his hand. I feel like this book at least gave me a better idea of the man behind the works.

Reviewer: S. Loftin
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Good reading
Review: Got this on kindle. A good read. It reminds me of how much I like reading his stuff. This book contains essays and short stories and comes across as a tribute book to mark Jerry's passing.

Reviewer: Aiden Pryde
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Rehash of Previous Work
Review: I was very disappointed with just republished pieces from the author's previous work. Not much new here.

Reviewer: J. Milligan
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: John F. Carr was Jerry's assistant. This collection of short stories, essays and selections by Jerry's publishers fills in the the many sides of his enthusiastic and prescient personality. He was a great organizer. The historical framework he laid out to guide his collaborators when they wrote their stories allows them to fit together almost seamlessly. The Alderson drive, the Langston field,the Fusion drive and the Photon drive are all fictional but the allow the authors to present a believable story about Human actions. Genetic engineering actually is not fiction anymore and it plays a prominent role in several books.. The Best of Jerry Poirnelle also provides lots of information about the lesser known stories. Many of them are available as e-books and I have a few more originals to search out at used book stores, yard sales, etc.

Reviewer: David Johnson
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: I enjoyed reading the stories in this collection much more than I expected (mostly because I expected to be put off by Pournelle's political views). But editor John F. Carr has chosen fourteen stories, some of which are published here for the first time, (and two essays) which highlight Pournelle's writing talent without stumbling on his politics. Many of the stories are dated, in the sense that they sometimes depict a social and technological future which we have since lived beyond, but Pournelle's storytelling skills make them enjoyable nonetheless.Some of the best stories in the collection--"Spirals" and "Reflex"--were co-authored with Larry Niven but Pournelle's "He Fell Into a Dark Hole" is perhaps the most emotionally complex (and ultimately tragic). All of the stories are page-turners but some like "Consort" and the post-apocalyptic "Kenyons to the Keep" seemed unfinished and left this reader wanting to know the rest of the story. "The Secret of Black Ship Island," co-authored with Niven and Steven Barnes, is either a good unfinished novel or a great short story hiding in a draft novella. In "The Last Shot," submitted in the 1970s for Harlan Ellison's never-published anthology ~The Last Dangerous Visions~, Pournelle imagines a hand-held wireless device--still called a "slide rule"--that is very nearly the smartphone which would not be invented for another two or three decades.Carr, who worked closely with Pournelle for several years, also provides keen, first-hand insights into Pournelle and his work. Other remembrances and commentary in the collection are provided by Larry Niven--Pournelle's writing partner for his most successful novels, David Gerrold, Doug McElwain, Steven Barnes and Robert Gleason.

Reviewer: Big Bill
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: J.P. is a favourite so this compilation by his long time associate Mr. Carr is welcomed . Itcontains more good stuff with side fact tidbits.

Reviewer: trekkerkev
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: I suspected that this book would be far too small to cover the "Best of" and I was right. You could easily double or triple a collection of his best work and still not come close. In any event, it was a great reread of past works and the additional commentary was often quite good as well.