Thank you for the nice tribute, Matthew. For those who aren't members of the BASFA Facebook group, the SF community also lost Len Wein during the past few days. Adrienne
Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone On Monday, September 11, 2017, 11:30 AM, Matthew Joseph Harrington via Basfa <[email protected]> wrote: #yiv1278795197 body{font-family:Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:9pt;background-color:#ffffff;color:black;}#yiv1278795197 body{font-family:Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:9pt;background-color:#ffffff;color:black;} On Friday, Dr. Jerry Pournelle died in his sleep. I called him Doc. He won the Cold War. Whenever I mentioned it to him, he always pointed out that Marilyn Niven had kept everybody on the large Space Advisory Council magnificently fed* and deserved the credit. Not out of any of that negative boasting known as modesty, but giving credit where it was due**. The first time I met him (other than signings) was at BayCon 2006, and he and Larry and I were standing around talking about Known Space while waiting for the banquet. Doc said, "This guy comes up with an intelligent race whose females are nonsentient, and I have to work out how they raise their kids." I replied, "He also comes up with an intelligent race that eats their mutants, and I have to figure out how they evolved." We exchanged a professional glance: I looked at him; he looked at me; we both looked at Larry; "Banquet's starting," said Larry. [I think it was nice for both of us to know someone smarter than we were. I at least knew two such. Now I'm down to one.] I was on exactly one panel with him: Interstellar Espionage, at FurCon 2007. He opened by saying, "I know absolutely nothing about interstellar espionage," then kept the room riveted until someone came in to tell us we had run an hour and a half over. I have been in my room alone so much since Friday that my roomie Valerie was getting worried. It finally occurs to me that he knew and liked my work, and therefore I should commemorate his life by writing more. The fight was long, and the foe was strong, but he paid as good as he got. Matthew Joseph Harrington *PS - And thereby rational enough to come up with a way to get us out of MAD, an escape the socialist mindset could not use. It has finally occurred to me that the reason he didn't spell this out for me was that he expected me to get it. High praise. MJH **PPS - In GODSPAWN I made her Quartermaster to Wizards. Credit where it's due. M An unarmed populace has no rights. It only has permission._______________________________________________ Basfa mailing list [email protected] http://lists.basfa.org/listinfo.cgi/basfa-basfa.org
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