I was thrilled and honored to be an editor and friend of Dr. Jerry Pournelle. My life was spent preparing to meet him. Among other ways, I read all the science fiction in my childhood branch library and subscribed to the Science Fiction Book Of The Month Club (my premium was The Foundation Trilogy).
My Professional Relationship
My professional association with Jerry was launched by CMP Media’s boneheaded move: after acquiring BYTE Magazine in May 1998, CMP fired the magazine’s staff and terminated the paper edition two months later. Ten months after that, the zombie Byte.com website was drawing dozens of angry e-mails a week and a half-million visitors a month―making it CMP’s most popular website. To end the former and increase the later, I was named editor of the website, with the specific instruction: “No Chaos Manor, no byte.com.”
Jerry had me grovel briefly, and then consented to return. His fee was the lion’s share of the editorial budget and Chaos Manor produced the lion’s share of clicks. He quoted Samuel Johnson: “No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.” Years later, after Byte.Com’s ignominious end, Jerry never failed to remind me that he made more from Chaos Manor’s voluntary subscription model than he ever made from either Byte incarnation.
I can’t really say I was his editor; I was his supervisor and/or wrangler. The only editing permitted was grammar and spelling, and those errors were extremely rare. When I became executive editor I was still his supervisor and wrangler. My successor Daniel P. Dern was similarly limited.
I was also Jerry’s host on the weekly Byte.Com Week In Review podcast, from March 1999 to March 2001.
My Personal Relationship
My personal relationship with Jerry began with another boneheaded CMP decision, actually made by the Brits who had, in the meantime, paid $1 billion for CMP. In March 2001 the Byte.com staff was laid off (and Jerry’s contract terminated) because the United Business Media sales staff couldn’t monetize a million clicks a month. So, of course, you fire the editors and promote the sales people.
For the following 16 years, until Jerry’s death, I visited Chaos Manor semi-annually.
Fond Memories Include:
- Spending time with the affable, engaging, sharp-tongued and intelligent Louisiana boy, Dr. Pournelle.
- Dining with him and his co-author Larry Niven at the nearby Good Earth restaurant. Once, they told me their co-authorship consisted of one doing the plots and the other the dialog. Alas, I can’t remember which was which.
- Discussing Poul Anderson, who lived near me in Orinda, facilitating several Pournelle visits to my home.
- Discussing Robert Heinlein, whose libertarianism Jerry respected. He was particularly impressed by Heinlein’s popularization of “There ain't no such thing as a free lunch,” and its acronym TANSTAAFL.
- Walking several hundred feet up the hill across the street with Jerry and his dog.
- Watching as he handed my daughter his Korean War service revolver. “As the daughter of a liberal, I feel you should hold a gun once in your life. And remember, all guns are always loaded.”
- Talking about the mask that hung in his office, which protected his brain during cancer radiation therapy. He discussed, but never finished, a book entitled The Mask On The Wall.
- Sparring genially about politics with a man whose doctorate was in Political Science.
- Being quiet upstairs during Roberta’s nap.
- Briefly meeting his sterling sons, Robert and Phillip.