A cybernetic Kauri has fallen.

Jennifer Pournelle has informed the Science Fiction Community that Dr Jerry Pournelle has died.
Vox Day, his last editor notes:

Working with Jerry was one of the great honors, and great privileges, of my life He was a brilliant man, a generous man, and an extraordinarily thoughtful man too. His THERE WILL BE WAR series was a major influence on my intellectual development, and I will always be grateful that I had the opportunity to work with one of my earliest writing heroes.Just two days ago, he sent me his summary of Dragoncon, his final SF convention.
I was asked to give the Best Novel award, which I did and all went well. A few fans warned me there might be trouble, but not a thing, although not a very big crowd; I probably had more attending when Larry and I spoke alone in a big Q&A. Wasn’t there some kind of campaign going on, or was I misinformed? All was peaceful; not to say dull.
Although I never met him in the flesh, I will miss him. Castalia House, science fiction, and the world are all lessened by his passing.

When a leader dies, the Maori say that a Kauri — the king of trees in the forest — has fallen.

I devoured Jerry’s columns in Byte Magazine: his codominium series of books had realistic aliens and a sustainable political culture. His faith shone through his work.

Ave atque Vale.

UPDATE.

Instapundit has a column discussing how Pournelle helped US lawmakers and presidents do good in the cold war and plan for the current time.

Sarah Hoyt, author, knew him. She writes.

The friend was Dr. Jerry Pournelle, one of the legends of science fiction, and any other year, any year when I didn’t already have all arrangements made to be out of the country, I’d be tempted to ditching everything and asking Larry Correia if I could crash on his floor, for the chance to spend a couple of evenings talking to Jerry.

I knew he was my father’s age and time was getting short, and given both of our schedules, the time to actually meet in the flesh was limited and far in between.

But I couldn’t, and I told him so, and also that I was traveling every month through November, but perhaps I could fly out and visit in January?

That visit won’t happen. We landed yesterday, and when I woke up from my jet lagged sleep, it was to the news that Jerry had died, peacefully, in his sleep.

I’ve spent most of the day having irregular crying fits, and let’s just say my bathrooms are very clean because cleaning is how I cope with most things: grief, anxiety, shock.

There is the sense that a giant has fallen, and that the world has stopped in stunned silence, listening at nothing where there used to be so much.

Jerry is probably not the last of the giants, but the last of the giants for a long time.

In a field, that like all artistic fields is driven in part by talent and craft, and in part by uniqueness of vision, he stood apart and beyond most of us, work-a-day authors, in a league with Robert A. Heinlein, or very close to him.

I discovered his Janissaries series in South Carolina, the year my older son was born. Someone in a small library in Columbia, South Carolina, must have loved Jerry’s science fiction writing as they had all of it. I then went on to buy and read everything he wrote alone and in collaboration.

Because of the way my life works, I first met him at (I think) the first Liberty con I attended. Because I’d gone there to meet someone and discuss a possible book, I hadn’t looked at the guests of honor. So I didn’t have any of his books to sign. I made my way through the signing line, anyway, to tell him how much I loved his work and also that his had been one of my very first personal and encouraging rejections (I submitted to the There Will Be War anthology, and he told me he would have published it, if there were one more volume. Since there wasn’t, he was returning it. (He didn’t remember rejecting me, though he did remember my story. It wasn’t until last month I found the paper copy of that story and realized at the time I was submitting under my pre-citizenship name.)

We ended up talking both then and later at the Baen dinner. Jerry would have had every possible excuse to ignore me or treat me as a bothersome newby. At the time I’d published one, spectacularly failed, fantasy trilogy (the Magic Shakespeare) and I might never publish again. Instead, he treated me as a colleague and talked to me as though we were equals. I knew very well we weren’t equals, but the kindness was forever treasured.

After that, we corresponded, more or less intensely depending on time and how hard we were working. Our correspondence ranged from religion, to family, to science, and always, of course, to writing.

He more or less told me to send him everything I wrote, and he signed me for his newsletter, which included his tech articles. I pay him no mean compliment when I say he made technology sound interesting. (Yes, I do like science, but computer tech has a MEGO (my eyes glaze over) rate of about 5 seconds with me.)

Later, when my blog became a going concern, he’d often show up in the comments and give my regular commentators near heart attacks.

I will note that while several people would attempt to genuflect in his direction, via blog comment, he seemed not to look for or even particularly welcome adulation. He’d ignore the adulatory comments and instead enter in earnest discussion of the point he’d first raised, happy to meet mind-to-mind without demanding the credentials or political affiliation of his interlocutors.

In fact, that to me was Jerry’s characteristic: in an age riven by deep political divisions, he refused to draw a political line, and associated with people on both sides of the spectrum, treating all as humans and worthy – or not worthy – of his attention.

There very great and good and wise know to look past labels. It is only in this fallen generation that we are coerced into neat, intersectional labels, put in an ever changing hierarchy.

Pournelle is the age of my father. He did good in his time. He has fought the good fight.

REQUIEM aeternam dona ei, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat ei . Requiescat in pace. Amen.