Sauron Supermen?

Imperial Overlord · Post by **Imperial Overlord** » 2005-04-26 07:56pm

Mote in God's Eye isn't the start of the universe. King David's Spaceship was written earlier.

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2005-04-27 03:44pm

Imperial Overlord wrote:First, its Pournelle's universe. Niven cowrote a few of the books. Sterling, who is a co-writer of the Sauron books and two of the Mercenary series, is also a cowriter of the War World novels. That makes Stirling a cowriter of four novels set in the universe and several short stories versus Niven's one short story and two co written novels that barely mention Saurons. Since when does a throw away line from a character who is ignorant of the subject matter override a cowriter who deals extensively the central matter?

It doesn't.

It wasn't Pournelle who came up with the Moties nor the entire setting. The Moties were very much Niven's creation and the universe is just as much his as it is Pournelle's.

Why should what Sterling wrote override what one of the original creators of the universe wrote, particular given Sterling's amazing "Midas Touch"-like ability to turn anything he touchs into a wankfest?

Imperial Overlord · Post by **Imperial Overlord** » 2005-04-27 06:14pm

1) Niven has his own wankfests. Psi weapons killing everyone in the galaxy for one.

2) One line in one book by a character who never met a Sauron versus:

3) 3 short story collections featuring Saurons (including Niven's story "Brenda")

4) Two novels featuring Saurons

5) The Gripping Hand, featuring characters descended from Brenda.

You want one line by an ignorant character to override two novels and three anthologies. Your basis is "Niven wrote that line and I don't like Sterling." Too bad because it isn't just Stirling you have to contend with. It's Pournelle, Drake, Turttledove, Niven, Tarr, Shwartz, Hawthorne, and others as well.

Bob the Gunslinger · Post by **Bob the Gunslinger** » 2005-04-27 07:27pm

Gil, A Spaceship for the King was published in 1973 and Mote in 1974. I'm fairly sure that Pournelle at least had the general shape of his universe written down by that point.

Besides, in one of his essays in N-Space (or maybe it's Playgrounds of the Mind), Niven says that he decided to set Mote in Pournelle's future-history instead of his own because Known Space already had aliens. So he must have known something about Pournelle's universe, meaning it had to exist already in some form or another.

My point is that it's Pournelle's world, everyone else is just playing in it.

Diamedes · Post by **Diamedes** » 2005-04-30 12:02pm

It really plays to Pournelle's strengths too. The CoDominium universe prior to the introduction of the Moties is very much an expression of Pournelle's views on political science, which is what he has his doctorate in, along with psychology. Niven's talent is in coming up with bizarre as hell aliens and interesting technology. Thus Moties meet Empire.

King David's Spaceship predate the Mote in Gods Eye by a year. It should be noted that events in Mote are referenced in King David's, so it's obvious Mote was on the burner at the time.

However, the original version of Kind David's, a Spaceship for the King, was serialized in Analog in 1971. So was "Peace with Honor". Falkenberg appeared in "The Mercenary" in 1972. "He Fell into a Dark Hole" appeared in 1973. "He Fell into A Dark Hole" occurs the earliest in the Future History that I've read, and aside from The Gripping Hand, A Spaceship for the King occurs the latest, so it is highly probably that Pournelle had the entire future history prior to Mote mapped out, and has just farmed out many of the details.

So yeah, I agree, it is very much Pournelle's playground.