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Jerry Pournelle's Future History forms a unified projection of a possible "future" based on Pournelle's vision of sociology and politics.
This universe is perhaps more pessimistic than the classic SF universes of Heinlein, Asimov, and Niven. Ambition, greed, and bureaucratic indifference abound, leading to horrifying tragedies. Yet there are also great heroes who triumph past intimidating odds, struggling for the survival of the human race.
Like Gaul, the Future History saga is divided into three parts:
The newest War World novel, The Battle of Sauron, has been released. You can buy it from Amazon or various other places. The book was proofread for continuity by yours truly, which made it easy for me to incorporate it into the Timeline and the Reading Order!
This timeline of Pournelle's universe is both a chronicle of events and a chronicle of sociology. It records all events which occur in these stories -- whether center-stage or off-stage. It also contains information about how human society changes through the different eras of this "future".
These maps situate the human-settled planets of Pournelle's future in relation to each other. Distances, travel times, and any precise astronomical locations mentioned in the stories are displayed here.
The Future History now fills fourteen books. What should be read first? Why were the War World stories printed with no clue as to their proper order? Should the Falkenberg stories be read before The Mote in God's Eye? These questions are answered here.
Pournelle began projecting his future in the early 1970's. When the Soviet Union collapsed, this invalidated his "future". Or did it?
Any future history this detailed is bound to contain contradictions or quasi-contradictions. Many knots are untangled in this document.
A complete listing of stories and novels set in this universe, including a revision history of the older books.
There aren't many of these out there.... but I've listed the few that I know about.
The documents in this Jerry Pournelle Future History site are all written by Larry King.
All names, places, and dates are either real, or copyright by Jerry Pournelle. Presumably, those events which appeared first in Pournelle's works and subsequently occurred in real life will result in legal disputes between Pournelle and God. In any event, my contribution is solely as a historian.
This page was a long time in growing! My first timeline of Pournelle's works was written in 1979 after I read Mote. The copy I read (from the Woodland Hills library) had two sections bound in the wrong order. This added even more mystery to the book....
A number of correspondents have been helpful – especially Scott Hammond, Keith Halperin, Eric Bufford, L. Randall Berg, Kevin Trainor, Bradley Wilson, and Roland Denzel. The "Second Empire Crest" on this page was designed by Dan Thompson. Jerry Pournelle, Don Hawthorne, John F. Carr, and E.R. Stewart wrote and clarified a few points . . . and hinted at more stories to come!
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