Bee, your comment got me to thinking that, at one time or another, I have met a whole bunch of pretty well-known people. It's a combination of having been around long enough to attain geezerhood and, I guess, inadvertently being at the right place at the right time. I've met lots of well-known singers because I have attended folk festivals where they were and had a chance to chat informally with many of them. And I have also attended a number of science fiction conventions ("Cons"), and they're always crawling with authors. If you don't meet them in some workshop or other, just stagger into the nearest cocktail lounge, and there they are.

####

Right you are, Jack. It has been about 25 or 30 years since I've read The Mote in God's Eye and I guess I've forgotten some of the plot points, such as blockading the Moties. If I recall correctly (where the hell is the book? It's on my bookshelves somewhere!), it was the Langston field, a sort of variation on "shields up!" that enabled them to hang out in the photosphere (not the corona) of the red giant without frying, and nail the Moties at the Alderson point.

I knew Jerry Pournelle in the late 50s and early 60s when he was working at Boeing (space stuff—very hush hush) and going to grad school at the University of Washington. He quaffed regularly at the infamous Blue Moon Tavern, often with his wife, Roberta, and he frequently came to song fests and hoots. Jerry's quite conservative and pretty militaristic, and we used to argue politics a lot, but we were good friends and enjoyed the discussions (yelling matches?). One of the songs I did (still do) was "Bonnie Dundee," and he once presented me with a couple of pages of verses beyond the four that I sing;   historically very interesting, but it made for one helluva long song that got kind of boring after a bit.

He and Roberta left for California in the early 60s, and it was a few years later that I learned that he was doing some fiction writing. I had finished all of the James Bond novels and had read all the Matt Helm novels that had come out so far, and I picked up a paperback novel entitled Red Heroin, written by somebody named Wade Curtis. It was set in Seattle. That ought to be a snort, I thought. By the time I'd got a dozen pages into the thing, I had encountered some real places that I knew well, and a few people whom I was sure I knew, but by other names! "Who the hell is Wade Curtis?" I thought, then checked the back of the title page. Copyright by Jerry Pournelle. Ah, SO! Now it became obvious. Until then, I didn't even know that Jerry was interested in fiction writing.

His stuff started appearing in "Analog," and then The Mote in God's Eye came out, followed by Lucifer's Hammer, Oath of Fealty, and Footfall, also co-authored by Larry Niven, whose novels I had also been reading.

When Footfall hit the shelves in 1985, I learned that Jerry and Larry Niven would be in Seattle, autographing books at Tower Books. I hadn't seen Jerry in about twenty years, so my wife, Barbara, and I went to the book signing. I bought a copy of the book and Barbara and I stood in line. Finally when we got up to the table where they were signing books, Jerry looked up at me. He did a perfect double-take, jumped up and started pumping my hand, and yelled out "Firth, you son-of-a–bitch! How the hell are you?" Jerry has a voice like a bull-horn, and when he gets excited, it rises in pitch. I think he shattered the plate glass windows in the front of the store! I introduced Barbara, he introduced Larry, then he said, "Can you stick around until we're finished here? A couple of friends will be dropping in in a few minutes and we're all going out to dinner. Can you and your wife join us?" Sure!

That was a very memorable evening. It seems that the friend was Frank Herbert (!!). And he was accompanied by Mildred Downey Broxon (Too Long A Sacrifice), whom I had never met, but whose late husband, Bill Broxon, I had known. He and his first wife, Dottie, had hosted several song fests at their large house.

Jerry and Larry, Frank Herbert, Mildred Broxon, and Barbara and I wound up holding down a table at Ivar's Salmon House on the shores of Lake Union for several hours. Jerry commented that, at far as he knew, Footfall was the first science fiction novel to receive a "six figure advance," and that when he got his share of the check, he and Roberta went out to a very nice restaurant to celebrate. They had an expensive bottle of wine with their dinner, and Jerry said that he thought "I'd like to get another bottle of that wine. But it's so damned expensive!" Then he suddenly realize, "I can afford another bottle! Hell, I can afford a whole case!" At which point, he realized that, if he wasn't actually filthy rich, he still wouldn't have much in the way of money worries from now on!

Frank Herbert concurred that this was a very nice feeling to have, and that he, too, was enjoying that rather pleasant sensation of shock and amazement. He lived in Port Townsend, just a ferry ride and an hour or so's drive from Seattle, but he had just returned from Los Angeles, where he'd been working with a bunch of Hollywood writers on the script for the movie adaptation of Dune. He was pretty happy with what they had come up with so far, but he was apprehensive about the inevitable cuts. "And there will be a lot of them, I'm afraid. If they use the shooting script as it is right now, the movie will run a good eight hours!"

I didn't get much of a chance to talk to Larry Niven, but Barbara did. They were sitting at the other end of the table.

It occurred to me a couple of times that evening that I was sitting here having dinner with some of the Olympian Gods of science fiction! Frank Herbert insisted on picking up the check, which, by that time, must have been susbstantial!

Sadly enough, Frank Herbert died not long after that, following an operation for pancreatic cancer.

I wasn't aware until I checked just a few minutes ago, that there are two film versions of Dune:   one, the David Lynch version (one DVD, two hours and seventeen minutes) and a television mini-series version (three DVDs, a few minutes short of five hours). Mixed reviews on both versions (some pretty outspoken partisanship involved).

I think I have to check this out!

Don Firth