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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   1080 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for February 21, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Any idea what caused the issues with their writing collabs? I read mote as a kid, and even in that it was obvious they had weird conflicts with each other's... OCs, I guess we'd call it now.

Honestly, in my opinion their collaborations were purely win-win. If you look at the novels Pournelle wrote on his own, they were relatively dry and often a little hard to maintain interest in. If you look at the novels Niven wrote on his own, they were relatively fantastical and (except for the fantasies, where you know what you're getting into) sometimes a little hard to take seriously. Their collaborations don't all thread the needle between those SFF extremes perfectly, but they do better than either alone. There was definitely always conflict between their characters, or between their characters and the worlds/universes they built, but that's a good thing. "Inferno" in particular worked well for me solely because (spoiler alert, albeit such an extremely vague spoiler it's probably fine) they took a clash between one of Niven's major styles vs one of Pournelle's influences and really leaned into it and wrapped the whole book around it.

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