My Experience in
The Land of Giants
by Steven Barnes
♦ ♦ ♦
I had written several novels with Larry Niven when he and his partner, Jerry Pournelle, asked me if I’d be interested in the idea of a novella. I listened, and thought it was appropriately brilliant, given the guys who had generated it. I also knew something else: they had just come off a run on the New York Times bestseller list, and this was one hell of an opportunity for me.
Multiple purposes, all dovetailing.
The most obvious career possibility was a chance to stand on their shoulders, use their lightning as my own. Another is that Jerry as an individual was, at that time, arguably the smartest human being I’d ever met, more than a little intimidating, and I wanted to see what it was like to interact with that mind more closely. And the third is that together, Larry and Jerry were an extraordinary team. I was dying to know what it was like to interact with the two of them at the same time.
So . . I dreamed and figured and came up with a reasonable way that a short idea could turn into a full novel, pitched it, and the game was afoot. A couple of times a week, for over a year, I would travel to Larry or Jerry’s house (usually Jerry, I recall—he had the better designed workspace for collaboration), take notes, discuss the story, and then go away and write. I brought the text back on disk or paper, and then the fun really began.
You see . . Jerry enjoyed teaching and lecturing, but also just a bit of terrorizing. And I was intimidated half to death. I’m not sure how many human beings have ever had the experience of having two world-class authors, one on either side of the room, tearing up their writing simultaneously. Larry would do it with relative compassion, but Jerry was having entirely too much fun.
“Ah, we’re murdering Barnes’ precious prose,” he’d cackle, bent over his typewriter. “Barnes, was your mother frightened by a gerund??”
Ah, memories. There were times it was so brutal I drove home crying. But I wouldn’t quit: I knew that if I could hang in there, I’d learn lessons no school in the world could teach me. I also knew Jerry suffered fools less gladly than anyone I’d ever met. His pressure wasn’t contempt. That was respect. If he hadn’t respected me, I wouldn’t have been in that room. He was lobbing balls at me, and expected that I’d eventually start lobbing them back.
I didn’t, until the second book. I just bit back my fear and frustration, soldiered on, and learned. And grew. And looking back, I was right: it was an extraordinary opportunity, and one of the smartest decisions I ever made.
The Legacy of Heorot was a smashing success as a piece of writing, less so as a piece of commercial art. I remember first seeing the cover and being devastated: it felt as if the publisher had deliberately given it camouflage, so that no one could find it on a bookshelf. We made it, barely, to the tail end of the Times bestseller list, but I just knew that it could have done so much better.
Years later, we began a discussion about a sequel, Beowulf’s Children, and I readily agreed. This time, Dr. Jack Cohen, the biologist who had inspired the original book, was flown in from England to work with us for about ten days. I’d met him while on book tour in England and found his brilliance and sense of humor instantly magnetic. He stayed in my house in the high desert, and I’d drive him down for intensive sessions with Larry and Jerry, and damn, it was wonderful watching the three of them interact, and to realize that somehow . . I deserved to be in the same room. I had to, or I wouldn’t have been there. The “impostor voices” in my head tried to speak up, but the roar of genius conversations drowned them out.
That time there was no terror, just serious work, and serious fun.
Years passed. Experimenting with e-books, we wrote The Secret of Blackship Island partially as a lark, and partially warming up for a third book we all knew was needed, but weren’t at all sure would ever get written. Life pulls you in different directions, and while I adored working with my friends and mentors, I was fully engaged in other projects.
In about 2015, Jerry had a tumor shrunk in his head, and it affected his ability to write. I went with Larry to see him in the hospital, and while yes, he seemed diminished, what disturbed me was that this bluff, hale, room-dominating man seemed . . depressed. Feared that he was no longer of use to the world. I wanted to shake him and tell him that he was still one of the most amazing minds I’d ever known, but that seemed hollow. I also wanted to thank him for all he had been to me, and the opportunities he had afforded.
Frankly . . I wanted to just tell him that I loved him.
But . . Jerry was of a generation of men where you don’t say things like that very much. What you do is say, “Let’s build a barn!” and the meaning, the emotions come across in the process. What decided me was Larry’s reaction to Jerry’s condition. He was clearly in deep grief. The best friend he’d ever known, his partner, his hero, his big brother, was in pain, and there was nothing he could do. They’d actually had to sell a book back to the publisher because Jerry could no longer coordinate the “editor” and “flow” states elegantly. When you can’t, it’s called “writer’s block,” and a devastating affliction.
And I thought to myself: this is no way for the greatest team in SF history to end their partnership. Jerry could think fine. Could plot and plan and evaluate. Still had the computer mind. What he couldn’t seem to do was flip from editor mode to flow state on command. Larry could dream, but I could tell he didn’t want to open himself to another disappointment. What was needed was a bridge between these two great men, and a bridge between Jerry’s dreaming and analyzing modes of thought.
I saw that I could be that bridge.
And it would be the best gift I could give the two of them, a way for me to have a very special kind of fun one last time. So for almost two years, I would drive forty miles each way, every Thursday, to work with them. Jerry was with a cane in the beginning, and then a walker, and finally in a wheelchair. His decline was fairly rapid. The mind and heart were there, but the body was growing weary. Jack Cohen had retired by that time, but we looped him in on Skype from England as often as possible, and when the technology worked, The Boys Were Back in Town. It was wonderful. I just loved the energy in that room as we batted ideas around, dreamed, and I would go off and create first draft text that two of the best friends I’ve ever had in my life then analyzed and polished.
Every idea Jerry came up with I treated like a golden butterfly. All were precious. Some were released back into the wild, but as many as possible I incorporated. We’d get together at about eleven in the morning, work until about one, and then have lunch. And although he was growing weaker, Jerry always let us know how much he loved the work, how much pleasure it gave him. And slowly, Larry began to believe this book was really going to happen and opened himself to just . . having fun. And Larry having fun is about as brilliant as a human being ever gets. The Boys Were Back, indeed.
We were about nine tenths of the way through the book when Jerry said to me, rather wistfully, “Well . . we’re almost done here. You guys don’t need me any more.” I assured him that I considered every moment and conversation precious . . but if something happened, he could rest assured this book would be completed.
And about three days later, Larry called and told me Jerry had passed in his sleep. I’d both known and forced myself to be oblivious to the reality: Jerry was asking us to let him go. And saying goodbye.
I cannot tell you how glad I am I made the decision to stand up for these men who formed so much of my personality as a writer. You so rarely get to say “thank you” to the people to whom you owe the most. I did. And got to say, in the clearest way I know how:
I love you guys. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for letting me into your world. I am stronger and smarter, and a better person because you let me sharpen my steel against you. I hope you never regretted the decision to let me in. I hope I always lived up to the amazing opportunity you offered.
Individually and together . . you were, and remain, the very best I’ve known.
—Steven Barnes
August 19, 2019
Glendora, California