Jerry Pournelle is widely known (in some circles, at least) for the "Computing at Chaos Manor" column he's been writing for "Byte" magazine. I've always found his books entertaining to read, even when I find the ideas that he expresses to be very incompatible with my personal world view. That having been said, I will point out that almost all of the stories I've listed are collaborations with Larry Niven. However, I think that Pournelle's contributions to the stories are quite easy to spot, and make the stories more than they would have been if Niven had written them by himself.
His collaboration with Sheffield certainly proves that Pournelle can work with authors other than Niven, and Starswarm illustrates what he can do on his own.
The balance of Pournelle's stories appears to be futuristic war stories, which do not intrigue me at all, which is why I haven't read them. He seems to have invested a fair amount of time in some "concept series," where he proposes a concept and then up and coming younger authors write stories to fit the concept, and get published with the stamp of approval of his name alongside their's.
A number of authors have done this, and there is even one concept series under Isaac Asimov's name, which proves that you don't have to be alive to have new stuff appear under your name. I don't particularly care for the trend. L.E. Modesitt is fond of saying that ideas are easy. Good writing is hard.
Learn more about Jerry Pournelle here. Thanks to Anders Johansen for bringing Jerry Pournelle's URL to my attention!
- The Mote series: The Mote in God's Eye (1974) - With Larry Niven. Describing a galactic human empire, complete with emperors and aristocrats, Pournelle contributes a vision of human politics that makes the USAn congress look like a Sunday school class. I got the impression that Pournelle thinks that kings and such are a rather good idea.
- The Gripping Hand (1993) - With Larry Niven. Sequel to The Mote in God's Eye.
- Oath of Fealty (1981) - With Larry Niven.
- Footfall (1985) - With Larry Niven. Pournelle's contribution appears to concern mostly the behavior of people and governments. A distinctively Pournellian bit is where an investigative journalist gets murdered by drowning him in a toilet (Pournelle makes sure to describe him in a very bad light) when he is discovered snooping around a secret project to combat the invaders.
- Higher Education (1996) - With Charles Sheffield. I wrote a review of this book.
- Starswarm (1998) - A fun read for the younger set. You can read my book review here.