I suggest "The Hitchhiker's Guide entry for <insert name> reads simply: mostly harmless.

I loved this book so much!! I still think about it sometimes haha

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Bring a small towel rolled up.

It wasn’t the tv, as some commenters seem to believe. It was the trial of Oscar Wilde. Before that men used to have affectionate gestures with their male peers, they could be walking arm in arm in Hyde park and express their friendship verbally with phrases we would find unusual. The Wilde trial was a very public scandal and it marked the public’s perception of potentially punishable behavior between men, AND instilled the fear of being perceived as homosexual and socially shunned for otherwise common gestures. As an aside, the judge in the case said something to the tune of Wilde’s being the most horrible and disgusting trial he had sat on - that after judging on a child murder a couple of weeks before.

That being said, in the particular examples you are giving: Steerforth has a very relaxed approach to social norms in general and a very nonchalant way of addressing most people in his life. And Mr. Peggoty in my opinion has a fatherly feelings towards David, so that would explain why he would have an affectionate demeanor. Plus he is usually a non-emotional man, but is overcome with emotion he can’t control in his quest for Emily.

Suggest opening with:

> There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.

> There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

This leads naturally into some discussion of the meaning of it all, etc.

If you want to include more of the works in your eulogy, I would suggest the “dolphins v. humans” quote (also mentioned above):

> On the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.

This would lead into a discussion of how your Dad was properly focused on the little joys of life, over the grand achievements and the mistreatment of others required to accomplish those.

Very sorry for your loss, good luck preparing your speech.

I have read previously that the obscenity trial of Oscar Wilde was a massive turning point in British culture.

The way he has demonised made men more wary of showing public affection, and more suspicious of those men who did.

This specific moment is often pointed to as a reason why continental men are often more physical with each other and the British are much less so.

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Yeah it sucks

Humour is very personal and subjective. Never feel bad if a series doesn't hit you like it hits others.

When it comes to the HHGTTG trilogy, the books are in order of quality. The first is the best, second is second best, third is third best, fourth is fourth best, and the fifth one was mostly written because he wanted to destroy any request to make sequels and he destroys all realities at the end of it.

I love the series, but f the first one doesn't grab you, it isn't worth continuing.

Everything below is In My Opinion. Also I get you (OP) probably know the stories, but I talk about them for context for myself and for other thread participants.

I used to be a huge David Weber fan. Huge. I would preorder the books and devour every snippet, and later the ARCs. I'm much less of one now because he got infected by Flint and a few others and turned to writing political opera instead of military SF.

Honor is a Mary Sue, clearly. Just because a character is such doesn't have to mean they're not fun or interesting to follow along with, and clear through Honor7 (In Enemy Hands) the tales of her rise were intriguing and enthralling.

Honor is one of those characters you dream of getting to meet. A character you wish would be a leader in real life you could follow. Dedicated, competent, just, determined, and honorable. Without any smudge of corruption or selfishness. She was so fascinating and fun to follow along with. Weber excelled at putting her into situations where all of these qualities could be enjoyed and heralded, could be taken as cathartic joy for so many of us stuck in lives where none of these things are true, where evil does always win and gets to laugh hysterically while doing it.

The first Honor book I picked up was Honor4 (Field of Dishonor). At the time, though I found out afterwards when I realized that book was an "anomaly" compared to the prior ones that focused on space naval action, I just took it as a really interesting Space Hornblower tale (which, obviously, was exactly what Weber was going for.)

The passage you mention from Field is so fantastic. When a senior (arguably the senior admiral of the Manticorian Navy she serves) comes to her begging for Honor to do the political thing and swallow her pride and pain, and let the murder of the first and only man she'd ever loved go. The scene you reference comes to a head right here when Honor replies to his plea:

> "Then what's the point, Sir?" The anger had gone out of her voice, and despair softened the hardness of her eyes, yet she held his gaze with a forlorn pride that cut him to the heart. "All I ask of my Queen and my Kingdom—all I've ever asked—is justice, My Lord. That's all I have a right to ask for, but I have a right to it. Isn't that what's supposed to separate us from the Peeps?" He winced, and she went on in that soft, pleading voice. "I don't understand politics, Sir. I don't understand what gives a Pavel Young the right to destroy everything he touches and hide behind the importance of compromise and political consensus. But I understand duty and common decency. I understand justice, and if no one else can give it to me, then just this once I'll take it for myself, whatever it costs."

That is so powerful. And she does it. At that point in the story the reader believes she's not rolling the dice. The question isn't if she can, but what happens to her if she does. And she doesn't care, she wants justice, she wants to see right done even if it costs her everything. Even if it costs her Queen and her Navy both her and a whole lot of other trouble as well, she's going to take that justice no matter what. Because they're all too weak, too political, to give her this one thing after everything she's given them.

It's fantastic. The whole tale is just fantastic.

Honor8 (Echos) and Honor9 (Ashes) started to shift everything that "An Honor Harrington Story" was, from death rides, space and fleet battles, navy life ... into politics, more politics, and still more politics.

Honor10 (War) mostly brought it back to Honor doing what she was at her most interesting doing (fighting a ship or a fleet in battle), but then every subsequent story just shuffled fleet actions further and further off stage. Some that might've been really interesting to see played out were just handled completely off screen, and you'd just hear characters talking about the ramifications of the battle.

Safehold turned it even worse in this direction with Weber's stories. The setup for Safehold was extremely interesting. A literal last gasp of humanity, days from being utterly wiped from the galaxy by a violently aggressive alien race, manages to launch a last gasp colony ship that isn't detected by said aliens.

Then the leadership of that colony fleet decides to create a theocracy, with themselves as the literal angels and gods worshiped by the society of humans who are born and raised on the colony planet humanity's final sons and daughters end up on. A single low ranking officer (who, through plot stuff, has her consciousness transferred into a nearly immortal android body) is put in hibernation by the handful of leaders who opposed the theocratic plan.

Then she wakes up five hundred years later (after the 'gods' are finally dead), and is briefed via recording as to what happened and what her goal is; to prepare humanity for the aliens' eventual discovery of them. She goes out into the world and finds the theocracy has infected humanity and deliberately held all technology at or below medieval levels. The number and mathematics system uses Roman numerals specifically to make any sort of calculations or economics as difficult as possible. Any technological advancement is considered the Devil's work and inventors are tortured or executed.

Her goal is to overthrow the theocracy, and do it in standard Weber fashion (superior technology; all Weber combat scenes revolve around someone, almost always the heroes, having a technological advantage). So our android heroine needs to convince a chosen faction to be her tool to rise up and free humanity from the chains of brutal, misguided, selfish theocratic cretins, and we'd get to have a whole walk through military history as they move from swords and arrows to muskets, repeaters, cannons, sailing ship technology, eventually (I assume) tanks and then aircraft and so on.

That's all fantastic. Great world building. Super interesting character who has a big challenge ahead of her.

But every name in the series is so hard to read, so weird and alien with strange letter combinations. And There Are So Many Of Them. Not just the characters, but the places too, the cities, the geography, the everything. None of it flowed off the page for me, and with half a dozen factions or more, each with dozens and dozens of characters, it was just way too much to try and keep track of. Especially since he would jump around constantly; some setting would appear for part of a chapter, then vanish for most of the book only to reappear and it's supposed to make sense even though they've been lost in the weird wash of stuff.

Obviously a lot of people like "political theater." That's fine. Enjoy the stories. I miss the Weber who wrote about a hero. Not seventeen minor heroes being opposed by seventy-four different villains, split into four or five different factions with varying goals, all being dropped in and out of "the story" in a confusing fashion.

I liked Honor stories because I wanted to read about Honor. She was the draw. The world she was in was interesting because of her, not for its own sake. Same with Safehold. I found Nimue interesting and wanted to follow her, but Safehold stories treat her like a side character.

I really miss what Weber used to be. I really do.

This is a very good comment, and it is spot on in why it seems men of that time were more affectionate towards each other. We do have old photographs from the infancy of photography in which men are holding hands. Co-workers or friends. Just this simple gesture of holding hands means something different to us, but at that time it was merely a gesture of friendship. There was no question at the time, obviously they merely friends.

In my country around that time the practice of, when meeting people, kissing them once on each cheek regardless of gender was still well alive. There was nothing about it that was considered sexual, society just regarded it as the way people greeted each other.

“Dads last words were ‘so long, and thanks for all the fish’”

He suffers from bloat, he often writes himself into a corner, either through technological advancement (to the point that the good guys are not really threatened anymore) or being unable to progress the story because there's no real way to advance it.

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I haven’t read many of these books or authors but I have heard amazing things about these. Books by Colleen Hoover( not my thing but well liked) Emily Henry, Taylor Jenkins Reid ( four of the books are connected) Brandon sanderson, Penelope Douglas, Christina Lauren, Fredrick Balkman, Sally Rooney And talia hibbert. Crazy rich Asians, the night circus, project Hail Mary, Eleanor opliphant is completely fine, The kiss quotient, and the love hypothesis. This is all I could think of at the moment. I hope one of these recommendations are something you’d enjoy

I bought the witcher bookset, in the pictures there was no advertisment, once i got them, they all had ads, every single book, box included, fml!

Battle Royale by Takami Koushun. Most of the characters are high schoolers, but they have to kill each other. Also, I don't think the target audience was for teens back when it was published. I believe this was the book that inspired Squid- and Hunger Games.

Agreed, I absolutely loved how Safehold explored how a technology base is required for technological advancement. But I really wish he had made this a series of trilogies, where each generation build on the achievements of the generation before. Because we go from Battle of Lepanto to the American Civil War in a decade. It's too much.

I also agree with you that there is a problem with the goodies being too good. Because there is very little peril in the later books.

I would just like to recommend his War God series though. It gets very little love and the original 3 books are great. He restarted the series more recently though and those books are shite.

'Night Soldiers' by Allan Furst. In 1934, a teenage Bulgarian fisherman is killed by a Fascist mob. His older brother is recruited to join the Soviet KGB. Trained as a spy and assassin, he is sent to Spain to fight in the Civil War.

For fantasy, try anything by Tanith Lee. 'Night's Master' is set back when the Earth was still flat, and demon lords rode up from the Underworld to seduce and/or terrorize the humans.

I've been tricked by that before. Never again.

I always hear high praise for Lonesome Dove, but I’ve never cared about westerns. Is it a book that goes beyond its genre as something that most people would love?

Interesting fact: I’m a teacher, and there were three kids who went through my school who were all named after characters from the book (the kids were all in the same family.)

top tier schizoposting

It’s more lacking compassion that’s speaking. You don’t hoard because you aren’t able to let things go, people hoard because they lost something tremendous and try to fill the void.

People with significant mental illness struggle to hold traditional jobs. Her mother is mentally I’ll and self-serving. Giving birth didn’t change that.