Sorry for your loss as well. Love and healing to you!

They were just mentioning that on a Tolkien podcast a few days ago and I wanted someone to call in and tell them it was nonsense. Yes Sam and Frodo loved each other deeply, no they were not gay. It’s frustrating.

Yes, I miss the way it used to be. People need (non-sexual) affection & touch, it's so important. Everyone is worse off without it. I personally think the lack of it has a lot to do with the increasing incidence of mental health problems.

I feel like you have to close with "So long, and thanks for all the fish."

There is a good chance they are, but we don't know that yet bookwise.

I didn't find your comment curt at all, by the way.

Win? The last book I finished had two shortlisted "stickers".

Yes, they were. Some historians believe it was the trial of Oscar Wilde, and the subsequent Victorian pearl-clutching, that caused this change.

I'd suggest the news segment on Zaphod.

Zaphod invented the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster. He was voted "Worst Dressed Sentient Being in the Known Universe" seven consecutive times. He's been described as "the best Bang since the Big One" by Eccentrica Gallumbits, and as "one hoopy frood" by others.His brain-care specialist, Gag Halfrunt, also said, "Vell, Zaphod's just zis guy, you know?"

Or something similar. Very sorry for your loss.

I'm glad to see this comment, as it's the kind of discussion I wanted to see. I agree with a lot of your points, but I think I may not have done a good enough job explaining myself. Books 4 and 5 of HH are my favorite in the series, precisely because they have more of a internal struggle than any of the other books. When Weber's writing works, it WORKS. But he spends more time in the logistic rooms where characters are no longer characters, but instead vehicles for military policy.

Books 4 and five showed Honor as a Character. She had doubts and asperations. Her morals might have been a bit off base in my opinion, (I still maintain that she murdered Pavel Young, even if he cheated. She intended to leave him dead for what he did to her.) But she was understandable. Her reasoning was sound, and her cause was one I could get behind. Book five really played with her doubts, her fears, and brought all of that into sharper focus, but it never went past that. None of the other books ever delved that deeply into Honor's Psychology. Into her character, and the only ones who stand up to her are the bad guys.

HH as a series leaves Honor missing something. Honor has a mindset similar to Captain America, or Iron man, without anyone who will challenge her ideas. Honor is Polarizing, every one is for or against her, but there's never anyone in the middle. She has a self-assuredness that while deserved, never get's questioned.

Even when murdering Pavel she KNOWS she's doing the right thing.

PS 100% agree with you on safehold. I enjoyed the first book, but man sometimes it feels like being dropped into game of thrones book 4 with all of these characters I need to keep track of.

Yes, I love it. It's a realistic and nuanced portrayal of grief, sometimes you need that. I actually find him very relatable given the character's circumstances.

I went backpacking in Europe in the mid nineties, and I remember seeing lots of Italian men walking along holding hands, with their arms over shoulders and around waists. You don’t see that there as much now. So, I think it’s cultural: times change, people’s attitudes change, acceptable public behaviour changes. Even as recently as 1995 it was acceptable for grown male friends and family to hold hands and embrace in public in some places. I think I’d agree that it’s possibly fear of being labeled “gay” that has caused this to fall away. Kind of unfortunate. Even women aren’t demonstrative in public much in North America. Well, def more public affection in Mexico.

Thanks :)

They do eventually. My copy of Lord of the Rings was printed 5 or so years before the movies. It has a soon to be adapted banner on it. I think it took about a decade for the movie covers to die out. However, now they all have Ring of Power stickers.

We live in a post-love world

Try commas

In college for one of my history courses, the professor had us keep a notebook/journal and required us to write a thesis of each chapter in our own words and a couple of paragraphs summarizing the text.

I used one of those little Composition Notebooks and ended up doing the same for each class. Very helpful.

No.

Yes, very true.

Fasted paced, lots of science explained in layman's terms and heartwarming. I preferred it to the Martian.

And yes it's funny:)

It was already "demonized" in Dickens' time, so your argument holds no water.

This book changed me. I have mad respect for Jeannette. And yes, I had to decompress after reading the book, it was just……so…..sad.

Also I went from thinking I had good parents, to great parents. I went and thanked them for being there for me afterward.

Aby recommendations for novels/short stories containing perspective shifts?

I really love it when a story contains shifts in perspective.

Take for example this one short story I wrote a while ago. it started with a woman and her son being quite emotionally distant from each other before the woman reflects on a memory she had with her father. The story then shifted to being that of a man and his daughter, wherein the man tells his daughter a story about his parents. It is then revealed (though it was always heavily implied) that the man and his daughter are the woman and her father from the start of the story. At the end of the story the woman, having reflected on this memory gains new conviction to attempt to re-establish her connection with her daughter.

I know that's a pretty simple structural synopsis but it's just an example of the kind of story structure i love.

Do you have any thoughts on perspective/temporal shifts in literature or any favourite text that employs them?

I have finished entire series even though I disliked the first one. Very masochistic of me lol

It’s been a while since I read it, but I think I felt like they were breathers between acts of extreme violence to let the reader get over a shock or relax before being hit with one.

I read it at 17 and wasn't impressed. I can barely recall anything about it year later.