Answer to published criticism of Honorverse

There is a book, written by John Lennard and offered on Amazon, that is a criticism of the direction that RFC has taken with the Honorverse. I was not aware of it until I found this interesting review:
Review of Slow Death of the Honorverse

I came across the same book about a year ago and
created a thread based on it. David comments in the thread.

I'm not so sure Countess Young was done any favors for being allowed to escape to Beowulf. Not with Jeremy X and his hell hounds on her tail. Besides, a lot of tasteless sacrifices had to be made in the name of war. But then, aren't sacrifices usually tasteless? That's what makes them sacrifices.

cthia wrote:I came across the same book about a year ago and a thread based on it. David comments in the thread.

I'm not so sure Countess Young was done any favors for being allowed to escape to Beowulf. Not with Jeremy X and his hell hounds on her tail. Besides, a lot of tasteless sacrifices had to be made in the name of war. But then, aren't sacrifices usually tasteless? That's what makes them sacrifices.

I was not interested in the book, but in the review and the reviewer's thoughts.

I really would not call that an "escape", just a head start.

Naturally I am not sure why you think "tasteless" is an appropriate word for a sacrifice (this is a sacrifice only if there is a successful escape). However the only word that I would not want associated with a sacrifice is "senseless".

tlb wrote:There is a book, written by John Lennard and offered on Amazon, that is a criticism of the direction that RFC has taken with the Honorverse. I was not aware of it until I found this interesting review:
Review of Slow Death of the Honorverse

Wait, did the reviewer just compare Allison Harrington to Lwaxanna Troi?

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:I came across the same book about a year ago and a thread based on it. David comments in the thread.

I'm not so sure Countess Young was done any favors for being allowed to escape to Beowulf. Not with Jeremy X and his hell hounds on her tail. Besides, a lot of tasteless sacrifices had to be made in the name of war. But then, aren't sacrifices usually tasteless? That's what makes them sacrifices.

I was not interested in the book, but in the review and the reviewer's thoughts.

I really would not call that an "escape", just a head start.

Naturally I am not sure why you think "tasteless" is an appropriate word for a sacrifice (this is a sacrifice only if there is a successful escape). However the only word that I would not want associated with a sacrifice is "senseless".

You are correct. Tasteless isn't an appropriate word for sacrifices, barring the biblical days of the Old Testament when sacrifices were not according to the Will of God. And, of course, tasteless, perhaps, if you are the one being sacrificed.

It isn't even what I was aiming for. Sacrifices "leave a bad taste in your mouth" is what I was going for. However, in the case of Countess Young, there's a case to be made for "tasteless."

Neither am I interested in the book. Only the review, if you read my associated thread.

BTW, it is rather interesting that you and ThinksMarkedly make the same grammatical mistake of placing the ending quotation mark inside the period or comma. I am no saint when it comes to proper grammar, believe me. But, as ThinksMarkedly once said, my OCD can act up on certain things. I simply ignore it as many undoubtedly do my own, many, grammatical mistakes.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Wait, did the reviewer just compare Allison Harrington to Lwaxanna Troi?

Not a particularly illuminating question, if you are not going to add additional comments on why this is good or bad.

A full reading of the text shows he is talking about the relationship between Honor and her mother and mentions another pair where the relationship is also fraught. So no, he is not directly comparing the two women.

My reading of the relationship, at least in the early books, is that Alison Harrington was never quite sure how to approach her daughter, while Harrington herself felt overshadowed by her mother. (Shades of the relationship between Deanna Troi and her overbearing mother come to mind, but Lwaxana Troi has the advantage of being telepathic, which Alison Harrington lacks.) By the time of Ashes of Victory and onwards, the relationship has definitely improved as Harrington matured emotionally as well as physically.

PS. If the period or comma is not part of the material being quoted, but is instead part of the surrounding sentence structure; then I reject the suggestion that the mark should go within the quotes. In particular if you were to put a period inside, then the sentence does not stop until the next unquoted period is found. I spent a lifetime programming in a language that used periods and that is a mistake I would not want to make.

On the quickanddirty site she said that the rule you mention is true in the USA, but not in England. Apparently this rule is for the benefit of compositors. Then she says the following:

I’ll add that this is the rule that I get the most pushback on. It is a hard-and-fast rule of American English, but every time I post something about it, I get all kinds of comments from Americans who say they think it’s a stupid rule, they don’t care what the stylebooks say, and they’re going to do it the British way. So there! And all I can say is that it’s your choice. I can only tell you the rules. If you want to do it some other way, that’s completely up to you.

She also says this is a valid sentence:
The rabbit said "What's up doc?"

But I would write it this way:
The rabbit said "What's up doc?".

IMO, when you charge readers for a review (as Lennerd does) - it's not a review.

tlb wrote:PS. If the period or comma is not part of the material being quoted, but is instead part of the surrounding sentence structure; then I reject the suggestion that the mark should go within the quotes. In particular if you were to put a period inside, then the sentence does not stop until the next unquoted period is found. I spent a lifetime programming in a language that used periods and that is a mistake I would not want to make.

On the quickanddirty site she said that the rule you mention is true in the USA, but not in England. Apparently this rule is for the benefit of compositors. Then she says the following:

I’ll add that this is the rule that I get the most pushback on. It is a hard-and-fast rule of American English, but every time I post something about it, I get all kinds of comments from Americans who say they think it’s a stupid rule, they don’t care what the stylebooks say, and they’re going to do it the British way. So there! And all I can say is that it’s your choice. I can only tell you the rules. If you want to do it some other way, that’s completely up to you.

She also says this is a valid sentence:
The rabbit said "What's up doc?"

But I would write it this way:
The rabbit said "What's up doc?".

Brrr, it's like fingernails scratching a chalkboard. I suppose as Americans, we should do as the British.

Try BRAINFUCK. A programming language which also uses periods, and whose name synthesizes perfectly what your grammatical error does to me.

EEEEEEEE, please, stop that awful noise! The grima! The grima!

tlb wrote:PS. If the period or comma is not part of the material being quoted, but is instead part of the surrounding sentence structure; then I reject the suggestion that the mark should go within the quotes. In particular if you were to put a period inside, then the sentence does not stop until the next unquoted period is found. I spent a lifetime programming in a language that used periods and that is a mistake I would not want to make.

On the quickanddirty site she said that the rule you mention is true in the USA, but not in England. Apparently this rule is for the benefit of compositors. Then she says the following:

I’ll add that this is the rule that I get the most pushback on. It is a hard-and-fast rule of American English, but every time I post something about it, I get all kinds of comments from Americans who say they think it’s a stupid rule, they don’t care what the stylebooks say, and they’re going to do it the British way. So there! And all I can say is that it’s your choice. I can only tell you the rules. If you want to do it some other way, that’s completely up to you.

She also says this is a valid sentence:
The rabbit said "What's up doc?"

But I would write it this way:
The rabbit said "What's up doc?".

cthia wrote:Brrr, it's like fingernails scratching a chalkboard. I suppose as Americans, we should do as the British.

Try BRAINFUCK. A programming language which also uses periods, and whose name synthesizes perfectly what your grammatical error does to me.

EEEEEEEE, please, stop that awful noise! The grima! The grima!

In my defense, this is not something I was ever taught. I would have remembered something so stupid. I never heard of it before today, but at this point in my life it is not something I am going to change. So people will have to deal with it.

Turns out there are various things that I was not taught in school: earlier this year I learned there is a style rule for the order of Adjectives:

From a book called The Elements of Eloquence: How to Turn the Perfect English Phrase.

Adjectives, writes the author, professional stickler Mark Forsyth, “absolutely have to be in this order: opinion-size-age-shape-color-origin-material-purpose Noun. So you can have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife. But if you mess with that order in the slightest you’ll sound like a maniac.”

Mixing up the above phrase does, as Forsyth writes, feel inexplicably wrong (a rectangular silver French old little lovely whittling green knife…), though nobody can say why. It’s almost like secret knowledge we all share.

BTW, Santino's act of sacrificing his entire crew, save one, simply to save face, just happens to be the epitome of tasteless.