Casey Rousseau wrote: > >... To which Howard Brazee (howard at brazee.net) replied: > > >>It appears that "better" in this context means "more detailed >>descriptions", which I take to mean technical descriptions. >> >> > > > To which I would take exception again. I can follow the working of a ship in Forrester, but I've never been able to in O'Brian. >I was, perhaps, a bit sloppy in my comparisons. I thoroughly enjoyed >the entire Hornblower saga, but they are light, romantic, and have a >tendency toward the episodic. > >In contrast, my recollection of O'Brian is of a much richer and >detailed world populated by real human beings with real joys, sorrows, >victories and failings. > > > But a world in which I find the characters totally implausible and in which the joys, sorrow, victories & failings bore me the 3 times I've tried to enter it. Hornblower, in contrast, is heavily modelled on the real life exploits of Pellew & Cochrane. >I admit, I was also leaning fairly heavily on the knowledge that Steve >has several times listed O'Brian as one of his favorite authors. :) > > > Chacun a son chat ;-) Snarkhunter