I loved his books, and so I have a paragraph in my latest novel which is a tribute to him and the way he wrote about long naval conversations in the gunroom. If you have read his books, you will recognize it. Do any of you every have literary tributes in your novels?
Here's my example
They walked down the hall and into the kitchen, where the concerned looks on the faces of Salim and Noor were immediately irritating to Akiva. He wasn’t that hurt. Salim rose to shake his hand. “Salaam aleikum.”
“Aleikum salaam.”
He could smell the coffee, and saw on the stove a small blackened metal pot with a wooden handle.
“Coffee, my friend?”
There was coffee, strong black tea in a chipped porcelain pot, and a jar of homemade apricot marmalade. There were fresh figs and bowls of fuul beans served with lime and eaten with a rough round pita bread. Ayat and Noor left the men to their conversation. Conversation about the coffee, whether it was better flavored with cardamom alone or when mixed cardamom was mixed with clove. This turned to talk of meals they had eaten, how cooked; wedding feasts and the seemingly inverse relationship between the wealth of the feast and the happiness of the couple; how marriages seemed to blossom in times of rain; this year’s barley crop; droughts that only grandfathers remembered; every topic but Akiva’s injuries. After breakfast, when Akiva was feeling more nearly human, he said, “I really must call Sara. She must be worried sick.”
Here's my example
They walked down the hall and into the kitchen, where the concerned looks on the faces of Salim and Noor were immediately irritating to Akiva. He wasn’t that hurt. Salim rose to shake his hand. “Salaam aleikum.”
“Aleikum salaam.”
He could smell the coffee, and saw on the stove a small blackened metal pot with a wooden handle.
“Coffee, my friend?”
There was coffee, strong black tea in a chipped porcelain pot, and a jar of homemade apricot marmalade. There were fresh figs and bowls of fuul beans served with lime and eaten with a rough round pita bread. Ayat and Noor left the men to their conversation. Conversation about the coffee, whether it was better flavored with cardamom alone or when mixed cardamom was mixed with clove. This turned to talk of meals they had eaten, how cooked; wedding feasts and the seemingly inverse relationship between the wealth of the feast and the happiness of the couple; how marriages seemed to blossom in times of rain; this year’s barley crop; droughts that only grandfathers remembered; every topic but Akiva’s injuries. After breakfast, when Akiva was feeling more nearly human, he said, “I really must call Sara. She must be worried sick.”
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I don't mind it when it's done at all (especially done well, like Prawn's example which was a great read), I just wouldn't do it myself.
