Can anyone tell me the title and author of this book? It was science fiction, written in the 80's, and a main character?

Sounds a little like The Gap Series. Angus Thermopyle was definitely sadomasochistic! Here's a link to the wikipedia entry and you can see if it sounds familiar:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gap_Cycle .

2 Samuel R. Delany has written a lot of books like that. He isn't my favorite author, so I am not sure of a specific title, but you might want to check Amazon for his books to see if that is it.

3 I've been thinking about it all afternoon since I wrote the question and it keeps coming to mind that the author is a woman. Little by little the memory is coming back I guess.

5 Once you said the author was a woman, that clinched it. I can't believe I didn't think of it right off, given your description.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.