In last week's Tips Links and Suggestions the conversation turned to an old party game: fantasy dinner companions. fat_hamster started it by proposing a night out with Game of Thrones' Tyrion Lanister, while conedison preferred Augustus McCrae, from Larry McMurtry's 1986 Pulitzer-winner Lonesome Dove, "because he's Sir Lancelot in spurs with a great sense of humour."
The conversation that followed was so delightful that we're going to leave it in dialogue form:

Tim Hannigan: I think for me its the same answer I give to pretty much every "which fictional character..." question - Yossarian...
fat_hamster: "Catch 22. Can I join you? Well, me and Tyrion.
conedison:
"I, too, love Yossarian, but as a dinner companion I fear breaking bread with him might well be a mournful affair.
fat_hamster: "A dinner party with Yossarion, Tyrion and Augustus would be worth having."
Trevor Edward Walder: "Rose Mary Duck from John Masters Bhowani Junction. Why? Because for some reason I'm captivated by mixed race/Muslim female second-line characters in JM's books. She in a lot of ways was the original for all of them.
fat_hamster: "Oh good, a lady, it was about to get a bit laddish. She better not mind Tyrion's table manners."
conedison: "If Rose Mary Duck is the character who became Victoria Jones in the movie version (Ava Gardner), she is more than welcome."

Trevor Edward Walder: "Rose Mary is Victoria's younger and more eager to get into bed sister. She is also in the book a lot darker like her mother."
Sara Richards: "Miss Havisham. Why? I think she deserves a nice outing with some different men to make her forget her dastardly fiancé who wasn't worth all those years of angst."
fat_hamster: "She might try to keep the men in order. But she would not succeed."
Sara Richards: "But of course I really want Mr Darcy aka Colin Firth or Sherlock aka Benedict Cumberbatch at the table. Either or both."
fat_hamster: "Mr Darcy making conversation with Tyrion Lanister. Someone should write that."
Sara Richards: "Well, how about Mr. &Mrs. Leopold Bloom?"
GetOver99: "Dean Moriarty for me. [from Jack Kerouac's On the Road]. Dinner party I would like to go to? I wouldn't mind an invite to The Count of Monte Cristo's cave."
goodyorkshirelass: "How about two? Miss Austen's Lizzie Bennet and Ms Atwood's Offred from The Handmaid's Tale. That should guarantee a cracking conversation.
conedison: "Actually, that's a hell of a good idea. As a couple, they'd be tough to top. I'd only add The Thin Man's, Nick and Nora Charles and for a bit of erudite perversity, George and Martha from, Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf."
fat_hamster: "I'd definitely come."

And so would all of us. Can you come up with a more fantastical literary dinner party? In a more exotic venue? Let us know.