OSC vs. JKR

[Pseudolus]

He pretty much gives her the what-for.

http://hatrack.com/osc/reviews/every...08-04-20.shtml

Can you believe that J.K. Rowling is suing a small publisher because she claims their 10,000-copy edition of Harry Potter Lexicon, a book about Rowling's hugely successful novel series, is just a "rearrangement" of her own material.

Rowling "feels like her words were stolen," said lawyer Dan Shallman.

Well, heck, I feel like the plot of my novel Ender's Game was stolen by J.K. Rowling.

A young kid growing up in an oppressive family situation suddenly learns that he is one of a special class of children with special abilities, who are to be educated in a remote training facility where student life is dominated by an intense game played by teams flying in midair, at which this kid turns out to be exceptionally talented and a natural leader. He trains other kids in unauthorized extra sessions, which enrages his enemies, who attack him with the intention of killing him; but he is protected by his loyal, brilliant friends and gains strength from the love of some of his family members. He is given special guidance by an older man of legendary accomplishments who previously kept the enemy at bay. He goes on to become the crucial figure in a struggle against an unseen enemy who threatens the whole world.

This paragraph lists only most prominent similarities between Ender's Game and the Harry Potter series. My book was published in England years before Rowling began writing about Harry Potter. Rowling was known to be reading widely in speculative fiction during the era after the publication of my book.

I can get on the stand and cry, too, Ms. Rowling, and talk about feeling "personally violated."

The difference between us is that I actually make enough money from Ender's Game to be content, without having to try to punish other people whose creativity might have been inspired by something I wrote.

[...]

[General Apathy]

Will there be a poll?

[Double High C]

Originally Posted by General Apathy

Will there be a poll?

If in Lesbos, it won't really matter.

[Loner]

Someone once said something along the lines of there are only 32 original plots. The parallels between Ender's Game and Harry Potter are not really the same thing as what is going on with the Lexicon, which is an explicit guide to the Harry Potter univers.

[Levin]

This was a surprising column to read, because OSC has pretty much had nothing but good to say about JKR. Even this one hints at his previous rants about the New York Times concocting a Children's Fiction list to keep her books from eclipsing the more "important" books.

[Loner]

Originally Posted by Levin

This was a surprising column to read, because OSC has pretty much had nothing but good to say about JKR. Even this one hints at his previous rants about the New York Times concocting a Children's Fiction list to keep her books from eclipsing the more "important" books.

Well she's being a bit greedy here - she should have sought some sort of revenue sharing rather than preventing the book from being published.

[Levin]

Originally Posted by umichmed

I love OSC's older stuff. His newer series based around Ender's classmate, Bean, are far less successful. Too much injection of unnecessary political prostelyzing and bashing of various countries for no reason in particular.

[tan]I didn't see any country come out of the Shadow series unscathed. But the Muslim world was decidedly chastised more than the rest.[/tan]