Stealing Ideas?

[peggy-2.livejournal.com]

This is sort of an early While She Knits post, because I'll be gone on Friday.  (sorry Checkers ~ smack me if it's excessive off topic book discussion).

The previous While She Knits mentioned Naomi Novik's Temeraire series.  I had given them to my son to read, on Emma's recommendation, and he really enjoyed them as well.  One comment he made was that it took a while to think of dragons the size of troop ships, after Eragon's one-person models.  He's a big Eragon fan.

Clearly Novik is either a Hornblower fan, or more likely an O'Brien one.  Reading the third book, I am beginning to think she may be a Dunnett fan as well.  So here's my  question.  Is it unfair to diss Paolini and his Eragon for being a rip-off of everybody else's ideas, but to give Novik praise for what fun stuff she is doing with other people's source material?  I didn't  think when I read Paoline that his writing stunk out loud.  And it certainly seems to have struck a chord in his target audience (MS/HS, especially boys).  Novik is not obviously head and shoulders better on a line by line basis.  Are we just unfair that we praise one derivative book, but slam another? 

Or is it just that I prefer her source material to Paolini's.  It's true, give me Forresster and  Dunnett over Tolkein.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

But the illustrious MWT does the same, with Sutcliff and Jones and is very upfront about it. When is it a cool literary allusion and when is it a rip-off?

[jade-sabre-301.livejournal.com]

I don't know if you'll see this (also, I suggest you start signing your anonymous comments, just to help us keep track ^_^), but anyway--

It's a cool literary allusion when it takes place in a different context. For example, when Gen says something along the lines of "What a lie that was" (the instance I'm thinking of is in KoA when Attolia says "You are always kind to me"), it's a direct quote from Diana Wynne Jones's Howl, right? Except the only way you would know that is if you were paying attention and happened to make the connection (which I did not until someone pointed it out, mainly because I've only read Howl a few times). It's not like Gen is a somewhat cowardly wizard fellow, and Attolia's a female character who may or may not be an old lady in disguise. In this case, it's more of a literary nod--different situation, same words, inspiring hilarity in some, and passed over by others.

(Granted, in that case someone might read HMC and think "Hey! That's MWT's line!" But if they were enterprising hopefully they would check copyright dates and come to the right conclusion.)

Whereas in Paolini's case, it's more like "here's a farmboy, who's the last active member of this particular kind of [insert hero type], who's leaving his instructor" and here he says something along the lines of "I'll come back and finish my training. I promise."
Now, see, if we couldn't use the names "Jedi" and "Dragonrider" (or whichever), and "Luke" and "Eragon," and "Yoda" and "O-what's-his-name," then it would just be a nod to Star Wars. However, since Paolini is clearly and willfully borrowing extensively from Star Wars (and not only in this spot), this just adds insult to injury. And it wouldn't even matter if he was borrowing from Star Wars if it wasn't so ill-disguised. But it's blatant and obvious and just poorly written, and the characters are just interchangable mouthpieces for the flat dialogue and--

Oh, crap. *counts* That's what, two more pages I have to write today? *sighs*

Anyway, um, did that answer your question? :-)

[alineadrklrdsis.livejournal.com]

I would never say that Eragon or Eldest were genius, that would be lying. I haven't read Eragon or watched star wars in a long time so I can't exactly give you a satisfactory answer. Over all though Paolini does manage to do something that few (if any) other authors have done. He tied in pieces of writing and writing styles from many different sources without most people noticing that he "borrowed" anything. Again I agree that it's definitely not the most well written book but I must stress that many people think it's a pretty decent book. However I must state that there's a lot of generally accepted literature out there that is in some ways a rip-off of star wars. If you need a list I'll ask my brother he's the one who does stuff like that.

Jade, by any chance are you a member of Anti-Shurtugal.com?

[jade-sabre-301.livejournal.com]

He tied in pieces of writing and writing styles from many different sources without most people noticing that he "borrowed" anything.

I would have to disagree with that one. While I would say that people who have barely read any fantasy would find it entertaining, most people can name at least one source he's used (I mean, aside from LOTR. He mostly used that one for world-building anyway). Creepy little girl who's prematurely aged and has special powers? Alia from Dune, baby. (And heck, his superspecial bow he gets--I think that's what it was--was fairly reminiscent of the first book of R.A. Salvatore's Demon Trilogy. That's getting a bit obscure there, and to be fair I only read the first book in that trilogy because it was insanely long and exhausting and I couldn't stand the thought of two more books like it, but Paolini has said over and over again that all he did was read fantasy books, so I wouldn't place it far off the mark to say that's where he got that idea.)
Of course there's a lot of generally accepted literature that is in some ways a rip-off of Star Wars. Star Wars is a rip off* of a lot of generally accepted literature and mythology. It's all in the execution.

Er, I'm not a member of the actual site, though I do belong to the (mostly dead until the next book comes out) livejournal community. And I have read and wept for joy over agreed with the many essays they have posted over there (my favorite being the one that calls Eragon a...sociopath, was it? Not something that occurred to me, but still very funny). And I've been acquainted with Hackslayer via NaNoWriMo. So, um, if you're asking me where my affiliations lie... :-)

(three...more...pages...)