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queensthiefFrom a Horn Book interview with Franny Billingsley:
HB: If Chime’s Eldric has any competition at all in the hunky one-handed YA fantasy hero category, it’s Megan Whalen Turner’s Eugenides (from The Thief et al.). Tell us, if Eldric and Gen were to arm-wrestle, who would win?
FB: What a great question! I think that one of Eldric’s great gifts is that he’s pretty connected to his childhood self, which means that he doesn’t wear much of a mask. Which means that bit by bit, he’s able to tease Briony to the surface, the real Briony, the Briony who’s suffocating under her mask. Gen, however, is dead opposite to Eldric. When I think about Gen’s character in The King of Attolia, for example, I think about the way he kept Costis so unbalanced. The reader sees him mostly through Costis’s eyes and it is only toward the end that Costis sees bits of the real Gen. Most of us wear masks to make ourselves look better, but Gen is a trickster. In The King of Attolia, for his own complex reasons, he hides his skill at swordplay, taking Costis by surprise toward the end. So if Eldric, who hasn’t much of a mask, were pitted against Gen, who turns his own mask inside out — if they were to arm-wrestle, I don’t think Eldric stands a chance.
It’s funny that I never thought about the parallel between Gen’s hand and Eldric’s hand. Perhaps it’s because of the many, many drafts in which it was Briony who lost the hand. Or perhaps it’s because Gen and Eldric are so different, that hand or no, I don’t put them in the same mental box.
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I have Chime out (six starred reviews, how could I not) and am about to read it! Interestingly - and a bit off-topic - the plagiarism part is something I've been thinking about after reading Matched - if the feel is different, and the characters are different, whether elements being similar equals plagiarism.
Back on topic: I love it when authors mention that they love MWT, mostly because she seems to fly under the radar a lot. ACoK hitting the NYT bestseller list was a bit of a shock. (A wonderful one, though!)
HB: If Chime’s Eldric has any competition at all in the hunky one-handed YA fantasy hero category, it’s Megan Whalen Turner’s Eugenides (from The Thief et al.). Tell us, if Eldric and Gen were to arm-wrestle, who would win?
FB: What a great question! I think that one of Eldric’s great gifts is that he’s pretty connected to his childhood self, which means that he doesn’t wear much of a mask. Which means that bit by bit, he’s able to tease Briony to the surface, the real Briony, the Briony who’s suffocating under her mask. Gen, however, is dead opposite to Eldric. When I think about Gen’s character in The King of Attolia, for example, I think about the way he kept Costis so unbalanced. The reader sees him mostly through Costis’s eyes and it is only toward the end that Costis sees bits of the real Gen. Most of us wear masks to make ourselves look better, but Gen is a trickster. In The King of Attolia, for his own complex reasons, he hides his skill at swordplay, taking Costis by surprise toward the end. So if Eldric, who hasn’t much of a mask, were pitted against Gen, who turns his own mask inside out — if they were to arm-wrestle, I don’t think Eldric stands a chance.
It’s funny that I never thought about the parallel between Gen’s hand and Eldric’s hand. Perhaps it’s because of the many, many drafts in which it was Briony who lost the hand. Or perhaps it’s because Gen and Eldric are so different, that hand or no, I don’t put them in the same mental box.
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I have Chime out (six starred reviews, how could I not) and am about to read it! Interestingly - and a bit off-topic - the plagiarism part is something I've been thinking about after reading Matched - if the feel is different, and the characters are different, whether elements being similar equals plagiarism.
Back on topic: I love it when authors mention that they love MWT, mostly because she seems to fly under the radar a lot. ACoK hitting the NYT bestseller list was a bit of a shock. (A wonderful one, though!)
no subject
Date: 4/24/11 03:23 pm (UTC)While I love MWT, I read Chime a few weeks ago and loved everything about it. Not once did I even THINK of MWT. The themes (and characters) are entirely different, as Ms. Billingsley has so eloquently articulated herself.
However, you won't hear me defending Matched...
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Date: 4/24/11 04:29 pm (UTC)I absolutely love when authors know about mwt, a while back I had trouble finding anything online about the series! Oh, how we've grown :-)
Chime is on my To-Read list for break! Can't wait :-)
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Date: 4/24/11 06:09 pm (UTC)Hm. That just made me realize that MWT is as reticent as her mentor Diana Wynne Jones, another great author who was never as high profile as she should have been. I mean, I love J.K. Rowling, but she owes her enormously successful career to DWJ, who was a far superior writer.
Everyone who should know MWT does already. I guess that will just have to be enough.
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Date: 4/24/11 06:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 4/24/11 06:30 pm (UTC)I loved Chime, and there is nothing that even smacks of plagiarism, believe me. I think the question was just a joke, because of two one-handed heroes (but there is nothing similar about Eldric's hand loss and Gen's). Plenty of fantasy heroes and heroines (Lirael) have lost hands.
no subject
Date: 4/24/11 06:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 4/24/11 06:40 pm (UTC)I'm excited to read it!
(And I'm not surprised :)
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Date: 4/24/11 06:41 pm (UTC)I meant plagiarism in the general sense. I did not mean to suggest that she plagiarized.
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Date: 4/24/11 06:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 4/24/11 06:54 pm (UTC)And duh. Of course Gen would win. I don't even know who this other guy is and I know Gen would kick his behind.
I haven't read Chime or Matched, but from the description on Amazon (and everyone else's comments here) it seems Chime is very different from the QT series. And I know you didn't mean to suggest that it plagiarized.
What I'm curious about is, what about Matched resembles QT? I don't see anything in particular on the Amazon summary that strikes me as similar, but, of course, that's just a summary. And obviously the feel *would* be different given that it seems to be a sort of dystopian future-verse. It almost sounds more like Scott Westerfeld's Pretties series (but that's another subject entirely). Since I never plan on reading the book, feel free to spoil it in the answer, if it's necessary.
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Date: 4/24/11 06:59 pm (UTC)Matched is actually very similar, from a solely world-building perspective, to The Giver by Lois Lowry. It's funny that you should mention Uglies because honestly? In feel, at least, it reminded me of Uglies way more. Typical dystopia, mediocre writing. (Well, Uglies had good points. I'm just not a fan of dystopia.)
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Date: 4/24/11 07:18 pm (UTC)But I definitely won't deny there are similarities. It's... not even related, the way they got their hands cut off.
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Date: 4/24/11 08:32 pm (UTC)And if they ever made a movie, it might just explode. Which is both exciting and very scary to think about =)
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Date: 4/24/11 08:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 4/24/11 09:16 pm (UTC)I feel like Gen's the shorter one, the older tougher looking one has no idea what he's getting himself into =)
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Date: 4/24/11 10:54 pm (UTC)I'm really trying to be patient and wait until my library gets a copy of Chime instead of buying it first. This is not helping with that resolution.
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Date: 4/25/11 10:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 4/25/11 12:45 pm (UTC)I did make the Gen/hand connection while reading, but it was just a passing thought and didn't distract me from a thoroughly idiosyncratic and satisfying story. Besides, Briony is the MC, the voice and heart of the book--not Eldric, though we come to care about him, too.
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Date: 4/25/11 05:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 4/25/11 05:19 pm (UTC)Not that it would be *impossible* to include better themes, such as the human nature elements you can include in any story, but a lot of time, it's waysided by the Big Point About Whatever The Author's Making a Point About.
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Date: 4/25/11 07:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 4/25/11 08:08 pm (UTC)*shudders at Hollywood's interperation of books to film*
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Date: 4/26/11 02:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 4/27/11 04:40 am (UTC)In fact, I may quote you :D
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