Good point. The only writer I have ever had an issue with is JK Rowling - whenever I had to listen to work colleagues rant about how great Harry Potter was I wanted to have a real go at them and tell them that there is a whole world of infinitely better books to be read (although they could probably have guessed half of the plots after reading her offerings). I swear that I thought at one point she would roll out the eternal man as his secret grandfather which would have probably have pushed me over the edge! Drew.
From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: RE: Discussion with friend about Kelewan Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2013 08:14:29 +0000 Dance music is a whole genre of music inspired by sampling and reworking older works. Admittedly some forms more than others. Many times inspiration strikes after experiencing something, be it a beautiful landscape, a good meal, some nice music or a story and reworking it or enhancing it to express that in your own way. Using ideas from another story certainly isn't stealing. How many stories do you know that have magicians in. One recently successful series of books borrows heavily from the lord of the rings, but that didn't stop it becoming a movie. If we start throwing plagiarism accusations around every time a story seems similar to another, we'll soon find creativity drying up. After all, without the bible, we wouldn't have the lion, the witch and the wardrobe. B Sent from my Windows Phone From: Jeff Goodhall Sent: 28/03/2013 07:37 To: feistfans-l Subject: Re: Discussion with friend about Kelewan who cares? everyone inspires everyone. On 28 March 2013 04:15, Paddyjack <[email protected]> wrote: Was there a girl who rose through power fighting multiple deadly situations and using her wit and smarts to go though them in Tekumel? No? Case closed. There were similarities between Wizard of Oz and Star Wars too, you can find awebsite about that somewhere. So to go as far as calling Ray Feist a thief over that, that guy should be sued IMO PJ On Mar 27, 2013 7:07 PM, "Anestis Kozakis" <[email protected]> wrote: Hi Ray, A friend and I have an on-going discussion about Kelewan. He has the impression that you borrowed a large number of elements of Kelewan from M.A.R. Barker's "Empire of the Petal Throne". He cites a couple of articles: http://ferretbrain.com/articles/article-134.html under the "Why I only buy his books second hand" heading. The writer of the article claims you have admitted that Kelewan was very heavily from Barker's work in various conversations with fans. The other article is at http://www.rpg.net/columns/designers-and-dragons/designers-and-dragons13.phtml and has the following paragraphs around the middle of the article: "Midkemia's unique creation has also resulted in one bit of controversy: according to Feist, the original Midkemian Campaign run by Abrams and Everson contained some minor elements borrowed from Tékumel, as described in TSR's Empire of the Petal Throne (1975). Those elements were, of course, not brought into any of Midkemia Press' published books. However, Feist wasn't aware of this genesis, so some of these elements did find their way into the world of Kelewan — which opposed Midkemia in the Riftwar. Feist says the ultimate impact of Tékumel on the novels is "superficial", with other sources like Alan Dean Foster's Thranx and Jack Vance's Big Planet being just as important. Ultimately, we outsiders can never know the exact influence of the EPT world filtered through a house campaign upon Feist's writing. Suffice to say, it might be more than professional writer Raymond Feist is comfortable with and probably is a lot less than fans have suggested over the years." I keep bringing up how you have always stated that you borrowed from Japan, China, etc etc (the answer you always give when someone asks about the influences for the Tsruanni society). Just wondering if you would like to share your thoughts on the issue. -- Anestis Kozakis | [email protected] | http://www.akozakis.id.au/
