posted
...then read Faerie Tale by Raymond E. Feist. There are many similarities including:
-A family/neighborhood caught in the middle of a magical conflict -Main magical characters are Titania, Oberon and Puck -A rescue effort that takes people into the fairyland. -A hero who is a child -References to fairytales and folklore -Faries seducing people
Comparing the two I preferred Feist's variation of the fairyworld as well as suspense buildup to the final conflict a little better. Too much of Magic Street seemed a bit... well... silly and random, which, of course, may have been the intent.
Card's dialog was far more amusing and the characters were more engaging. I also think I learned something about black american culture.
Overall, both good books. So if you have read one, I recommend reading the other.
Posts: 157 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
At first I when I read 'Starship Troopers' by Heinlein after reading "Enders Game" I was a bit annoyed. -- I thought OSC intentionally ripped off Heinlein by justing rewriting 'Starship Troopers' with children soldiers instead of adults.
There were numerous similarities that probably weren't coincidence:
1.The obvious giant insect invaders 2. The platoons in Starship Troopers being called the more cutesy 'Toons' in Ender's Game 3. The long detailed war training scenes 4. And most to my attention--both had a fight scene between two soldiers in the showers! (Verhoeven changed this to a bar? in the movie though)
But, I then realized it's probably impossible to write something without similarities to other stories, whether unconscious or subconcious.
And I suspect like Shakespeare, OSC does a faerie tale much more to my liking than Feist.
Heinleins book offered nothing in the way of moral thinking such as Ender's Game, and I'm sure Feist's book wil have nebulous morals or unaddressed morality unlike Magic Street.
But, I like Feist too, so I'm going to try the Faerie Tale after finishing Magic Street
Posts: 27 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
I hadn't and still haven't read Starship Troopers. This is the first I heard that ST had a fight scene in the showers. Weird.
When Heinlein used insectoid aliens, though, it was already a sci-fi staple; I was tapping into a frequently-used tradition, as Heinlein also did.
Toons weren't "cutesy" in those pre-Roger Rabbit days, just an obvious abbreviation.
There are lots of books with long detailed war-training scenes, predating both Heinlein and me.
Haven't read any Feist, either ... so, again, coincidence or convergence or shared cultural sources must be invoked.
Posts: 2005 | Registered: Jul 1999
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posted
Feist certainly managed to create an otherworldly feel in Faerie Tale. However, my reaction upon finishing it was "so what." I guess it was like hearing about someone else's dream: although well-told and interesting, I just didn't care about the characters, and their actions seemed meaningless.
It has been a few years since I read it, so at one point I may pick it up again and see if I get more out of it.
--Mel
[ADDIT: I read Faerie Tale at about the same time that I read Gene Wolfe's Castleview. They both had similar premises, although Wolfe used Arthurian legend, I think, and I had pretty much the same reaction to both of them. Perhaps that says more about me than about those two books; I don't know.]
Posts: 1269 | Registered: Jun 2005
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quote: coincidence or convergence or shared cultural sources must be invoked.
That I believe (I saw a Q & A on Starship Troopers on Hatrack only after I wrote my post).
That happened to me just recently after reading Sanderson's 'Elantris'. I had written a shorty story where a sports team owner communcates to his athletes through a floating orb, that pulses light and speaks like a human. Unfortunately, if someone didn't know I had written the story before 'Elantris' they may assume I ripped Sanderson off by using a variation of his Seon's.
Coincidence or something more? Believe it or not? Posts: 27 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
I own Magic Street but I haven't read it yet. It's near the top of my substantial pile. But I read and enjoyed Faerie Tale as a teenager, so I will take this as a good omen. Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
I once started writing a story in my early high school years that centered on a high-school age kid named Lanik (he was an alien, but didn't know it yet). I chose the name because of it's phonetic resemblance to "Luke," which was the original name, but seemed too vanilla (not to mention, New Testament) for a character who is supposed to have alien parents.
Then, the very next week, I picked up "Treason" from the library and did a mental double-take at the name of the main character. Doh!
Posts: 1099 | Registered: Apr 2005
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