I find it very interesting that Star Wars is being singled out as being ripped off. When Star wars came out there was a lot of talk about how unoriginal the story was. It was called a space opera, a western set in space. It had been "done" time and time before. The originality was seen to mainly come from the way the movie looked, the way George Lucas used special effects to show us the "distant galaxy, far far away". The disappointing prequels sort of prove to me the importance of originality in all aspects of film making.

As for David Eddings, he wrote his fantasy books in the hope they would find the same sort of audience that JRRTolkien had. His writing is decent but the plots of his books have been recycled. JKRowling has been blasted for her use of pre=existing plotlines and well worn conventions. Lots of writers use the plotlines of ancient works to support thier own variations on the theme. Musicians do that sort of thing for practice.

I do think the line between paying homage and out right plagiarism is getting very thin these days. Sampling has been a problem in the music industry, and things like Eragon are anything but new in the world of literature. I guess if publishing companies can satisfy themselves that they are putting out stuff that is at least partly original we can still hope the book we pick up will not be the same exact thing as the book we picked up last month.

Fortunately reading is as creative as writing is. We get different things out of books depending on our moods and circumstances.

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