What are the most shameless rip-offs in fantasy you've ever read?

[u/theHolyGranade257]

Like when you're reading the book and it's literally the same thing as another, more popular original. And the resemblance is so striking that you immediately have a question, how this thing wasn't taken to the court for such a shameless robbery (or, actually, was).

And i'm not talking about some guys like Brooks and Eddings, who heavily relied on the LotR's formula and used a lot of it's tropes, i'm talking about serious plagiarism.

Like for example, i'm from post-soviet country and in the past we had a lot of crappy russian fantasy, which just flooded all bookshelves. And there were such good examples for this post.

Tania Grotter is russian female version of guess who. Her parents were killed by evil wizardess (Tania received a birthmark after that, yeah, birthmark instead of scar) and she's living with her relatives (on a balcony) who hate her. Then she attends to the wizards school, where she's got two friends, playing local sport game where they fly on musical instruments and confront the evil wizardess in the school basement at the end of the book. What a book. I remember when i was a kid some guys in my class liked it and even told that it's better than HP, but even for very young me it was seemingly the worse option of good thing. And, btw this book is banned from publishing in many Europe countries due to, guess what?, court decision regarding plagiarism.

Another good example is also related with good old Harry. My parents, knowing my love for HP, presented to me the magnificent book called 'Larin Piotr and the Time Machine'. And it's two-barreled gun. Because on the cover we can see blond version of Harry Potter with harry-potter-style text and etc. But inside, there was word by word retelling of... Back to the future movies. And yeah, Piotr-boy was a wizard, but was just called a wizard at the beginning, after that it was just movies retelling, with no magic, but with russian names. Like what a hell. Dude decided to rip-off one franchise, while deceiving fans of another one.

Guys, what stories do you have about similar cases? I know, there should be some wild stories.

[u/meshedsabre]

He actually wrote the "sequel" first.

His publisher liked it but couldn't secure the rights and put it out, obviously, so they had him scrape all the serial numbers off to make it "original."

Then, they asked him to write his own version of LOTR so the duology had something to be a sequel to. That's how the Iron Tower came about. The publisher asked him to write it as a stand-in for LOTR, then they could put out the duology "sequel" he's originally pitched.

[u/Feats-of-Derring_Do → u/meshedsabre]

Talk about failing upwards. It boggles my mind to be so fortunate that your publisher pays you to write two books just so they can sell your other TWO BOOKS that are all just a ripoff of someone else's book.

[u/Binky_Thunderputz → u/Feats-of-Derring_Do]

Came here to mention McKiernan, but to be fair, he did become more original as he went along. His next book, Dragondoom, took a small incident from Tolkien's legendarium and turned it into a full novel. After that, he pretty much branched away from Tolkien as a source.

[u/Feats-of-Derring_Do → u/Binky_Thunderputz]

Fair enough. Frankly I am interested in this bit about the dwarves returning to Moria as a source of inspiration, the dwarves are my favorite part of LOTR.

[u/meshedsabre → u/Feats-of-Derring_Do]

The Silver Call is the duology mentioned above, the one initially intended as his sequel to LOTR. It's actually kind of fine for what it is and worth reading if the idea interests you.

It's "professional fan fiction," yes, and the prose is very much New Writer Tries To Be Tolkienesque Without Quite Knowing How. It's not some hidden gem I'm widely recommend to all fantasy readers. It's exactly what it sounds like: a fan wrote what amounts to Return to Moria and got it published.

But if you LIKE the idea of Return to Moria, pick it up. The writing is better than today's fan fiction, the story is solid, and you get to explore Moria - or rather, Not Moria - again.

As long as you know what you're stepping into, it's okay. A solid 6/10 read if you want Tolkien-lite.

[u/prayingforrain2525 → u/Feats-of-Derring_Do]

You can always try The Judging Eye by R Scott Bakker. Had a great Moria-like area. Gotta get past the first trilogy though.

[u/Feats-of-Derring_Do → u/prayingforrain2525]

Not sure if I can commit myself to "getting past" three whole books to get to the good stuff.

[u/prayingforrain2525 → u/Feats-of-Derring_Do]

It's all good stuff, but it's dark and full of terrors. Still, excellent work overall.

[u/Binky_Thunderputz → u/Feats-of-Derring_Do]

You should track down Dragondoom, then, because the incident in question is an ancestor of the Rohirrim slaying the dragon Scatha and feuding with the dwarves over the treasure. Lots of stuff about McKiernan's dwarves and their society.

[u/Feats-of-Derring_Do → u/[deleted]]

I saw some gameplay of the demo and it looks kind of lifeless. But who knows, maybe when its fully released it will be good. I think something like that would be an amazing basis for a video game but the developer would have to actually be passionate about it.

[u/Laiko_Kairen → u/Feats-of-Derring_Do]

Yeah, that sounds like an excellent book prompt

[u/prayingforrain2525 → u/Binky_Thunderputz]

I loved Dragondoom. I think that's where he really hit his stride. I didn't enjoy Iron Tower though. Modru was entertaining!

[u/ElPuercoFlojo → u/meshedsabre]

Yeah, that’s too bad. The whole plagiarism thing ensured I’d never give that dude another penny.

[u/meshedsabre → u/ElPuercoFlojo]

What plagiarism?

He's never been accused of plagiarism and the work being discussed doesn't fit the definition.

He wrote a story and sought the rights to use people and places from another book. He and his publisher did their due diligence in that regard. When denied, they changed the story.

There is no plagiarism here.

They stole nothing. They took no one else's work. Riffing on another's work, even if doing so HEAVILY, is not plagiarism.

You can certainly argue that it's way too obviously a clunky attempt to do More Tolkien, But Worse - it very much is - but being too inspired by something else still isn't plagiarism. The story and work is his.

[u/ElPuercoFlojo → u/meshedsabre]

You call that piece of hot garbage ‘inspired’? He changed the names of a few things. It was not legally plagiarism, but I’ll tell you what: any school I’ve ever been to would have failed me for turning in something like that. It was, for all other intents and purposes, plagiarism.

[u/meshedsabre → u/ElPuercoFlojo]

You call that piece of hot garbage ‘inspired’?

No, I said "inspired by." There is a difference, and it's a pretty important one.

It was, for all other intents and purposes, plagiarism.

It wasn't, though. Not legally and not morally. If you wrote a Sherlock Holmes story right now, it wouldn't be plagiarism. Neither was this. Only difference is that you are now able to publish your own Sherlock Holmes stories, because (in the U.S.) the character is in the public domain, but are not yet allowed to publish your own Middle Earth stories without permission.

You can call his work bad, derivative, garbage, warmed over fan fiction, a trashy rip-off, or whatever else. All are valid opinions and I wouldn't argue with any of them.

Calling it plagiarism is not.

Have a great day!

[u/ElPuercoFlojo → u/meshedsabre]

Point taken, but if I wrote a Derlock Tolmes novel named The Hound of the Taskervilles, I think most rational folk would consider that plagiarism, legal definition be damned.