Who are some of your favorite writers, all-time?

[Billy_Kinetta]

Yup. Jason Davis, his editor on the Kickstarter Project confirmed it.

 

[toobfreak]

Harlan Ellison

Did you ever get a chance to meet him? He was quite the character. Angry, confrontational, intelligent, clever, and above all, hysterically funny. Unfortunately, we'll most likely never see someone like him again.

Harlan's antics are well known after his bitter, tempestuous 40-year feud with Gene Roddenberry because Gene had the temerity to take a great Ellison novel that unfortunately wasn't a good fit to the given needed format of a TV show and made the necessary changes in it that turned it into the best Star Trek episode of all time.

Harlan was a little guy who unfortunately let his insecurity and persecution complex about his size cloud his brilliance. He even fought with the writers of Terminator claiming they stole the idea from one of his Outer Limits episodes to the point that they finally gave him screen credit just to shut him up.

He also won a goodly cash settlement. The suit was legit. I'm surprised the Herbert estate didn't stomp on Cameron for AVATAR.

Most writers of sound mind don't like people stealing, or fucking with their work. Harlan was simply louder about it than most.

I don't remember if money exchanged hands but many debate whether Terminator really was a rip off of the OL episode "Soldier." The soldier was just a soldier trained to combat his enemy. Terminator was a machine programed to destroy a specified target. But then, there was a time travel element to almost everything HE did, so I guess now anyone else who incorporates the idea is ripping him off?

You know, it IS possible for two people to have the same idea coincidentally just because it is a good idea, and not because there was any theft involved, as Newton and Leibniz proved.

Debate or not, the studio settled in Ellison's favor.

And considering the afore-mentioned AVATAR, while it was pure CGI-candy and fascinating to watch, the screenplay was a dead-on 7th grader's rewrite of the plot of DUNE. Only the names were changed to protect against further obviousness.

Odd, I both read the book Dune as well as saw both the regular and extended versions of Dune many times as well as have Avatar as well, and I never would have guessed in a million years that Avatar was even remotely a rip off of Dune! Just where was the House Attrades in Avatar? The worms? The spice malange? The House Harkonen? The spice aliens that foled space? What about the Kwisatz Haderach? I even missed the missing water saved deep underground.

Sully = Paul
Natiri = Chani
Na'vi = Fremen
Melange = Unobtanium
Pandora (only source) = Arrakis (only source)
RDA = Imperium/CHOAM/Spacing Guild
Grace = Jessica
Quaritch = Various Harkonnens
Ekutan/T'sutey = Stilgar
Toruk/Ikran = physical substitute sandworms
Eywa = spiritual substitute sandworms

I had read DUNE probably 15 times by the time Lynch's film was released, and several times since. It's well studied. Forget the films. They are tourist attractions, so far.

Basic plots are nearly identical. White boy from outer space arrives with the human forces, is turned against them and joins the primitive indigenous natives against the evil humans attempting to gain control over a resource that is available nowhere else. Sully's progression to leadership of the Na'vi is very similar to Paul's rise among the Fremen.

That Cameron stripped out most of the political, ecological, and cultural arguments of DUNE to make a tighter plot does not disguise the fact that it is derivative in the extreme. The characters follow essentially the same paths as their mirrored DUNE characters with the same motivations, and nearly along an exact timeline.

It's been said that only seven stories exist in the world, but endless plots. Cameron took a short cut with AVATAR.

In the end, Sully is recognized as the Kwisatz Hader ... er, Na'vi Ekutan. Stillsuits not required.

Well, if I watch Avatar again, I will keep all that in mind, but coincidences don't prove there was any deliberate intellectual theft. As you say, there are only so many ideas and it IS a pretty broad, basic concept. Seeing Dune years ago, the basic idea might have just remained in his subconscious and influenced his thinking. But then, as a writer, he also should have seen and recognized the parallels.

They are not coincidences. Herbert did it 40+ years before Cameron. If I were to rewrite Les Miserables as science fiction, would no one notice?

The point I am making is that all these things we are talking about should be considered adaptations. Stories are based on life events and situations and all lives run along certain basic common themes or premises. If someone writes a story about a couple marrying and raising a family only to face struggles, joy and tragedy, are we to assume that all future people writing about couples marrying and having kids and facing difficulties in life have somehow plagiarized the work?

No, because out of formula comes situational diversity or format, and these are called Adaptations. The "story" may be the same, even if the "situation" changes. This is the basic bulwark of writing. Les Miserables was a classic, it was maybe the first in the story-line. But probably not if we looked hard. Since then, it has been adapted to other books, movies, plays, television and even games. The original story has been adapted by various people over the years well over a dozen times. If Dune and Avatar were indeed deliberate, conscious adaptations of the story, they were only so to bring the basic plot up to a modern theme extending it outward into a story about space and other civilizations and the future. Same formula, different situation.

If so, then, for all those people who never bothered or cared to read the 2,800 page original story, perhaps they did them a service? Dune took 10 years to shoot and was originally going to be a 4 hour movie but they chopped it down to 2.5 hours. Judging by the popularity and success of Dune and later, Avatar, I would say they did justice to the original formula of Hugo.

So was Harlan right to sue Cameron? Was Terminator theft of his Outer Limits Soldier? It is anyone's call. At best, it was an updated modern adaptation that paralleled some of Harlan's original themes about a perfect soldier traveling time. Did he maybe deserve a nod of screen credit for having the idea first? Probably so. Did he deserve to profit from it? Probably not. Harlan didn't INVENT the idea of the ultimate perfect soldier, nor did he invent the idea of time travel. He just worked them into a very good story.

As did Cameron.

 

[Shawnee_b]

I don't know whether this is generally known but Harlan told his wife to burn every note, writing and unfinished work after his death because he did not want anyone to finish anything he started.

Wow!

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Vonnegut
Bukowski
Trumbo
King
Asimov
Nova (pen name)
Rice

My brother and I were HUGE Asimov fans. We went to hear him speak at NYU. What a joy!

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Thomas Harris
Truman Capote
Carlos Castaneda

 

[Tijn Von Ingersleben]

Vonnegut
Bukowski
Trumbo
King
Asimov
Nova (pen name)
Rice

My brother and I were HUGE Asimov fans. We went to hear him speak at NYU. What a joy!

Great mind. His catalogue was immense. From science fiction/fantasy to mystery/history/religion...to textbooks.

 

[bluzman61]

Thomas Harris
Truman Capote
Carlos Castaneda

I like Thomas Harris, as well. His Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs are great books, and even better than the movie versions, IMO. Although The Silence of the Lambs movie is very nearly as good as the book, a rarity in movies. I also read his Black Sunday, about a terrorist at the Super Bowl, which is also better than the movie, IMO. But the movie isn't bad.

 

[Jake Winker Frogen]

I never really loved Gore Vidal's fiction, with the exception of Julian, perhaps I should give it another go?

But I love his book of essays, United States.

He is America's Tacitus.

 

[22lcidw]

Science Fiction and Adventure books with many fine writers. Clive Cussler of the 'Dirk Pitt" books and recently passed on is a fine writer.

 

[Shawnee_b]

Science Fiction and Adventure books with many fine writers. Clive Cussler of the 'Dirk Pitt" books and recently passed on is a fine writer.

Got many Clive. Sad he passed.

 

[miketx]

Isaac Asimov
Robert Silverberg
Raymond Weil
Arthur C Clark
Ursula K Leguin
Phillip K Dick
Frank Herbert
Larry Niven
Brian Aldiss
Andre Norton
Dennis E Taylor
Robert Heinlein
Ray Bradbury
Jack Vance
Etc...

 

[Damaged Eagle]

*****SMILE*****

 

[HereWeGoAgain]

Isaac Asimov
Robert Silverberg
Raymond Weil
Arthur C Clark
Ursula K Leguin
Phillip K Dick
Frank Herbert
Larry Niven
Brian Aldiss
Andre Norton
Dennis E Taylor
Robert Heinlein
Ray Bradbury
Jack Vance
Etc...

Good list.
I hate to say it but King while being an utter dick head is one of my favorites.

 

[ABikerSailor]

Good list.
I hate to say it but King while being an utter dick head is one of my favorites.

Speaking of writers who were dicks, yet were excellent writers, one of my all time favorite falls into that category......................Harlan Ellison. Many people (including himself) said he could be a total asshole. However, he did write excellent fiction that made you think.