Trends between books.

[The_Stef]

Well, I recently bought a book called Pawn of Prophecy by David Eddings. I read it, it wasn't bad, but it struck me that it felt like I had read it before. I realized that it was incredibly similar to Eragon, which I read recently as well. Not only that, but both of them were similar to book on in the Wheel of Time series as well (I can't remember what that one is called x.x I haven't read it in an uber long time) ! Not that these were particularily bad books, but don't you get tired of reading the same thing over and over again?

All three are about teenage boy who's parents died at a young age, so they grew up on a farm, raised by someone else. All three can do magic, and all three travel with an old man who was a travelling storyteller. In PoP and Eragon, the storytellers were secretly people from the stories that they told, and both knew magic.

In PoP and Eragon, both main characters had silver marks on their palms.

In both Eragon and WoT, the farm the main characters lived on was burned down by half animal half human evil creatures things, and their "fathers" killed. They even had very similar races of half human-animal things, the Urgals being eerily similar to the things from WoT which I can't remember what they were called.

In WoT and PoP, you can't say the name of the bad guy.

Here's a weird thought: in the first oft he three that I read, WoT, the main character had an R as the first letter of his name, Rand. In the second one I read, Eragon, he had an R as the second letter in his name, Eragon. In the thrid one I read, he had an R as the third letter in his name, Garion... hmmmmmmm.

There are more than that, but that's all I can remember right off the top of my head. I wonder if the authors have ever read eachother's books???

[Papercut_Dragon]

That happens in fantasy a LOT. Unfortunately. Tolkien wrote Lord of the Rings and all of a sudden elves were tall and secluded and not, say, Kiebler-height and mischievious. Dwarves are now warriers and not fat miners (although their fixation with metal or gems and such has lasted through everything).

Read Lord of the Rings and then DragonLance and you'll see what you're talking about; entertaining stuff (I love both series) but they're really similar.

After a while, I do get tired of reading Fantasy because I've heard it all before. Lady gets kidnapped, person with magic, etc. It's the same with Sci-Fi; actually, it's probably the same with most genres (Westerns, Mysteries, Romance . . . now there's a category that's all about clichs).

[KingdomHeartShera]

That's true. You know what's also incredibly similiar to Lord of the Rings? The Sword of Shanarra by Terry Brooks. [color=red][b]Spoilers for that book below![/b][/color]

Okay, in both, there are two characters who live in a small, secluded place in the mountains. Thier people are short and sturdy. One day, there comes to the town a tall, magical stranger who tells tales about the past and sends them on a quest. On the way across the forest to get to where they have to go to meet up with new comrades, they get lost in a swampy woodland and it takes the powers of the main character, Shea, to get them out of it. And get this: there are also deadly creatures following them. See similarities, anyone?

And then, when they finally get there, one of their friends must recover from an injury, and they meet the members of their party. Guess what races they are? Tall, imposing human who will be a future king, another human, two elves, and a dwarf. Not to mention the wizard type dude from the beginning. And that's only the very beginning of the book.

Sad, isn't it? And guess what happens later? The two main characters get poisoned and they must rush to save them, and then at the very end Shea gets separated from everyone else and must face the big baddie by himself. The wizard dude dies/dissapears into a fiery pit while fighting a dude and then comes back. Boy, when I read both of them near the same time, it was obvious. It's SAD. Stupid people need to not steal other people's stuff. XD