A good chunk of work...
Aug. 12th, 2010 06:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexpgpI managed to exceed my goal of 4,000 source words today, which is good, but did not manage to get a start on The Big Edit, which... is okay, since I don't plan a work-free weekend anyway. <grin>
In other news, while clearing out some boxes of books, I ran across a paperback titled Nevsky's Revenge, by a fellow named Dimitri Gat. This nudged a memory to the effect that Gat's second Nevsky book (Nevsky's Demon) was pulled from the shelves and the plates destroyed as part of a settlement with John D. MacDonald, because the plot of Gat's book was actionably close to that of MacDonald's The Dreadful Lemon Sky.
In a letter to a friend, MacDonald noted that Nevsky's Revenge was also "patterened quite closely to the plot structure and plot incidents of The Empty Copper Sea," going on to mention that Revenge had gotten a nomination for best first novel from the Mystery Writers of America, and that nobody - not the Times nor the publisher nor the MWA - had tumbled to the similarity. MacDonald himself noted that although Revenge and Copper Sea were "very close, especially in the beginning of chapters five and six," it did not lend itself as readily to a point-by-point comparison the way Demon and Lemon Sky did.
I've got both books and have decided to read them and see for myself, especially since Gat said he had never intended to plagiarize, but to make the story his own by massaging all of the Travis McGee out of the writing. (What sometimes is jokingly referred to as "filing off the serial numbers," along the lines of how the plot of the movie Avatar takes inspiration from Dances With Wolves and other films.)
Now, only if I could find the time! (To read the books, of course!)
Cheers...
In other news, while clearing out some boxes of books, I ran across a paperback titled Nevsky's Revenge, by a fellow named Dimitri Gat. This nudged a memory to the effect that Gat's second Nevsky book (Nevsky's Demon) was pulled from the shelves and the plates destroyed as part of a settlement with John D. MacDonald, because the plot of Gat's book was actionably close to that of MacDonald's The Dreadful Lemon Sky.
In a letter to a friend, MacDonald noted that Nevsky's Revenge was also "patterened quite closely to the plot structure and plot incidents of The Empty Copper Sea," going on to mention that Revenge had gotten a nomination for best first novel from the Mystery Writers of America, and that nobody - not the Times nor the publisher nor the MWA - had tumbled to the similarity. MacDonald himself noted that although Revenge and Copper Sea were "very close, especially in the beginning of chapters five and six," it did not lend itself as readily to a point-by-point comparison the way Demon and Lemon Sky did.
I've got both books and have decided to read them and see for myself, especially since Gat said he had never intended to plagiarize, but to make the story his own by massaging all of the Travis McGee out of the writing. (What sometimes is jokingly referred to as "filing off the serial numbers," along the lines of how the plot of the movie Avatar takes inspiration from Dances With Wolves and other films.)
Now, only if I could find the time! (To read the books, of course!)
Cheers...
