Fake 'Harry Potter' Books Written In China
11points.com
11points.com
http://www.harrypotterfanfiction.com/ -> "we currently hold over 60,000 stories"
The search page must truly be seen to be believed: http://www.harrypotterfanfiction.com/storytype.php Metadata search as you've never seen it before!
Sturgeon's law is in full effect, of course, but don't forget its fuzzy-logic contrapositive: 10% of everything isn't crap. I can't say I've drunk deeply from this well, but I've read a couple of things that makes you wonder why the author bothered to "steal" the setting at all, when they could quite clearly make their own. (Though it also shows the value of editors and their mighty Red Pens of Cutting Out About A Third Of The Text.)
It gives the work a prefabricated audience. It's much harder to convince [random member of the public] to read "my original novel" than it is to convince [random ______ fan] to read "my ______ fan-fiction."
That's branding in action. Some people think "branding" is only about logos and letterheads, but it can come down as far as a group of characters and a setting in a story, too. Having the same characters and setting as novels they've already enjoyed, Harry Potter fans would probably get more out of even badly written fan fiction than they would from an all-new environment.
(From the author's point of view, perhaps they just didn't get a break or didn't have the determination to make it. At least by hijacking the Potter brand, they might get read.)
When I was a kid in the early 80s, I had a racing game where you could set the names of the other drivers to anything you liked.. so I set them to names of my friends, family members, etc, and it made the game far more fun even though there was no logical reason for it. Instead of winning a race against generically named computer racers, instead I could be kicking my grandpa's ass until the last corner.. there's something fun about that. So it goes with fan fiction, themed/cartoon porn, and similar pastiches.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/1/Harry_Potter_and_the_M...
What. How could you have the capability to conceive of that, yet not want eagerly to read it?
JKR is better than Umberto Eco in some ways. You don't have to think much (you just know that most of the twists at the end will be some sucker-punch magical tricks that you never even heard of), and her early stuff was like Roald Dahl. I wouldn't read Harry Potter and The Name of the Pendulum unless I had a lot of time on my hands.
He read all 600 pages, then said it was probably fake, but still a great read.
There was a fair amount of sex in the book, but I assumed that JK was adjusting for the kids' growing up. I have never actually gotten around to reading the real thing.
I have to say I like the guy that just printed the lord of the rings with the names of the main characters changed to harry potter characters. He truly understands how the global economy works. He is like one of those contractors that charge you 1000 hours worth of work for dirt cheap price, and you think you are getting a great deal until you realise they delivered some GPLd software with the license terms removed and the file names changed.
This article beats the superhero's schoolbags by far.