Hacker News Reader

> It really ought to be illegal to rewrite a book and portray it as the original authors work.

They're already doing it with TV shows. Look at the Witcher TV series for instance - which has strayed quite far from the source material.

Even the author (Andrzej Sapkowski) has denounced his relationship to it, yet they're claiming it somehow to still have his blessing, and still be be 'The Witcher'.

View on HN

Stories have always changed with the times. I studied medieval lit at university, so a salient example comes to mind immediately: Perceval, by Chretien. He died with it unfinished, but it nonetheless circulated, and there are no fewer than four "continuations," each quite clearly tied to the original; and further still, Wolfram von Eschenbach based his own Parzival (probably the greatest work of medieval German literature) on Chretien's work.

The only difference in modern times is that we're often leaving the original author's name attached, which is, admittedly, rather insidious.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com