Recently a paperback version of Terry Goodkind’s novella Debt of Bones was released. If you find a copy, check the copyright information inside the front cover. It says “Copyright Robert Jordan 2001”. Ha Ha.
So do you suppose this was an innocent mistake, or some Tor editor having a little practical joke? And given that Tor is supposedly recalling all copies, should I buy one of the ones on sale at my local Borders on the hope that it will be a collector’s item some day?
Oh, man, that’s funny. Of course, I thought you were going to tell me that Tor had posted something to the effect of “The next Wheel of Time book will be released shortly after the temperature plummets in hell.”
But I think this is funnier.
Oooh, ouch.
Ouch ouch. Ha. Hee.
Snirk.
Ahahahaha
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
He’s probably sooooo pissed, but not as pissed as I was when I first saw that Debt of Bones cost $25. Kiss my ass, Mr. Jordan, whoops I mean Mr. Goodkind.
Let me in on the joke please. If it is a pen-name why is it so funny? I haven’t heard about this but its funny, I never could read Jordan. I did read the first two Goodkind books. Eh.
BTW a lot of authors copyright under their real name rather than the pen-name. Why is this case special?
Apparently, Debt of Bones was a short story written by Robert Jordan in a collection called Legends.
Zev Steinhardt
Maybe the story has the same name but from Goodkind’s website:
Is this an inside joke?
I may be wrong, but I have never heard that Goodkind actually IS Jordan under a pen name, just that the two have been compared.
This explains why the guys in the labs at MIT have been having such a hard time teling the two apart.
You mean it’ll be sold for two cents on Amazon instead of one?
Goodkind and Jordan are competitors in the big name lasagna-thickness fantasy world. They aren’t pseudonyms of one another.
But “Robert Jordan” itself is a pseudonym, of James Oliver Rigney Jr.
Rigney has used several other names for non-fantasy projects, including Reagan O’Neal for historical romances; Jackson O’Reilly for a western; and Chang Lung for library research.
Jordan’s WOT series came out first, followed by Goodkind’s “Sword of Truth” stuff. Readers immediately picked up on an incredible overlap of ideas, and the default assumption was that Goodkind was borrowing freely from Jordan. Goodkind vehemently denied it, stating he’d never read Jordan. Seems to have been a sore point for him. So to have what seems like a confirmation that his writing is actually Jordan’s work has got to be an annoyance.
Frankly, I’m fed up with the both of them. They both started good, then got real sucky. IMHO Jordan started better, and didn’t suck as bad as quickly.
Oh man. I’m heading out to the local bookstores after dinner to see if I can find a copy. This is great.
Pawdon me while I fight a little ignorance. Jordan’s story in Legends was called “New Spring”.
No, the reason for mirth is as Qadgop spelled it: the extremely significant correlation between Wheel of Time and whatever Goodkind’s crappy series is called.
Goodkind’s series is The Sword of Truth.
Wow, what a whoosh. I’m not sure why this is confusing.
Does that clear things up?
Yes. It’s confusing because I knew very little about either author. Is that so confusing?
Here, then, according to the Happy Scrappy Literature Department, is the rundown on the two:
Jordan:
Long-winded books. A super-duper Magic Sword. Magic that nobody understands. Two-page plots in eight-hundred-page treatments.
Goodkind:
Long-winded books. A super-duper Magic Sword. Magic that nobody understands. Two-page plots in eight-hundred-page treatments. And dominatrices!
Hope that helps.
I knew there was a reason I liked Goodkind better.
I think I read the first two books in the series. I haven’t exactly been running to the store to get the rest. I think I read the first chapter from the first Jordan book. One of the few books in my life I have not finished after I started it. Thankfully it was a library book and I didn’t waste any money on it.
Jordan’s fans accused somebody else of plagerism!!! The first Jordan book is LOTR. A simple boy living with his father has his life interupted by a wizard and a ranger/king, who save the boy and some of his friends from men in dark cloaks and subhuman orc type things. It turns out the boys father once left the simple village and had wild adventures, and the reason the monsters are after the boy are somehow tied to that. The father then gives his son a sword and drops out of the story. Replace Uncle Bilbo with the father, and the set up of LOTR is almost exactly the same.
The similarities continue from there. I actually laughed out loud to myself at the end when:
The final confrentation happens on Mt Dhoom. I mean it was cool of Jordan to put that extra “h” in there, but I don’t think he’s fooling anyone