Isn't history there for everyone? Does anyone own it, whether
they've written a (scholarly) book on it or not? Kay doesn't exactly make
a secret of his sources, they are listed in the opening pages.
I think the issue here that troubles me (and whoever else it was commented
about it--sorry, I deleted this message) is the very close way GGK sticks to
his originals. He doesn't seem to me to use them as a springboard for the
imagination but just transcribes things directly (which was my feeling about
the nightwalkers in Tigana). I wouldn't necessarily call this plagiarism: more
a kind of failure to reimagine source material through an individual creative
perspective. The other writers mentioned by Monica seem to me to being using
their historical knowledge to create new imagined societies.
There is (I think) a difference between writing 'alternative history' based
on the history of this world as we know it, and using one's historical
research to create the history of an imagined society--too close an adherence
to the sources does jar a bit.
Lesley
Lesley_Hall@classic.msn.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 25 2000 - 19:07:36 PDT