The LA Times suggests in an article, Is Percy Jackson’s mythology too close to Harry Potter’s magic?, that Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series is necessarily derivative of our favorite boy wizard. That seems likely; I mean, how could anyone living in in the wake of Potter-mania write a coming-of-age story about a boy learning he has mythic parentage previously unknown to him and not make readers and movie goers think of Harry and Hogwarts? When Percy is assigned to Camp Half-Blood, the reading world has associations with “Percy” in mind that are more “Weasley” than
Authurian and with “Half-Blood” that give us Severus Snape (or at least Alan Rickman) as well. [Read more…]

“Register before 8 December for a chance to win a trip to the Grand Opening of the Potter Park in Orlando!”

Anyone want to write a Kafka-esque fan fiction piece in which Mad-Eye Moody visits the Wonderful World of Hogwarts theme park to find a rogue Death Eater in hiding? Please forward it to me here or even just a tease for our amusement here in a break from serious reading.

Who out there is going to the Grand Opening? Why?

I am neck deep in Twilight writing this week, both in getting Spotlight ready for press and in blogging over at Forks High School Professor, but here is a note from our friends over at the Leaky Lounge. Apparently they are putting together small reading groups to read their way through the 4100 pages of the Hogwarts Saga. Here is the invitation: [Read more…]

An interview with Mrs. Linda Harvey below the bump (H/T Perelandra). [Read more…]