You know when you read a book and it reminds you of another? Maybe it's the plot, or the characters' attitudes, but you're able to notice a bit of a running theme? It was this kind of similarity that made me ask the question,
Do the fantasy/sci fi genres have it in for the letter M?
This is something I noticed a while ago when I was reading geek fic ten to the dozen: there seemed to be an awful lot of prejudice against the letter M. If it wasn't the place where the evil dwelled (eg. Mordor), it was the name of the baddies (eg. Mord wraiths).
Place names tended to get more stick than names though. As I've already mentioned, the seat of evil in Lord of the Rings is in Mordor, while the Belgariad gives the letter a double whammy with the muderous kings of both Cthol Murgos
and Mallorea. I know the king of Mallorea stops his crucifying habits eventually, but he still crucified them!
Now that I'm talking about it, I'm having trouble thinking of examples, but I did notice it when I was in that phase. Might go back, it was quite fun. Geek is good. But did anyone else notice just how much The Wishsong of Shannara was a direct copy of Lord of the Rings? I had to stop reading it, I felt cheated! I thought Elfstones was pretty good though, it was much more enjoyable.
And while I'm rambling on about fantasy, someone read some Holly Lisle! The Secret Texts series is really good!
