Who really is the next JK Rowling?
Friday, June 6th, 2008
Could she be nineteen year old Catherine Banner, author of the first in the fantasy trilogy, The Eyes Of A King?
Like the Harry Potter books, The Eyes Of A King depicts young people and their adventures in a world of magic. Its central character is Leo North, a teenager living in Malonia, a country on the brink of revolution. As the novel begins, Leo is feeling angry and disillusioned, having been forced to complete military training. Then he stumbles on a mysterious black book in the snow. From the first moment he touches the book, he senses its strange power. Words start appearing on the pages. They reveal family secrets, tell the history of Malonia and uncover the story of Ryan and Anna, two teenagers from England - a country that is only a fairy tale in Malonia. Initially the book provides an escape for Leo, but when he has to face sudden tragedy, he realises that the story is inextricably linked to his own life, and may change Malonia for ever.
Or is it the Phoenix based Mormon housewife, Stephenie Meyer, fantasy writer of the young adult Twilight series?
The heroine of Twilight is a girl named Bella who moves from Phoenix to a small town in Washington State (a part of the country Meyer had never visited when she wrote Twilight). Bella feels like an outsider at her new high school, but she is immediately drawn to a strange, otherworldly, ridiculously good-looking group of siblings called the Cullens, particularly to 17-year-old Edward.
Her story reminds one a little of J.K. Rowling’s–Rowling wrote Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone as an unemployed single mom while her baby daughter slept–and Meyer is quick to point out that her success is a direct result of the way Rowling changed the book industry: children are now willing to read 500-page novels, and adults are now willing to read books written for children. But as artists, they couldn’t be more different. Rowling pieces her books together meticulously, detail by detail. Meyer floods the page like a severed artery.
Two separate people, two separate tags as the “next JK Rowling”, on two separate dates.
Should there really be a “next” Rowling?
