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Wicked Lovely, by Melissa Marr

First of all, I should point out that I am six months late on this particular story, but I’m going to write about it anyway because I just finished reading Melissa Marr’s Wicked Lovely and now feel that I am better qualified to speak on the subject (unlike the journalist who started the whole mess).

Laurell K. Hamilton Knock-Off for Teens? A book editor/journalist for St. Louis Today asked this question in regards to the sequel to Wicked Lovely, Marr’s recently published Ink Exchange. Having not actually read the book, this was the reasoning behind a “hmmm could it be?” accusation of copyright infringement:

A book that pubs in late April, “Ink Exchange” by Melissa Marr, is the second in a series that apparently also features faeries who live among mortals. A 17-year-old gets a tattoo apparently and then learns about the different Faery Courts. According to publicity material, the girl is unable to resist its allures in this ‘ravishing story’ of temptation. [...] Of course the cliche is that ‘imitation is the sincerest form of flattery’ but where does flattery end and copyright infringement begin? The book’s jacket even looks like the photos on Hamilton’s books.

I almost feel bad writing about this because the woman has already been thoroughly chastised (this blog entry provides a good list of links to various commentaries), but honestly, the above statement is not only naive, it’s just laughable. I could sit here and just off the top of my head name a dozen books that feature “faeries who live among mortals” and a human who “learns about the different Faery courts,” and many of them were published well before LKH’s Meredith Gentry series (of which, I should point out, I have read the first three books, and I don’t recall any mention of tattoos, just a lot of meticulously described beautiful faery men and the woman who was sleeping with all of them).

To even suggest that a book is any sort of imitation (flattering or otherwise), let alone copyright infringement, simply because it features faeries… it’s like saying that every vampire story, from Twilight to Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a rip-off of Dracula (and yes, that includes LKH’s notable Anita Blake series). Or that very cyberpunk story is a rip-off of Neuromancer, or that Murder, She Wrote and Matlock were nothing but cheap imitations of Agatha Christie.

Book cover comparison

Even putting aside that, from a legal perspective, ideas are not copyrightable (there’s a good layman’s discussion of the issue here), there’s something in literature (and art in general) called genre. And urban fantasy right now is a hot one. You know what it’s about? Humans finding out about fairies/vampires/werewolves/etc. living among them. I’m pretty sure that when Emma Bull wrote War for the Oaks (which many people consider to be the first big bang of the genre) she wasn’t thinking “BWHAHAHA I NOW OWN THE MONOPOLY ON FAIRIES.” Especially considering that she obviously didn’t invent them.

And as for the book cover issue… well, that’s just silly. Maybe you haven’t noticed, but there’s been a big trend in urban fantasy covers featuring women with their backs turned. And just in case you’re not convinced, here’s some more.

Okay, now that I’ve let my inner law student rant for a moment about copyright, excuse me while my inner writer/reader/geek flails over the fabulous Wicked Lovely. I adored this book. Let me just go ahead and add Melissa Marr to my list of favorite YA fantasy authors, up there with Holly and Justine and Cassandra. I always enjoy reading new interpretations of mythology. I saw a chart recently in a magazine about vampire tropes – with tick marks for things like “affected by sunlight,” “killed by a stake to the heart,” “sleeps in coffins” and a comparison for different works like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dracula, Twilight, etc. There’s the same sort of thing for fairies. Melissa Marr handles many things completely differently than Holly Black, whose fairies are different than Jim Butcher’s, whose fairies are different than, uh… Laurell K. Hamilton’s. And the list goes on and on. And as for me, my work-in-progress has fairies that are a little different than all of the above.

In any case, I highly recommend Wicked Lovely, and the sequel is sitting on my shelf right now, ready to be devoured as soon as I have a free afternoon to sit and read again. After that, while I’m still on my YA kick, I plan to finish the Magic or Madness series as well as the fourth book in the Uglies “trilogy,” Extras. Of course, this is all in between my pouring through one of Edward Castranova’s books on virtual worlds.