On the quest for originality, what is the most original thing you've ever seen in a book?

Question

concept, characters, events, species, setting...

Answer 1

The most original book I have read is called Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. If you are looking for a model for originality, I recommend you pick up a copy of this book. It is set in a children's military training school in space, in the future; children training to become military commanders. Card has allowed nothing to modulate his vision, or influence him towards the middle ground. He also has a spare, economical style which can be a great inspiration to beginning writers. It is important to remember that often, perfection is reached when nothing more can be taken away, rather than when nothing more can be added.

Answer 2

It would definetely have to be Like Water for chocolate. Is a novel written within a recipe book!!!! The story teller starts to tell the story by telling how a dish was made. It is the BEST thing. Also, the same writter, Laura Esquivel, made an interactive book: there are parts in the novel where is it just like a comic book and the story is told by looking at it and listening to some music in a CD that comes with the book.

Answer 3

heavily? there is not any frightening video clips listed so a techniques. those are frightening to me. The Omen, all the Nightmare on Elm highway's, Exorcist, Poltergeist, The Texas Chainsaw bloodbath, Friday The thirteenth, The Shinning, Stephens King's IT, Psycho, The Grudge, Halloween, observed, Childs Play, Jeepers Creepers, The Blair Witch undertaking, The Amityville & the hoop.

Answer 4

I've read so much that it has gotten very hard to surprise me, so I've learned to appreciate originality in fiction. Jasper Fforde and David Lodge are two good examples: combining literature, word play and science fiction (Fforde) and combining top-notch, intelligent humor with very good plots and characters (Lodge).

Yes, Tolkein was original, but *gasp* not a particulary good writer. They're cult books, not classic literature (i.e. nowhere near the quality of Shakespeare, Jane Austen, C. or E. Brönte, Dickens, etc.). You can call me a snob, but I want quality, not quantity.

Salman Rushdie is, in my opinion, the most original [living] writer in the English language: Midnight's Children, The Ground Beneath Her Feet, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, The Satanic Verses, etc. I've never read anything like them before, and that's saying a lot. I also think Günther Grass's "My Century" is very original in its concept and execution (but it's much better in German). "Regional literature" can also be very original, like Willa Cather's "Lucy Gayheart." I love that book because I recognize the locations and the people, and those are things not many writers have captured. Glen Duncan is also very original (I, Lucifer and Death of an Ordinary Man).

Answer 5

Now i say that the most original are the medieval legends that taking in a context of all medieval legends are just common. What i mean is german's Faust and [im afraid to say nonsense but i guess its british] Tristan and Isolde. In todays literaturical concept, the themes are very original.

Answer 6

I'd say Lord of The Rings definitely. so many books have been based on JRR Tolkien's Middle Earth and the Creatures who live there

Answer 7

The entire mythology, language and the world (and the creatures within it) that JRR Tolkien created.