Have I mentioned that I hate Mickey Zucker Reichert?

As you probably know, I enjoy writing and have at any given moment several ideas percolating in my head at various stages of progress. There is the temporarily on the backburned Dreamcatchers on the Rearview Mirror on Native Americans in pop culture conventions. There is the trilogy in which a Samurai rip-off, a ninja rip off and a Kensai are thrown into a medieval European setting. There are a couple of books, heavily influenced by certain elements of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles wherein mutant animals with enreal fighting abilities are cast into other classic fantasy/medieval European settings. A lot more exist either as a few chapters that have been written here and there or as brief character and plot outlines in various notebooks. I like to think I have a fertile imagination and if I ever actually finish some of them and get published I have enough ideas for 20 - 30 books or more, assuming I never get another idea in my life.
Of course, as well as writing I am taking this summer to read a great deal of fantasy books. Some have been pretty good, some have been pretty bad. Some I have enjoyed, others...well, not so much. A couple of them have been based on Irish or Norse mythology, including the one I am currently reading, the Renshai Chronicles by the above referenced dude.
I came across it in a search for new authors. I stopped by the famous Powells Book Store and saw their "$2.00 books" section. I selected a handful and tried them out. One of the books that looked intriguing was by Mrs. Reichert. It was the start of a three book cycle so I thought I would try that and, if it was good, purchase books two and three. If not...well, I was only out 2 bucks and however long it took to read.
She writes fairly well. She sometimes overdevelops certain themes and has a tendency to have scene changes within a chapter as opposed to the more traditional method of completely dealing with one group and leaving a cliffhanger chapter ending before taking up a new group in a new chapter. Reichert just leaves a couple lines of space and jumps to other groups...even, at times, groups not encountered in the first 500 or so pages.Bizarre. But a nice change...she wanted to do something different and, rather than being bound by artificial conventions, she created her own style. Actually, it is something I might emulate a little bit and try to incorporate into some of my writing.
She has a well developed world and a flair for developing interesting characters with some depth to them. He does a nice job of interweaving contexts and creating moral dilemmas more complicated than "Ooh, do I have the courage to do the right thing", even going so far as there perhaps not being a "right" answer. In many ways she is one of the most talented writers I have come across in the genre, ranking closely with Weis & Hickman, Michael Stackpole, and Timothy Zahn who are probably my favorites in the genre.
Which could lead one to wonder about my headline. Well...consider this:
Toymo Cre: Kensai: her one goal is perfection of weapon use. She works on this to the exclusion of all else and is probably willing to sacrifice friendships to get better. She is definitely willing to die to perfect her art.
Compare that with:
Kevral: Renshai: her one goal is perfection of swordsmanship. She works on this to the exclusion of all else, is probably willing to sacrifice friendships to improve, and has proved she is willing to die to perfect her art.

Or how about this: The Sword of Justice:Samurai whose rigid adherence to honor causes him to follow a man who lacks honor. The SoJ's honor, however, prevents him from questioning. This leads him to make mistakes when dealing with other people that would not occur if he did not have strict rules of honor.
Compare with: Rh-khil: A Knight in training whose rigid adherence to honor causes him problems with other people that would not occur if he allowed pragmatism to rule alongside honor.

Oh, and page after page to the point of tedium detailing the strictures, rules, and problems of an honor that is too strict. Overreliance on stating actions are governed by honor. Yeah, we both do that, too.

Okay, so maybe it is a one-shot wonder. Maybe she and I have one similar idea for characters (although, to be fair, our overall stories are vastly different). Today I went to pick up the second book since I am about 20 pages from completing the first. Naturally, the first thing I did was check the cheapskate rack. And lo and behold, there was another Reichart book, "Godslayer". In which a guy is ripped from the battlefields of Vietnam to the Norse realms where his modern firepower gives him unparallelled combat capabilities. Fortunately, this sounds NOTHING like a story about The Walker, Kersey, Pippen, Drexler, etc., combat trained dudes ripped from a combat mission, time transported to a medieval setting where their modern firepower gives them unparallelled combat capabilities...


So other than having scarily similar characters, writing styles, themes, and story concepts we just have nothing in common. Grrr. I am plagiarizing someone I have never read. Okay, so obviously I am not plagiarizing...but it certainly makes my ideas less fresh and therefore more risky. Why bother to write in the firstplace. Seriously. I mean, the main reason I write is because I write the type of stories I would enjoy reading if someone else had written them. So why write if someone beat me to it? Yeah, I enjoy (so far) his work and plan to finish the Chronicles...but I hate Reichert anyway. (By the way, please buy her books so she will write more)