Not sure that genre fiction spends enough time wrestling with the anxiety of influence

Justine Larbalastier posts (on her, as always, excellent blog) about how most books are inspired by other books:

If I get an amazing idea and then realise that it’s similar to a book by someone else I start to think about how I would do it differently.

Which is absolutely true. No writer is working in isolation. Every writer is in conversation with other …