Joshua Dyal said:Yeah, that's true too. However, the genre is big enough that some stuff isn't, at least.
I'd go so far as to say that the genre is so large that a lot of it is not derivative. While the relative amount of derivative work may be high, that doesn't mean there aren't hundreds or thousands of non-derivative works out there.
Plus, sometimes derivative is a good thing. There's such a thing as a "comfort food" book.
Also, beyond that - Mary Gentle's Grunts is about derivative as you can get. But she willfully and intentionally takes it to such an extreme that it counts as creativity again
