Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Release Date Announced

Croakyvoice writes "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling, the seventh and final book in the best-selling series, has been scheduled for release at 12:01 a.m. on July 21, 2007, Scholastic announced today." A deluxe edition for collectors and enthusiasts is also planned with a simultaneous release.

Re:Sci Fi

[bennomatic]

Didn't Clarke say something along the lines of, "Any science, sufficiently advanced, is indistinguishable from magic."? The it's Ma-Fi (magic fiction, but maybe someone thought the reverse was true, and that this magic was indistinguishable from science.

Good news for OOTP movie

[nebaz]

I'm sure the producers of the fifth Harry Potter movie are jumping for joy, as their movie [yahoo.com] comes out very close to that time (July 13). The publication of the last book would generate much more buzz about Harry Potter than any thing they could come up with for the movie on it's own.

missed opportunity

[jtcm]

I can't believe they're not releasing the book 2 weeks ealier!

The 7th book should really be released on 7/7/07.

Re:Gotta give her credit

[Nakoruru]

The GP poster probably did not mean to demean Seuss, but was just looking for an example and missed the mark. Perhaps the Bearinstein Bears would have been a better example.

Seuss's books tackled topics like racism, the tragedy of the commons, and even the nuclear arms race. The Cat in the Hat can be thought of as being fairly subversive but mostly harmless. Most people probably only thing about the more traditional children's topics like accepting people who are different and not being afraid to try new things (like Green Eggs and Ham).

Before his books he created propaganda for the US government during WWII.

Re:Cue spoiler t-shirts.

[Flyboy Connor]

When I was a kid, I read everything I could get my hands on. I even read my mother's old pockte books. The ones about girls at boarding school. For kids, you know, not what the average adult male thinks books about girls at boarding school are. I am virtually certain Mrs. Rowling read these books too. And I can tell you now: Harry Potter is the modern variant of the girls-at-boarding-school books, with some cliche fantasy thrown in for good measure. It is almost nostalghia when I read them.

Re:'scifi'?

[egyptiankarim]

I'm not familiar with the books, but I have seen the movies (if that counts for anything), and it always felt that magic in world of Harry Potter was treated as a branch of science. The kids go to school for it, there's an experimental element to most of the things they learn, they seem to follow a "scientific" process in that they seem to make hypothesis and then test them, and the subjects have scienc-y sound names that end in -ology :) Perhaps the classification of Harry Potter as sci-fi has to do with the fact that they treat magic more as a science than a mystical force (???). I totally get the point you're trying to make, though, and it is valid. Personally, I more willing to call Harry Potter sci-fi than I am Star Wars (which I feel is actually closer to fantasy than anything else), but that's just IMHO.

Re:'scifi'?

[mikeisme77]

That is the current thinking in the English Literature Academia world, yes. Science Fiction/Sci Fi (Sci Fi is a sub-genre of science fiction--where science ficition contains real science and sci fi is for cheap thrills), fantasy, and horror (technically the proper labeling of horror is dark fantasy) all fall under the umbrella term "Speculative Fiction". This is due to the fact that they often have overlapping elements. For example, Star Wars has both science fiction (spaceships) and fantasy (the Force/magic) elements in it; Frankenstein has horror (scary monster) and science fiction (reanimating a corpse through electricity) elements to it, and so on and so forth.

So while it would be ok to label Harry Potter speculative fiction, it would not be okay to label him with the sub-genre label of sci fi (since there is neither fake nor real science in it)--Harry Potter is clearly made up of almost entirely fantasy elements (although at a stretch one might be able to say there are some dark fantasy/horror elements). One of my professors as an undergrad was the co-editor of Science Fiction magazine and I took his class on science fiction. I'm also friends with an English literature professor and have taken my fair share of literature classes (as required to graduate with a degree in creative writing).

Re:Cue spoiler t-shirts.

[strider44]

True about the Da Vinci code. I would like to mention though the interesting comparison between JK Rowling and JRR Tolkien. It's pretty clear that JRR Tolkien is master worldbuilder, but the difference is sort of redundant. The main thing that sets JK Rowling apart is that she is a master of story telling. Harry Potter is simply a bloody good yarn - very well planned and very well told. The characters are complex with subtle habits and realistic traits. Dumbledore's habit of always referring to people by their first names rather than family names which seems to be the norm in the wizarding world is a good example of this, highlighting his indifference of family and blood where he believes it doesn't matter who's belly you came out of but rather the person you are. JRR Tolkien on the other hand was never a brilliant narrator, just a damned good one. You would get lost in his world, but not so much his story.

Just my thoughts.