Harry Potter and the Order of Mystic Mathematicians?

Danlo wi Soli Ringess?

You know the story. An orphan boy is raised in a harsh environment, in ignorance of his true (and famous) parents. He goes to a boarding school where he learns a wide variety of strange and arcane powers. He's much better at using some of these powers than most of his classmates. There's angst. There's romance. Oh, did I forget to tell you that he received a lightning-bolt shaped scar on his forehead in a major battle with someone who will end up being his arch-enemy?

You know the story, do you? Maybe not!

In my earlier post about David Zindell's Neverness novels, I gave a list of other authors with whom one might compare, in order to get a better feel for these books.  I said, parenthetically, "(dare I say J. K. Rowling?)"

Maybe I should have dared a bit more, since as I've been re-reading these books, I realized that the first paragraph of this post accurately describes the protagonist and plot of Zindell's 1993 sequel The Broken God! I'm definitely not claiming anything nefarious on the part of J. K. R., especially since it's on record that she first got the idea for her famous wizarding stories as early as 1990. But it's a fascinating set of similarities nonetheless.

And no, there's no Quidditch in the Neverness universe.  :-)