Not POTO but Similar
- Anything with the comic-book characters of DarkMan and
Two-Face in it.
- Genre: Similar to POTO, Comics
- Availability: unknown.
- Rating: NA
- Review: NA
- "NEAR BEAUTY," a short story by M.E. Beckett, in the anthology, BLACK THORN, WHITE ROSE, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling.
- Genre: Similar to POTO, Fantasy
- Availability: unknown.
- Rating: NA
- Review: NA
- DARK ANGEL, A GATHERING OF GARGOYLES, and THE PEARL OF THE SOUL OF THE WORLD, author unknown, part of the DARK ANGEL series
- Genre: Similar to POTO, Young Adult
- Availability: unknown
- Rating: NYA
- Review: NYA
- WORLD OF WONDERS, by Robertson Davis
- Genre: Similar to POTO, fiction
- Availability: Unknown
- Rating: NYA
- Review: NYA
- BEAUTY AND THE BEAST: MASQUE, by Ru Emerson
- Genre: Similar to POTO, Fantasy
- Availability: unknown, probably OP.
- Rating: NYA
- Review: NYA
- THE COLLECTOR, by John Fowles
- Genre: Similar to POTO, fiction
- Availability: IP
- Rating:
- Review: Brace yourselves for a most unromantic portrait of an antisocial obsessive kidnapper. This is an Erik figure no sympathizer wants to read; the horror of it is that the psychology of the lead works. You find yourself understanding (and being repulsed by) the mental workings of the twisted individual at the center of this novel. Dark but persuasive, "The Collector" is above all *scary* to Phantom fans. This could be Erik.
- BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, by Barbara Hambly
- Genre: Similar to POTO, Fantasy
- Availability: unknown, probably OP.
- Rating: NYA
- Review: NYA
- BEAUTY AND THE BEAST: SONG OF ORPHEUS, by Barbara Hambly
- Genre: Similar to POTO, Fantasy
- Availability: unknown, probably OP.
- Rating: NYA
- Review: NYA
- GUILTY PLEASURES, by Laurell Hamilton
- Genre: Similar to POTO, sci-fi
- Availability: IP.
- Special Notes: the Phantom reference here is very brief. Look for a character by the name of Valentine, who wears a gold face-mask to cover the half of his face burned by holy water.
- Rating: NYA
- Review: NYA
- THE CAVES OF ANDROZANI
- Genre: Similar to POTO, Dr. Who
- Availability: unknown, probably OP.
- Publication Notes: Published by Target in 1984 in the UK as a novelization of the Dr. Who TV series.
- Rating: NYA
- Review: NYA
- A NIGHT WITHOUT STARS, by James Howe
- Genre: Similar to POTO, Young Adult Fiction
- Availability: Unknown
- Rating: NA
- Review: NA
- THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME, by Victor Hugo
- Genre: Similar to POTO, Classic
- Availability: IP
- Rating:
- Review: Who dares to review Hugo? I don't. Instead, I'll
advise you, Phantom reader, to look for 2 Phantom figures in this classic--both
Quasimodo, the hunchback of Notre Dame, and his master Frollo are in their
different ways very reminiscent of Erik.
- MATTIMEO, from the Redwall book series by Brian Jacques
- Genre: Similar to POTO, Children's
- Availability: IP
- Publication Notes: The storyline isn't really POTO or even BATB, but the face of the evil villain, a masked fox, bears a certain resemblance to a guy we know...
- Rating:
- Review: Mattimeo is a cute romp with a sinister undertone to it. I was surprised by the degree of violence in the text (this is, after all, a story about little animals), but the Phantom tie-in to the horrible villain is quite evident. Alas, though, that the villain is so horrible; he has none of Erik's redeeming qualities, and is driven on by greed and bitterness, without a bit of love to him. Some of us would like to root for our animal Eriks, not wish their destruction.
- THIS IS ALL I ASK, by Lynn Kurland
- Genre: Similar to POTO, Romance
- Availability: Unknown
- Rating:
- Review: As a romance book, I give this a 4 rating. It isn't very Phantomy, I have to say up-front, but there are links in the description of the main character. Christopher, a Scots lord blinded by chance, takes under his protection and as his wife the sister of a fallen friend. His lady, Gillian, is a naive girl, a victim of vile parental abuse, with what we'd call major esteem issues. So what's the Phantom link? Christopher, like Erik, is a man who doesn't realize his physical limitations do *not* set him aside from humanity, as he imagines. Gillian is similarly held back by her timidity and self-hate. Author Kurland makes a most specific point of this, that the greatest impediment to love is not a matter of anything physical, but the self-esteem of the individual, or, as she puts it, the courage to believe oneself able to be loved. For this, I enjoyed Kurland's All I Ask--a nice message, no smut, a fun read that overcame the heroine's sometimes annoying naivete and the plot problems one expects in a romance.
- THE FIRE ROSE, by Mercedes Lackey
- Genre: Similar to POTO, Fantasy
- Availability: IP
- Rating:
- Review: Loved it. Fantastic yet realistic, adult yet childish in its appeal to our fancies, ROSE is a delight. The ending fizzles and seems surprising (to me), but otherwise, an enthusiastic thumbs-up.
- THE KISS THAT KILLED, by Gaston Leroux.
- Genre: Similar to POTO
- Availability: unknown
- Rating: NA
- Review: NA
- THE REAL OPERA GHOST AND OTHER STORIES, by Gaston Leroux.
- Genre: Similar to POTO
- Availability: IP in the UK. ISBN is 0-7509-0782-7, by
Pocket Classics/Alan Sutton Publishing.
- Rating:
- Review: Generally fascinating stories demonstrating well
Leroux's ingenuity and dark imagination. The violence of some of them disturbed
me, and I was disappointed to not finding any lovable villains like Erik
among this grouping.
- I'LL BE SEEING YOU, by Lurline McDaniel
- Genre: Similar to POTO, Young Adult Fiction
- Availability: IP
- Rating: NA
- Review: NA
- BEAUTY, by Robin McKinley.
- Genre: Similar to POTO, Children's
- Availability: IP. If it's not at your store, tell them
to order it for you.
- Rating: NA
- Review: NA.
- TRILBY, by George du Maurier.
- Genre: Similar to POTO, Classic
- Availability: IP. If it's not at your store, tell them
to order it for you.
- Rating:
- Review: The interest of Trilby, for me, only arose
during the latter half of the book. The first half is mere treading-water
with our 3 gallivant leads, headed by the boy hero of the book. Do I care
about our whimpering Raoul figure? No. I want to see more of Svengali,
the mysterious Erik figure here. Alas, du Maurier ignores his most interesting
character for the majority of the book, and insults him, on top of that,
with multiple hateful anti-Semetic references.
- KISS OF THE VAMPIRE, by Francine Pascal
- Genre: Similar to POTO, Teen Fiction
- Availability: IP, from Sweet Valley University series.
- Rating: NYA
- Review: NYA
- THE MASK, by Donna Lee Poff.
- Genre: Romance
- Availability: IP
- Rating:
- Review: THE MASK is a fluffy medieval romance in which a masked hero loves a peasant girl--at first from afar, but then intimately, of course. Trouble is, our hero is the local lord, which creates some class problems, and a nutcase bent on revenge attempts to strike at him through his choice of girlfriend. Fun, but the lord lacks the dash of our Erik (and his musical skills).
- Availability: IP
- CRY TO HEAVEN, by Anne Rice
- Genre: Similar to POTO, Horror
- Availability: IP.
- Special Notes: The main character is obsessed with music, a la Erik. The novel itself is abouth the
castrati (male sopranos) in 18th century Italy.
- Rating: NYA
- Review: NYA
- VIOLIN, by Anne Rice
- Genre: Similar to POTO, Horror
- Availability: IP.
- Rating: NYA
- Review: NYA
- PHANTOMS IN TIME, by Eugenia Riley
- Genre: Similar to POTO, Romance
- Publication info: an Avon book; originally thought to be *MC, but I can't see it at all myself. Skip this one unless you're really bored.
- Availability: IP
- Rating:
- Review: The Phantom of the title is more time-travelling
ghost than sexy lair-inhabiter, but the musical qualities that bind this
novel endorse it as a Similar-To choice. The main character is alleged
to bear a resemblance to Michael Crawford, which I failed completely to
see. (Probably due to the ghost's French accent, oui, oui!) The plot is
thin: poor Bella, daughter of famous opera singers, has just awful
stage fright, but she's got to do well in a centennial production in an
opera house in her grandmother's city of New Orleans, to please Grandmama.
Bella gets more than singing tips, though, when she finds herself back
in the 1890s at the very same opera house and in the arms of the leading
tenor and lady-killer, Jacques. Despite a very, er, interesting scene involving
some strawberries (ooh-lah-lah!), the book never quite succeeded in making
me believe. The steam scenes were a bit too graphic (and a bit too frequent)
for my tastes, the blatant lack of historical research annoyed me, and--oh,
heaven forbid!--I even found myself wondering at times what exactly the
heroine saw in the hero. (This question was resolved later in the book,
but I still disliked the abuse of the words, "scamp," "rogue,"
and "rascal," when describing Jacques.)
- CYRANO DE BERGERAC, by Edmond Rostand.
- Genre: Similar to POTO, Classic Play
- Availability: IP.
- Rating: NA
- Review: NA
- "THE LAUGHING MAN," by J.D. Salinger, from
NINE STORIES.
- Genre: Similar to POTO
- Availability: IP.
- Rating:
- Review: I'm going to confess something awful. It's been a long time since I read Salinger's short story and--and--and--I barely remember it! I have to admit to remembering Phantom in Time more. What I do recall of the Catcher in the Rye author's short story is a bittersweet remembrance of an anti-hero known as The Laughing Man. Interesting, intelligent, but unfortunately not highly memorable.
- CONSUELLO, by George Sand.
- Genre: Similar to POTO, Classic
- Availability: unknown.
- Rating: NA
- Review: NA
- "BOUVARD," from the short story collection,
FANTASTIC TALES, by I.E. Tarchetti. (Author of the book that inspired
Sondheim's Passion.)
- Genre: Similar to POTO, Literature
- Availability: unknown.
- Rating:
- Review: Sick. There are clear echoes of Leroux's idea
of the ugly musician in love with the beautiful young girl in "Bouvard,"
but the idea is mangled by Tarchetti. Horror is emphasized-our otherwise
sane main character finally loses his grip on reality and goes after the
girl of his dreams-even though she just died. The ending of the story is
as disgusting as you can possibly imagine-a definite, "ewwww."
- PASSION, by I.E. Tarchetti.
- Genre: Similar to POTO, Literature
- Availability: modern translation by L. Venuti probably
still in print.
- Rating:
- Review: This distraught drama is a gender-reversed Phantom
story of sorts; sickly, ugly Fosca pursues the handsome soldier Giorgio.
But there is a vampyric quality to Fosca that Erik does not have, an intimate,
unabased, realistic desperation that is in its way more frightening than
Erik's torture chamber. It is an ugly love story; all three main characters
behaving in selfish and annoying ways throughout the novel. But there is
something seductive, still, about the feverish Passion, something
cruelly beautiful in Fosca's reckless eagerness to give up her life for
one night of love. Read Passion for thought and a touch of jaded
romance; do not expect fluffy love dreams from this book.
- ANGEL OF RUIN, by Kim Wilkins.
- Genre: Similar to POTO, Literature
- Availability: NA.
- Rating: NA
- Review: Novelization of Milton's life, describing the creation of "Paradise Lost" while a fallen angel attempts to lure Milton's daughters into patricide.
- BEAUTY, by Susan Wilson
- Genre: Similar to POTO, General Fiction
- Availability: IP
- Rating:
- Review: If you don't cry over this book, you don't have a heart. Beauty is a gorgeous little tome that elevates an idea rarely picked up in the Phantom Books world--that beauty of self, self-love, is not found in another's eyes, but in the eyes of the so-called beast. Beauty also works in a poignant thread about loving a parent into the arms of death. Well-written, simply beautiful, the only fault I can pick with Beauty is how horrifically depressing it is.
Back to Phantom Books