Erik: the Vampire Hunter by Elektra1

Erik's past makes him an ideal hunter of unconventional evil, but when he meets a young collegiate dancer named Christine, he is forced to reconsider the darkness that surrounds him and face the truth about his origins.This adventure romance's first chapter was first released in 2005 and finished over one year later in 2006 after 59 chapters.

 There are a lot of modern day takes on the Phantom of the Opera story, yet this one surprises for it's originality. Mixing brilliantly the clasic Leroux characters and plot with original settings and plot twists, Elektra1 manages to captivate the reader through the over 600 pages of Erik: the Vampire Hunter.

Erik, a ghost that hunts vampires:

The main character in this movie is Erik, a young masked man who haunts Ravelle College. He's been hiding there for the last 15 years under the protection of a former teacher and actual dean: Antoniette Giry. Giry is also the one who put him in contact with the Hunter's Guild, a group led by Inspector detective Gus Leroux that hunts vampires among other creatures like demons, wizards, etc. 

Erik, being rather 'special' has become in the last 15 years not only the best hunter in the guild, but also their 'Executioner'. This means he has to kill humans who play with the 'dark forces' and end up being a threat to others.

He's pretty comptent with his life until one day a young girl comes to Ravelle. Obviously she's Christine Daae, a beautiful singer with an incredible voice. Both meet a night in which Erik has snuck into a music room to practice his singing. Christine, who was wandering about unable to sleep, comes across the room and can't help but join the angelic voice of the phantom. This first meeting leads to others, when Christine, being unable to reach her full potential, ask the mysterious man for help. Not completly willingly, the recluse accepts teaching her. And so starts a rather unconventional lovestory between the two of them. 

The best thing about this Erik, in comparison with other interpretations, is that he's one of the closest to the Book Erik I've found so far without being evil. Not only does he wear a black full mask, but he's completly moody and nuts. He's agressive, he's a murderer, he's a genious and swings between arrogance and self loathing. He's intelligent, knows he's the best, but has been raised to hate himself . His quick moodchanges make him a very fun character to read.

Christine, a sweet innocent girl with a crush

Like allways there isn't a Phantom story without a Christine running about being sweet and innocent and singing really good. This one, however has some sort of a character, which is allways an improvement. She's still rather weak, but once or twice in the story she stands up to fight for herself. Of course being Christine - and being mainly based on the book - she spends a lot of time crying about things and being young and insecure. 

The story starts when she begins clases at Ravelle College. She's best friends with Meg Giry, the deans daughter, who trains to be a ballerina. There's also Sorelli and Jammes, two characters who don't usually make it into movies or phanfics.

Christine's teen crush was Raoul DeChagny, a rich boy a few years older than her, who dumped her some time ago. As payment for her clases with Erik, she has tu run some errands, among them delivering blueprints. After delivering the blueprints to the DeChagny family, Raoul and Christine meet again and start going out.

After a few weeks however they decided to stop being together, which leads to a rather interesting developement of the story. 

Laura and Mr. Shay, the evil guys 

The story is written as if it were a TV series, so it needs some action and sub-plots for the audience to remain interested. The author manages this by including flashbacks and backstory for nearly all characters - focusing heavily on Eriks backstory. And with clear roots on Susan Kay's novel, Elektra1 includes Laura, a sweet girl from Erik's past, that comes back to haunt him, screw him and kill him, not necesarily in that order. Laura uses Erik's guilt to taunt him and play with him. When her plans fail, she finds herself an evil ally called Mr. Shay, a 30 year old man with a big secret. 

This is a really recommendable story, with a good plot and fine characters. There are some presentation problems, like the abuse of capital letters to stress some of the ideas, and a few flaws, but in general it makes a very good entertainment.

Out of 10 I give it a 9 for it's originality and fine writing. 

You should really check this out. 

¿Cada cuánto hay que echar a lavar un pijama? by Luis Piedrahita

There's this Spanish comedian called Luis Piedrahita who's rather famous in my country. For a few years he has been publishing his monologues in a total of three books with the title of one of the monologues. The first one was called:

• "¿Un cacahuete flotando en una piscina, sigue siendo un fruto seco?" [Can a peanut floating in a pool still be called a nut?] released in 2005.
• "¿Cada cuánto hay que echar a lavar un pijama?" [How often do you need to wash your PJs?] released in 2006
• "Dios hizo el mundo en siete días... y se nota" [God made the world in seven days... and you notice it] released in 2007
• "¿Por qué los mayores construyen siempre los columpios encima de un charco?" [Why do the older ones build the swing allways over a puddle] released in 2010. 

So far I have read the second and third, and I tell you, they are all hilarious. 

Luis Piedrahita was born in A Coruña [Galicia in the north of Spain] in 1977. He has worked in both radio and TV as writer, comedian and illusionist and was also director and writer of the mystery thriller 'La Habitación de Fermat'. He's known as the King of Small Things [El Rey de las cosas Pequeñitas], because he often critisices the little attention people pay towards the small things of cotidian life such as pockets, carnivorous plants, etc. 

I don't know if his books have been translated into other languages, but if you know spanish you should definitely check it out, because he's just too good. If you want to see him, you can find a lot of his monologues as well as his appearences in 'El Club de la Comedia' [The Comedy Club] and 'El Hormiguero'[The Anthill] on the Internet. 

And that's it.

Out of 10 I give his books a 9 and a 10 

The third one is funnier than the second one, but both are very worth your time. 

From Angel's Eyes by Kat097

One of my favourite fanfic-writers is doubltlessly Kat097, also known as Kat or Katie. She's a english writer whose fandooms are mainly Harry Potter, Teen Titans, Tin Man, Twilight and Phantom of the Opera. 

"From Angel's Eyes" is the first of a two part Phantom of the Opera based story - the other part being "From Heaven's Mind"- written in 2005. It starts of with Christine, who's taking part in a college production of the musical  "The Phantom of the Opera" - mainly based on the 2003 movie. There she gets the main role, meets Erik, an eccentric and billionary producer with whom she falls in love; and makes friends with the rest of the cast.  

It's a rather simple story, with a predictible end, but what's so cool about it is the fact that it tells 'normal' lives - not so normal, because, honestly, how many of you meet eccentric billionaires who fall in love with you? Thought so. But even so, the characters are round and have usual problems, there's no evil guy, no big catastrophy, only your average humans having trouble coping with life and having fun and loving. 

Katie's PotO stories are mainly based on the 2003 movie, which can at times be tireing, because that movie sort of missed the whole point of the Phantom by putting Gerard Butler in the main role and forgetting to give him a disfigurement. Her - Katie's - Phantoms allways wear a halfmask and have a gorgeous other have of the face - again, missing the point, but's fanfic-world, you may do that. Her stories are also mainly E/C, so poor Raoul is usually either completly left out or just there for a bit. 

A lot of her stories - and in my opinion, those are the best - are set in the modern world, another very recommendable story is "The Girl Next Door"about which I'll be talking some time soon. 

Anyway, about the characters in "From Angel's Eyes":

Christine is a british student who's mourning the loss of her parents in a carcrash two years previously. She lives alone with her dog Trister in a house she owns and goes to college in her own town. Her best friend is called Meg and is something like her only friend until she starts in the musical. 

Erik, is the eccentric billionaire producer that gets an interest in the sad young girl. Runs accidentaly over her dog, invites her out and generally just is there until she gets the hint. He's acompanied by Nadir Kahn - the Persian - who's  something like a butler/bestfriend/elder brother/anything-that-Erik-may-need. In the end it's only thanks to Nadir's medling and pushing the characters together that they end up so. 

All in all it's a very interesting story, pretty good written - From Heaven's Mind has some typing misetakes, but's rather good as well. I highliy recomend the first part, the second one is  good as well, but I like "From Angel's Eyes" better.