Customer Reviews

Progeny

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

It is admirable that Meadows took the time and effort to publish her phan fiction as a book. It shows a great passion for the Phantom mythology.

Having said that, this book was in desperate need of a proofreader and an editor.

The main downfall of Progeny is the narrative style. The author uses first person narrative (I said this...I said that) but keeps switching the speaker between Christine, Erik, and their son Christian. The only real indication of who is speaking comes from the Part titles (i.e. Christine). That's it. Meadows never gives the characters their own distinctive voices so we can identify them. Every word of prose and dialog in this book is written in the exact same tone and voice, namely the author's. The book is so flat and so monotone, that you can't even say that characters are one-dimentional. They have no dimention at all.

Meadows assumes that the reader's familiarity with the Gaston Leroux novel and the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical will be enough to understand Christine and Erik. The problem is Meadows doesn't really continue with the tone of those works. In her hands, these interesting characters do nothing more than go to and from Erik's house and cry a lot. What little plot exists is hidden under this painful novice writing style.

I really wanted to like this book. I've been very impressed with some of the phan fiction available on the Internet. But this book is not a good example of it. Save your money and forget Progeny.

Many people are constantly dissing this saying that it is the worst Phantom of the Opera published fan fiction they have ever read, or either the best one they have ever read. I am sort of on middle grounds. Progeny by all means is not the worst, but nowhere near the best (the worst being Phantom Manhattan, and Phantasy. The best being Phantom by Susan Kay).

Starting from the begining, this book is writeen in 1st person point of view which switches from person to person: Christian, Erik, and Christine and an original character (for the epilouge). There really is no definate difference between the character's points of view. All just seem to see the same series of events in the exact same way save for one difference which is their feelings towards Raoul (obviously). Christian is somewhat bland and nearly a direct copy of Erik with no distingushing personality for himself save for the fact that he dose not share his father's face. He is sappy and somewhat over emotional at times, and at others he is a hard ball normal teenager. There is no real consistancy in his character. Christine vexed me to no end, especially just after she and Erik were first reunited. She breaks out crying at regualar intervals and faints at the most random of moments. Eventaully she is just air headed and becomes in lamest terms: a bad mother who whorse herself out and thinks not with her head but other parts of her body. Granted I am all for Erik and Christine (seeing as how I despise Raoul), but eventually it gets ridduculous and out of control in this.

Raoul is portrayed as just some stupid idiot who blindly accepts Christine's (poorly thought out) lies. He remains that way for the first half of the novel, and then for the second half he goes nuts, beating Christine and going after Erik in an uncharacteristic rage of jealousy, planning to shoot Erik in his sleep. It just get so outragous and over blow and over dramatic. It makes me want to just smack some sense into every character in that book.

Erik loses nearly every once of what makes him the Phantom. Meadows interpertaion of Erik really got on my nerves and he becomes nothing but a love-sick puppy. He too, like Christine (though not as bad as her), is not even remotely ruled by his head and instead his genitles. Most of the book he just shows up at random intervals threatening to Christine and Christian how he wants to kill Raoul, but then dissapearing back into the shadows.

Then there is the mary-sue aspect of this story. It will drive any experience Phantom fan-fiction reader off the wall, and especially the most stero-typical mary sue I have read. ever. Madeline is just the typical blonde haired, blue-eyed, pouty lipped, downtrodden and beaten mary-sue who doesn't have an ounce of common sense. By the end I was screaming for someone to shut her up.


I also think Meadows had no idea what the word 'thesaures' meant because she uses the words 'soul', 'agony', 'stark', and 'torment' too many times. She practicly writes the entire book using only those 4 words.


If you want some good fanfiction, I highly suggest you just go to a large mainstream fanfiction website and you can read all the fanfiction you want for free. It is much better written, more developed, and generally just has a better story plot. But if you insist on buying a POTO fanfiction novel my suggestion is "Phantom" by Susan Kay. It is being republished and the only fan written novel that dose not completely butcher the story plot of either Gaston Leroux or Andrew Lyod Webber.

Now...

I can see why some could like this novel, and I can see why some can hate it. I, fortunately, are among the many, not a lot, but many who dissaprove of this book.

Once again, this comes before Phantasy. And this will be a three part series, so do beware when "Prophecy" makes it debut. This story is not as bad as Phantasy was, but it still sucks.

Christian, if anyone, is the ONLY person whom you can possibly not hate. It's just the fact that he has a STUPID mother (Christine) and a love-sick father (Erik). Yeah, Erik and Christine had done the ol' "in and out" and they have Christian who is a twenty year old AMAZING pianist, and has his father's complete looks, talk, nature, everything... right down to his morality.

Christine is a whiny brat. All she wants to do is step on anyone and anything in her way until she gets what she wants. And when she does "get what she wants", she doesn't know what to do with it, or herself for that matter. I honestly hated her portayal in this book, and I am VERY pleased on how it ended.

Erik I wanted to smack half the time. Once again, she decides to mix Michael Crawford and Kay's Erik in a blender then add in her own similies and metaphors, and vola--instant, yet annoying, Erik. Erik is a terrible love sick idiot who most of the time rants/breaks things/has sex/does whatever his character did not normally do...

Now, I respect both sides of the love triangle, R/C and E/C. This was totally "lets bash the crap out of Raoul, I'm a E/C-shipper". You know, she could have strayed TOTALLY away from all that and concentrated on the plot then bashing Raoul and making him some drunk bastard whom just hit Christine half the time or "kissed her".

It's perhaps best that if you were to pick up any three of Becky Meadow's books that you would perhaps pick this one up, and ONLY this one up. I am basing my assumptions on "Prophecy", but I am sure that will be a real downer. But honestly, over all, this book was terrible.

I finished it because I can say that I have read most of the Fan-Fiction published pieces out there. But, alas, my misfortune was-

hating the book, hating the author, hating the characters I have known to love, and most of all, loosing I.Q. points.

The grammar is dreadful, there is too much "scene" repitition and too much "word" repitition.

This book is worth only as Fan-Fiction online, but if you actually buy this book, I have no words. Just, may God have mercy on your soul.

I would not have given this book any credit (not even one star).

I was a little nervous about this book. Susan Kay did such an awesome job with her work on Phantom that I was worried about how someone would follow it up. Phantom isn't really written for much of a sequal.

Becky Meadows had to make some changes to the ending of Kay's version to make hers work. At first I was a little leary of these changes. If she couldn't follow up from the ending of Kay's book, then how would she ever get the two stories to mesh? It turns out that she didn't have to.

Meadows follows up on the emotion and romance of Kay's version perfectly. Its obviously a different author writing the story, but you can see where she got her inspiration from. The story starts out a little rough but gets amazing as it picks up momentum.

This is very much a book that you won't want to put down once you start reading. The intrique and mystery of the Phantom is explained even further in this awesome sequal. I would highly recommend it to any fan of the Susan Kay version who has an open mind to a different ending on that other great novel. You won't be disapointed in this story. I want one in hardback now.

This is the sort of book that gives self-publishing a bad image. It is a hysterical,self indulgent fan fict of the icky "Mary-Sue" variety and is second only to the Phantom of Manhattan in the "Worst ever POTO" stakes.

Someone should really tell this author she can't write before she inflicts her third travesty upon us. Someone should also sit her down and explain copyright law to her. She makes numerous references to events that only took place in Susan Kay's Phantom, yet there is no acknowledgment of Kay made in her author's note so I think we can be quite sure she didn't have permisssion to do this.(The Persian is called Nadir and his wife is dead,Erik was poisoned in Persia, Raoul and Christine's 17 year old son is a famous concerst pianist, (oh and also really Erik's son,) Erik has a heart condition, etc).

Meadows manages to make all the well known characters into crashing bores and a story which limps along lamely at it's best finally decends into absolute farce. The book is a melodramatic mess and when first Christine and then Erik finally expires the reader's only feeling is "Thank God they've pegged it at last"!

What ever you do don't waste your hard earned money on this pile of c---. If you must read it then read it online for free.

Progeny is a *must* read for any Phantom of the Opera fan (both of the original Leroux story and the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical). Becky Meadows has a wonderful grasp of the characters and brings the reader to their story, some years after the original story took place. She presents a tale of "what might have taken place" after Christine left Erik in his lair. It was fascinating to read and I highly recommend this book. If you love the story of the Phantom, you will love this novel.

I bought this book after reading the reviews of other readers. I had low expectations going into it, seeing that quite a few people didn't think highly of this book. I had hoped to be surprised but the book didn't even meet my low standards. It was like the author had 6 ideas for a scene and then, instead of picking one, she told all six! This makes for a VERY repetitive read. Yes, Erik loved Christine, Christine loved Erik, Christine was in torment, she was in pain, she and Erik had given each other their souls! Yes I got that the first 20 times. But to repeat the same phrases on EVERY SECOND PAGE? WAYYYYYY too redundant. So I was dissapointed. It was a decent idea, just told poorly. If you want to read a REALLY good PTO book, get Susan Kay's Phantom. It was told much better and the characters were more likeable.

Fan fiction is one of the hardest writing styles to do well b/c an author has to prove that she is a decent author not by showing us what has already occured but showing it in a new light. Meadows' new light wafts towards out-of-character and the now cliché Erik/Christine love child. The scenes are repetetive (lots of death threats unfulfilled, passing out, vague references to Kay and unoriginality galore) to the point where I just starting skipping pages and no, nothing important was ever overlooked, hardly a difficult task. Was she using word count to get to novel length or something? Lastly, on the back page is a review from one of her buddies saying that "if you don't cry, you're no Phantom fan." I couldn't agree more. If you don't cry, you have no respect for the original. Just once, I would love to see some citations from the five-star reviewers b/c clearly, either I'm overlooking something or people's standards have dropped down by never challenging themselves with books that do not spell everything out in little thrid-grade cliff's notes format: over and over and over...

This book kept me reading even after I was too tired to read. Meadows has a wonderful way of writing that totally enwraps the reader in the plot. I read until 3 a.m. one morning because I couldn't put Progeny down. I can't believe this book isn't in the Amazon Top 100. Phantom of the Opera fans and especially Erik and Christine lovers, don't miss this one--you'll regret it if you do!

I'm so disappointed in this book that I should be the one gnashing my teeth and beating my [chest] instead of the characters. Ms. Meadows took a really wonderful story and turned it into a third rate romance novel. The basic plot would have made a wonderful book in the hands of Susan Kay, who wrote Phantom. Do yourself a favor if you're thinking of buying this book and run the other way. Look for Phantom instead... it's everything this book tries to be but fails. I, for one, am sorry I wasted my money on Progeny.