 Hello again and welcome to 30 seconds sci-fi. I am Keith here in the fabulous 50th Street Studios To talk about Phantom of the Opera This was a first time reading for me. So I'm surprised that I went this long without ever reading it. I'd never seen Any of the movies? I'd never seen the musicals. I actually didn't know anything about the story I of course I've seen the pictures of Lon Cheney But I didn't know anything and I have to tell you I was pleasantly surprised. I liked it It was a really interesting book. It was written by Gaston LaRue first published in 1909 and 1910 serialized in the magazine as all Novels seem to have been done back in the day LaRue died in 1927. He insisted on his death bed that the story was true That the characters were real people and the events actually happened As it turns out the major characters in the book were based on real people whose lives have been historically recorded and you can read about them Online and the opera itself meaning the opera building itself in Paris is a real place Looking at these diagrams of the place. It's astonishing and it is actually as bizarre and complex as LaRue described it in the book with five sub basements an actual lake in the bottom It's astonishing, but the the thing that's so interesting about the book. It's written in The form of a detective procedural it comes in the form of a series of documents written by a guy who was Trying to get at the truth about these old stories of the fandom haunting the opera and the people involved and It's not at all what I expected and I was really engaged The existence of the phantom himself was not a secret everybody who worked in and around the opera knew about him saw him Frequently warned other people about him dealt with him and The origin of the phantom himself not at all what I expected and he does have an origin If like me, you've never read this and you don't know anything about the story. I recommend it Amazingly That's it for this episode. Thank you for watching. Please leave a comment Give it a thumbs up a thumbs down whatever you like and follow the link on screen and in the description to become a sponsor All of your support helps. See you next week