Examples:
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Works
- Nineteen Eighty-Four is The Iron Heel meets We meets Brave New World meets Darkness at Noon.
- Or Anne Frank set in the dystopian future.
- The 39 Clues:
- Cross The Amazing Race and The Westing Game, plus add history on the side.
- Assassin's Creed meets The Westing Game.
- Above the Timberline is a Dinotopia-style illustrated novel borrowing the intelligent-polar-bears-and-MacGuffin-device trappings of the first His Dark Materials book... without the charm or wit of either.
- The Aeneid is The Iliad with a Perspective Flip of a Trojan refugee and The Odyssey as he seeks out a new land.
- The Ahriman Trilogy is Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets the Cthulhu Mythos.
- The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents is The Pied Piper of Hamelin meets Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH meets Watership Down.
- Angelina Ballerina is Arthur meets Stuart Little.
- Angels of Music is Charlie's Angels meets The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (or, given the setting, Les Hommes Mystérieux).
- Nick Cave's And the Ass Saw the Angel is William Faulkner meets Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez, with foetal alcohol syndrome and lots of moonshine.
- Animal Farm is the Russian Revolution meets Babe.
- Animorphs is Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers meets Neon Genesis Evangelion with evangelions replaced with shapeshifting.
- Alternatively, it's as if The Famous Five took on the Invasion of the Body Snatchers and it ended up like Space Runaway Ideon and Ender's Game.
- Anno Dracula is Dracula meets American Vampire meets The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
- Artemis Fowl has been described by its author as "Die Hard with fairies".
- Assassins Orbit was pitched by its author as The Golden Girls meets Battlestar Galactica (2003).
- Assistant to the Villain is NIMONA meets Too Many Curses.
- Atharon was described as Game of Thrones meets MMO game meets Harry Potter.
- Atlanta Nights is The Eye of Argon meets those trashy paperback novels you see at the grocery store. If you pick it up in the Dramatic Reading aisle, you'll be able to get some ham with it.
- The Automatic Detective combines every Film Noir trope with just about every Raygun Gothic trope (albeit, the latter is fairly deconstructed).
- F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Baby Party is basically Rugrats meets classic literature.
- The Bad Guys is the Despicable Me series meets Captain Underpants meets World of Funny Animals.
- The Bartimaeus Trilogy is Harry Potter meets Artemis Fowl and Shaman King, In the Style of The Elric Saga.
- Battle Royale is The Running Man meets The Long Walk meets All Japan Pro Wrestling meets Game of Death meets Halloween meets Friday the 13th.
- Beat The Reaper is Burn Notice meets Goodfellas meets House written as darkly as possible.
- The Beginning After the End is Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation meets Avatar: The Last Airbender.
- Between Two Fires is Berserk meets Lone Wolf and Cub and The Road.
- The Bible is basically what happens when you throw Mesopotamian Mythology, Classical Mythology and Egyptian Mythology into a blender.
- Black Leopard, Red Wolf is Black Panther meets Berserk.
- Blindsight is pretty much House of Leaves meets Sunshine.
- Blood Meridian is The Searchers meets Macbeth meets The Mysterious Stranger meets Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom.
- The Book of the New Sun is Dying Earth meets Dune meets Conan the Barbarian, as written by James Joyce.
- Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-chan is Ah! My Goddess meets South Park
- Or Elfen Lied meets Excel♡Saga.
- A Boot Stomping a Human Face Forever was described by a reviewer "...someone cloned an amphetamine-addled Philip K. Dick and told him to come up with his own version of Nick Hornby's High Fidelity."
- The Builders:
- Redwall meets The Magnificent Seven.
- Watership Down meets The Magnificent Seven.
- Caliphate is a far-right take on The Handmaid's Tale meets Warhammer 40,000.
- A Canticle for Leibowitz is Fallout meets How the Irish Saved Civilization
.
- Can You Spare a Quarter? is Bunny Drop meets If It’s for My Daughter, I’d Even Defeat a Demon Lord (without the High Fantasy undertones).
- Jamie's backstory is Kisapmata meets Sound of Freedom.
- Captain Underpants: Superman meets The Ren & Stimpy Show meets Invader Zim meets Recess.
- Chasing the Moon is The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy meets Beetlejuice.
- Children of the Red King is Harry Potter meets X-Men.
- A Christmas Carol is The Divine Comedy meets the Christmas season.
- C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia is Alice in Wonderland meets The Pilgrim's Progress, with heavy influences borrowed from both Celtic and Norse Mythology. Or The Wizard of Oz meets The Bible.
- Chronicles of the Kencyrath has the lordly power struggles and incest of A Song of Ice and Fire and a world as strange and deeply magical as L. Frank Baum's original Oz books. But with a real, consistent main character.
- Chronicles Of The Nephilim is Game of Thrones meets The Bible and The Epic of Gilgamesh
- Codex Alera is Avatar: The Last Airbender meets The Belgariad meets Pokémon, with some elements of Rome and Starcraft for flavoring and spontaneity.
- Alternatively, some of the series' fans on Tumblr have described it as Game of Thrones (albeit Lighter and Softer to a degree) meets Avatar: The Last Airbender with a huge dose of Roman culture.
- The entire series is actually this by design. Jim Butcher has said that he originally was challenged to write a good story that combined the concepts of the Lost Roman Legion with Pokémon.
- A Colder War is the Red Scare meets the Cthulhu Mythos.
- Colony is Red Dwarf meets Idiocracy with hints of Robocop 2
- The Complete World Knowledge series has been described as Pale Fire, as directed by Wes Anderson.
- Conan the Barbarian is The Epic of Gilgamesh and Beowulf, by way of Kull and Solomon Kane.
- Constance Verity Trilogy: John Wick meets Emperor Mollusk versus The Sinister Brain.
- The Last Adventure of Constance Verity is DuckTales (2017) meets John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum with just a hint of The Matrix Reloaded.
- Constance Verity Saves the World is The Venture Bros. meets John Wick: Chapter 2.
- The Constant Rabbit is (described by the author as) Watership Down meets District 9
- Coraline:
- Alice in Wonderland meets The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon.
- Alice meets Kafka.
- Alice meets Elm Street.
- Alice meets Caligari.
- The fact that the film version was directed by Henry Selick of The Nightmare Before Christmas fame certainly helps.
- The Dark Tower is The Lord of the Rings meets The Magnificent Seven meets Fallout, all with a background of Arthurian Legend to boot. This is all deliberate.
- Daniel X: Ben 10: Alien Force meets Supernatural by way of Rule of Cool.
- Dead Silence is "what if Ripley and her crew found the Event Horizon?"
- The Demonata is Animorphs meets Devilman and It, with a bit of The Dark Tower.
- Diary of a Wimpy Kid is MalcolmInTheMiddle meets Family Guy.
- The Dinosaur Lords is Jurassic Park meets Game of Thrones. It's even written on the cover.
- Diogenes Club started as Jason King meets The Omega Factor before becoming The X-Files meets the Wold Newton Universe.
- The Discworld series as a whole can be described as the Dungeon Punk genre meets British humor & culture meets a bag of drugs.
- The original Corgi paperback cover of The Colour of Magic calls it "Jerome K. Jerome meets The Lord of the Rings (with a touch of Peter Pan)".
- As summed up on its very TV Tropes page, Night Watch is essentially Life on Mars meets Les Misérables.
- The Divine Comedy is The Odyssey, The Aeneid, and The Iliad meet The Bible and the Summa Theologiae.
- Dork Diaries is Diary of a Wimpy Kid meets Mean Girls
- The blurbs on The Dresden Files books describe them as "Harry Potter starring Philip Marlowe." This, as it happens, is dead wrong, since aside from the coincidence of names, the series actually bears almost no resemblance to Harry Potter. In practice, it's more like Buffy the Vampire Slayernote set in the Old World of Darkness, with either Philip Marlowe or Spenser as the main character. Incidentally, some of the later blurbs do have this.
- In-Universe, Bob describes the Sidhe Wars with the phrase "...like if Lord of the Rings and All My Children had a baby with Macho Man Randy Savage and a whack-a-mole machine!"
- The Dumb Bunnies is Goodnight Moon meets The Stupids.
- Dune is the Foundation Series meets The Accursed Kings
- The original novel is John Carter of Mars meets Hamlet and The Stars My Destination.
- Dune Messiah is The Children of Húrin meets Oedipus Rex and Macbeth.
- EarthCent Ambassador is Madam Secretary meets The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (in the sense that it's a Government Procedural with a female protagonist as an absurdist Space Opera Work Com).
- Eaters Of The Dead is intentionally Beowulf meets Ahmad ibn Fadlan's travelogue.
- The Edge Chronicles reads like the result of Roald Dahl and Dr. Seuss teaming up to write a sprawling epic fantasy.
- The Elder Scrolls novels The Infernal City and Lord of Souls are essentially The Elder Scrolls meets Spirited Away in book form.
- The Elric Saga is The Threepenny Opera meets Three Hearts and Three Lions meets The Well of the Unicorn meets Gormenghast meets The Broken Sword meets The Once and Future King meets The Silmarillion meets The Serpent.
- Emily Bones - City of Ghosts is The Lovely Bones meets The Graveyard Book.
- Emperor Mollusk versus The Sinister Brain is The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Trilogy meets Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987)
- Enchantress from the Stars is Star Trek meets Avatar.
- Encyclopedia Brown is Two-Minute Mysteries meets the Archies.
- Ender's Game is RWBY meets Starship Troopers
- Or The Last Starfighter meets Dune, Full Metal Jacket and The Forever War.
- Alexander Gordon Smith's Escape from Furnace is The Great Escape meets Warhammer 40,000.
- Everworld is Animorphs meet All Myths Are True.
- Or Dungeons & Dragons (1983) meets American Gods, by way of Drifting Classroom and Violence Jack.
- Evil Genius Trilogy is Harry Potter meets Soon I Will Be Invincible.
- Faction Paradox is Doctor Who meets The Filth.
- The Familiars, as stated on the back cover, is Harry Potter meets Warrior Cats.
- Fifty Shades of Grey is The Twilight Saga meets Rebecca meets The Story of O.
- Fight Club is The Great Gatsby meets The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde meets Bret Easton Ellis meets the Spear Counterpart of Heathers.
- Five Nights at Freddy's: Fazbear Frights is Five Nights at Freddy's meets Goosebumps.
- The Forest of Hands and Teeth is Night of the Living Dead (1968) meets The Giver, or Survival Horror meets Dystopia.
- Forever Gate: is marketed it as 'Running Man meets Matrix'.
- Franklin: Little Critter meets The Get Along Gang
- The Girl Who Owned a City is (a curiously non-violent) Lord of the Flies meets Atlas Shrugged
- Gleams of Aeterna may be described as The Three Musketeers meets A Song of Ice and Fire.
- Gone is X-Men meets Lord of the Flies.
- The Good Intentions novels by erotic author Elliott Kay are basically a Denser and Wackier/Lighter and Softer take on The Dresden Files meets the Harem Genre (albeit as an Affectionate Deconstructive Parody).
- A review of Good Omens compared it to "the Book of Revelation as penned by Monty Python's Flying Circus".
- The Omen (1976) as written by Douglas Adams.
- The Goodness Gene is "1984 meets Brave New World", but with more conspiracies and clones.
- Gor is John Carter of Mars meets Conan the Barbarian meets Fifty Shades of Grey.
- Goosebumps is The Twilight Zone (1959) meets Tales from the Crypt.
- Or Are You Afraid of the Dark? meets Tales from the Cryptkeeper, with the Dark Comedy of You Can't Do That on Television.
- Gravity's Rainbow is Slaughterhouse-Five meets Dr. Strangelove meets Ulysses....which probably still doesn't accurately describe this book.
- The Half Life Trilogy was described by The Metro as a dark-as-hell Harry Potter meets The Bourne Identity.
- The Handmaid's Tale is an American Nineteen Eighty-Four with a feminist viewpoint.
- Harry Potter:
- Young Wizards meets Grease.
- Lighter and Softer The Books of Magic
- Young Wizards meets Jennings, with the latter's Not Allowed to Grow Up replaced with massive amounts of Darker and Edgier.
- Matilda meets The Books of Magic in a boarding school.
- Roald Dahl meets J. R. R. Tolkien.
- The Worst Witch meets The Lord of the Rings.
- Harvest Home is The Stepford Wives meets The Wicker Man (1973). note
- Heart of Steel has been described as Beauty and the Beast meets Despicable Me.
- Hero by Perry Moore is Sky High (2005) meets X-Men meets The Incredibles
- His Dark Materials is The Revolt of the Angels meets The Chronicles of Narnia.
- Stephanie Meyer's The Host (2008):
- The Homestuck Epilogues is what happens when you give the original webcomic the Mostly Harmless, End of Evangelion and Dune Messiah treatment.
- House of Leaves is The Colour Out of Space meets Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius and Infinite Jest.
- The House of Night is The Twilight Saga meets Sailor Moon meets Harry Potter:
- If you want to be more specific, it has the vampire romance from Twilight, the reincarnated princess with her friends who each fill a specific role from Sailor Moon, and the chosen one at a supernatural boarding school from Harry Potter.
- The Hunger Games is Lord of the Flies meets Survivor, with a little bit of both Nineteen Eighty-Four and Les Misérables.
- Or Battle Royale meets Animorphs and The Running Man.
- Inheritance Cycle is Star Wars set in Middle Earth with a little Tales of Earthsea thrown in, and a dash of Dragonriders of Pern.
- Iron Widow is The Handmaid's Tale meets Pacific Rim.
- Stephen King's IT: The Wonder Years and The Little Rascals meets Cosmic Horror Story with some Discworld elements (giant space turtle!)
- Jane Eyre is Agnes Grey meets Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, and Bluebeard (although with just one, still living wife in the hidden chamber).
- The Jeremiah School is Harry Potter meets Left Behind by way of Hogwarts School of Prayer and Miracles.
- The Judas Strain: National Treasure meets Die Hard meets James Bond meets 28 Days Later, meets G.I. Joe.
- Johnny Got His Gun is The Metamorphosis meets A Farewell to Arms.
- The Kaiju Preservation Society is Godzilla meets the SCP Foundation.
- The Kane Chronicles is Percy Jackson and the Olympians and Harry Potter meets Mummies Alive!.
- Kim is Tom Sawyer meets Kingsman: The Secret Service in British India.
- King's Game is Mirai Nikki meets The Ring.
- Kire is basically Natsume's Book of Friends meets Harry Potter. With Norwegian myths and fairy tales rather than Japanese, although it got some other European.
- The Kite Runner is A Separate Peace set in Afghanistan with a much more honest narrator.
- The Lady Grace Mysteries are Trixie Belden meets The Royal Diaries.
- Laura Und Der Silberwolf (Laura and silver Wolf) is Pan's Labyrinth in a Medical Drama setting.
- Latawnya, the Naughty Horse, Learns to Say "No" to Drugs is My Little Pony meets Reefer Madness
- The Looking-Glass Wars is American McGee's Alice meets The Lion King.
- Little Monsters is Mr. Men (and Little Misses) meets Gracie Graves and the Kids from Room 402.
- The Lord of the Rings:
- The Ring of the Nibelung with an Old English/Anglo-Saxon retelling.
- Alternatively, it is Ring of Gyges and Beowulf as set in Norse Mythology.
- The Locked Tomb is Warhammer 40,000 meets Revolutionary Girl Utena, In the Style of Firefly.
- The Lost Fleet is essentially what you'd get if Honor Harrington stumbled across Steve Rogers in space and he assumed command.
- The Lunar Chronicles is functionally the Grimms' fairy tales meet Sailor Moon, among other sci-fi stories.
- Cinder: Cinderella meets Robots.
- Scarlet: Little Red Riding Hood meets The Terminator.
- Cress: Rapunzel meets The Empire Strikes Back.
- Winter: Snow White meets The Matrix.
- Magical Girl Raising Project as a series is JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and A Song of Ice and Fire meets the Magical Girl genre. Each arc also differentiates between each other by using tropes and conventions from other genres:
- The first arc is Puella Magi Madoka Magica meets either The Running Man, Battle Royale, Gamer, A Song of Ice and Fire, The Hunger Games, or Kamen Rider Ryuki.
- The second arc, Restart, is magical girls meets Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, Log Horizon, the Mafia and/or Werewolf (1997) party game, and a bit of Death Note.
- The third arc, Limited, is magical girls meets 24, Under the Dome, A Song of Ice and Fire, and a bit of Political Thriller.
- The Magisterium is Harry Potter meets Avatar: The Last Airbender.
- Malazan Book of the Fallen is A Song of Ice and Fire meets Dungeons & Dragons or The Elder Scrolls.
- Ray Bradbury compared his The Martian Chronicles to a mix of John Carter of Mars and Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio.
- Matched:
- Nineteen Eighty-Four meets The Giver.
- The Hunger Games meets Anthem.
- Matilda is Carrie meets One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (but with a far happier ending than either of those books).
- Meg has often been described as Jurassic Park meets Jaws
- The Midnight Library is Fear Street meets Tales from the Crypt(and other EC Comics), with generous helpings of The Blair Witch Project, I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, The Descent, SAW,A Nightmare on Elm Street,Lake Mungo,Noroi: The Curse, and various Junji Ito tales.
- The Mindfuck Series is I Spit on Your Grave meets Dexter and Elfen Lied.
- Brandon Sanderson's own website describes Mistborn: The Final Empire as "One part Ocean's Eleven, one part The Lord of the Rings, one part Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, one part My Fair Lady."
- Mogworld is essentially World of Warcraft meets The Truman Show as written by Douglas Adams.
- Our very own Laconic Wiki describes The Mortal Instruments as The Dresden Files meets The Twilight Saga.
- Mouseheart is described by the author as Warrior Cats meets Redwall.
- Murderess is basically Daria meets Harry Potter meets The Hobbit with just a dash of Neon Genesis Evangelion.
- Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation is Ultima meets The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant and Sword Art Online.
- The Musicians (Muzykanci) by Andrzej Sapkowski is "The Bremen Town Musicians" meets "The Music of Erich Zann".
- Never Let Me Go is The Island meets The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.
- One review said that if Tim Burton reimagined The Phantom of the Opera... it would still fall far short of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere.
- Nightside series is The Dresden Files meets Neverwhere.
- One Stormy Night is The Fox and the Hound meets Night on the Galactic Railroad meets Ringing Bell.
- Outbreak Company: Amagi Brilliant Park meets Kyo Kara Maoh!.
- Parellity is, brace yourselves, a sci-fi The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe mixed in with both Mad Max and Borderlands, with elements of Halo, Ace Combat, The Lord of the Rings, and starring most of the cast of Firefly.
- The Pendragon Adventure has been described as Harry Potter's American cousin meets Stargate (the whole franchise) meets The Time Tunnel meets Battlestar Galactica (2003) with bits of Back to the Future, The Matrix, Planet of the Apes, and The Godfather thrown in for good measure.
- Penthouse is Playboy meets Hustler; Basically the gloss and glamor of Playboy, and the explicit poses of Hustler.
- Percy Jackson and the Olympians is Harry Potter meets Classical Mythology.
- Alternatively, it's American Gods meets Angel for kids.
- Phantalleum - Dual Crossage is Sword Art Online meets Btooom! meets Digimon Tamers.
- According to the UNspoiled! Book Club podcast, The Phantom Tollbooth is what would happen if both Neil Gaiman and Dr. Seuss had collaborated on a rewrite of The Pilgrim's Progress.
- Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is... well, Exactly What It Says on the Tin (though with the addition of Ninjas).
- Prisoners of Power is 1984 meets Fallout.
- Ready Player One is Sword Art Online meets The Big Bang Theory meets 80's POP Culture.
- Or .hack meets The Matrix, In the Style of Scott Pilgrim.
- In-Universe: The OASIS is Second Life meets World of Warcraft meets—yes—POP Culture.
- Or .hack meets The Matrix, In the Style of Scott Pilgrim.
- Reborn as a Space Mercenary: I Woke Up Piloting the Strongest Starship!: Overlord (2012) meets Elite Dangerous.
- Reconstructing Amelia has been described as Gone Girl meets Pretty Little Liars.
- Redwall is Game of Thrones meets The Secret of NIMH with a dash of Watership Down.
- The Relativity series is Watchmen meets Criminal Minds, with a touch of the 1960s Batman.
- Requiem for a Dream is Trainspotting meets Go Ask Alice and La Bohème.
- Re:Zero:
- Steins;Gate in an isekai.
- Or Berserk meets Konosuba meets Groundhog Day.
- Or Now and Then, Here and There meets All You Need Is Kill.
- Rhymes With Witches is Mean Girls meets Sabrina the Teenage Witch meets Flowers for Algernon.
- Ricky Ricotta's Mighty Robot is Geronimo Stilton meets Johnny Sokko and his Flying Robot meets The Iron Giant.
- The Rising of the Shield Hero is Berserk meets Highlander meets Deltarune with a dash of To Kill a Mockingbird.
- Rivers of London is Neverwhere meets The Bill.
- The Roman Mysteries: The author describes it as The Famous Five plus Nancy Drew meets Gladiator.
- The Sacred Blacksmith can be almost perfectly described as Fullmetal Alchemist meets Elemental Gelade.
- The Saga of Darren Shan is Ender's Game and/or Animorphs meets The Vampire Chronicles.
- The Saga of Tanya the Evil:
- Puella Magi Madoka Magica meets Berserk.
- Mr. Pickles meets Strike Witches meets Battlefield 1.
- Puella Magi Madoka Magica meets Storm of Steel.
- 'Salem's Lot has been described by its author as Peyton Place meets Dracula.
- Seeker Bears is Warrior Cats meets We Bare Bears.
- A Series of Unfortunate Events is The Boxcar Children meets a darkly comic version of The Night of the Hunter, as written by Tim Burton.
- Seven Senses of the Re'Union is Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day meets Sword Art Online. Midway through the show, it reveals what part of Sword Art Online it's mashing up.
- Shadow of the Conqueror is The Stormlight Archive meets Bioshock Infinite in a world of Endless Daytime.
- Shakugan no Shana = Bleach + Berserk + Mobile Suit Gundam SEED + Full Metal Panic! + Neon Genesis Evangelion + Kamen Rider Kuuga.
- Shakugan no Shana: Second = Shakugan no Shana + Kamen Rider Agito + Ultraseven.
- Shakugan no Shana III: Final = Shakugan no Shana + Martian Successor Nadesico: Prince of Darkness + Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny + Kamen Rider BLACK + Ultraman Leo + Ultraman Gaia + Mortal Kombat: Armageddon.
- Shimoneta is either:
- Library War meets Kekko Kamen.
- or it's Fahrenheit 451 with Playboy instead of classic literature.
- Obscure kids' series The Sisters Eight is The Powerpuff Girls meets A Series of Unfortunate Events.
- So, I Can't Play H! is Sailor Moon meets Bleach meets High School D×D.
- So I'm a Spider, So What? is Sword Art Online meets Charlotte's Web.
- A Song of Ice and Fire is The Accursed Kings meets Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn meets The Lord of the Rings meets Gormenghast meets Dune.
- Alternatively, it's Wars of the Roses set in Middle-Earth.
- Or Romance of the Three Kingdoms set in Middle-Earth.
- It also could be described as the Wars of the Roses narrated by Yoshiyuki Tomino with Kentaro Miura as a consultant.
- "For a succinct summation of Martin's medieval fantasy series, imagine a mix of the literary quality of T.H. White's The Once and Future King, the in-your-face, you-are-there grittiness of a movie like Braveheart and the sort of intricate character development found in a quality television show like Lost" - Denver Post
- With George Romero shoehorned in.
- Sorbet is Inception meets Groundhog Day meets Night of the Living Dead (1968).
- Snow Crash:
- "A cross between Neuromancer and Thomas Pynchon's Vineland" - San Francisco Bay Guardian
- Space Opera could best be described as the Eurovision Song Contest meets The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
- Space Mowgli is The Jungle Book meets the Cthulhu Mythos.
- Silverwing is Redwall meets the Bat Out of Hell trope
- Starter Villain (2023) is You Only Live Twice meets League of Super Evil.
- Strike the Blood is Tsukihime (or Aria the Scarlet Ammo with vampires and magic instead of guns) meets A Certain Magical Index.
- Sword Art Online in general is System Shock meets ReBoot and .hackmeet Deus Ex
- The original Aincrad Arc is Sword Art Online meets Slashers meets TRON meets The Elder Scrolls
- Sword Art Online: Fairy Dance is .hack//SIGN if Tsukasa had been trapped in a video game by a perverted Corrupt Corporate Executive instead of a malevolent A.I..
- Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online is Sword Art Online: Phantom Bullet meets Player Unknowns Battlegrounds.
- Sword Art Online: Alicization is Sword Art Online: Aincrad meets Berserk meets The Matrix meets TRON: Legacy.
- A Symphony of Eternity is Flashman meets Discworld meets Legend of the Galactic Heroes. A Space Opera set in a universe that uses magic instead of technology and ramping up the conflict to a Galactic Scale. Oh, it also has a Death Star with two energy beams and a mention that there are dozens of other such stations all around the galaxy.
- The ‘’System Divine’’ series has been described as ‘’Les Misérables’’ meets ‘’The Lunar Chronicles’’.
- Orson Scott Card's The Tales of Alvin Maker is Harry Potter meets Little House on the Prairie, with a dash of Mormonism.
- Temeraire: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell meets Patrick O'Brian.
- Alternately Dragonriders of Pern meets Aubrey-Maturin, since Word of God says it originated from Aubrey-Maturin Slash Fic. Which explains a lot.
- One of the reviews on the back calls it "Like Jane Austen playing Dungeons & Dragons with Christopher Paolini," which makes one wonder if the reviewer even read the book.
- The Third Policeman is what James Stephens' (another Irish author) absurdist fairytale The Crock of Gold would be if it was retold by Salvador Dali to Mark Z. Danliewski.
- The Thursday Next series, despite apropos-of-nothing comparisons to Harry Potter and Bridget Jones's Diary on the back cover, is really more like Hot Fuzz meets Monty Python's Flying Circus meets Last Action Hero WITH BOOKS. And Blade makes a series of cameos.
- The early books in the in-universe version of the Thursday Next series are described as "Dirty Harry meets Fanny Hill, but with a good deal more sex and violence."
- Nursery Crime is Shrek meets CSI.
- The Twilight Saga is Bram Stoker's Dracula meets Beauty and the Beast.
- Alternatively, Bram Stoker's Dracula meets My Immortal meets X-Men.
- Or My Immortal minus Harry Potter.
- Or maybe even Buffythe Vampire Slayer Buffy meets The Vampire Chronicles.
- T*Witches is Sweet Valley High meets Charmed meets Scream.
- Ultra Series:
- Undead by Kirsty McKay is The Breakfast Club meets Night of the Living Dead (1968) during a school ski trip in Scotland.
- Undead on Arrival is Night of the Living Dead (1968) meets D.O.A..
- The Underland Chronicles is Percy Jackson meets Now and Then, Here and There.
- The Vampire Chronicles is Morbius meets The Great Gatsby, Devilman, Herbert West–Reanimator, as well as a bit of The Elric Saga and Gormenghast.
- Vermis I and II is described as "Dark Souls shot through with Silent Hill'' by Super Eyepatch Wolf.
- Vicarious is Ready Player One meets The Truman Show.
- Warhammer 40,000 novels:
- Ciaphas Cain is Warhammer 40,000 meets Flashman meets McAuslan meets Blackadder.
- Eisenhorn is Warhammer 40,000 meets James Bond.
- Gaunt's Ghosts is Warhammer 40,000 meets Sharpe.
- Horus Heresy is Warhammer 40,000 meets Paradise Lost meets Revenge of the Sith
- The Last Chancers is Warhammer 40,000 meets The Dirty Dozen.
- Ravenor is Warhammer 40,000 meets the X-Men with the title character as Professor X.
- Warm Bodies is Tarzan meets The Walking Dead.
- Anthony Trolloppe's The Way We Live Now is Pride and Prejudice meets Watchmen.
- A Wild Last Boss Appeared! is described as "1 cup Overlord (2012), ½ cup In the Land of Leadale, 2 tablespoons breasts, 2 teaspoons harem, [and] ¼ teaspoon Sword Art Online" by Anime News Network's Rebecca Silverman.
- The Wild Robot: Google Books describes it as WALL•E meets Hatchet.
- Wings of Fire is Warrior Cats meets Dragonriders of Pern, with the faction-war setup of A Song of Ice and Fire.
- The Witcher is Conan the Barbarian meets The Elric Saga, by way of Hellblazer, Hellboy and X-Men.
- Whateley Universe: Gender Bending and Author Appeal meet X-Men, with some occasional Cthulhu Mythos.
- When The Windman Comes is Coraline meets Bridge to Terabithia. With Happy Ending.
- Take Watership Down, add a bit of Medium, with just a dash of Night of the Living Dead (1968) and a pinch of Existentialism. Add a sprig of Fantastic Racism and Noble Savage to taste, and you've got Warrior Cats.
- Alternatively: Tailchaser's Song meets Redwall meets Neon Genesis Evangelion, but in the process take away the respective religious & medieval themes of the first two and the evangelions of the latter and replace them with existentialism and feral cat behavior.
- Indonesian Web Novel Welcome to the A-Class is Great Teacher Onizuka meets Sayonara, Zetsubou-Senseinote
- The Word and the Void is what happens when Terminator meets Urban Fantasy in a Dying Town setting.
- World War Z has been described as Children of Men meets Syriana meets Night of the Living Dead (1968).
- Or Night of the Living Dead as done by Ken Burns.
- Worm can best be summed as Heroes meets the works of H. P. Lovecraft with the darkness and moral ambiguity of A Song of Ice and Fire along with multiple Kaijus loosely inspired by Godzilla.
- Xeelee Sequence is Warhammer 40,000 meets Doctor Who.
- Joe Hill's You Will Hear The Locust Sing is intentionally The Metamorphosis meets Them!
- Roger Zelazny loved to do this with mythology and science fiction:
- His first novel, This Immortal (aka Call Me Conrad) has a lot of Greek Mythology meets Science Fiction.
- Lord of Light is Hindu Mythology meets Science Fiction.
- Creatures of Light and Darkness is Egyptian Mythology meets Science Fiction.
- Eye Of Cat is Native American Mythology meets Science Fiction.
- The Mask Of Loki is Norse Mythology meets Science Fiction.
Characters
- Animorphs
- Jake is Marshall Teller meets Jordan Bes meets Paul Atreides meets Ender Wiggin.
- Rachel is Buffy Summers meets Asuka Langley Soryu meets Arya Stark meets Sheryl Formossa.
- She is compared In-Universe to Storm and Xena: Warrior Princess (To her increasing resentment).
- Tobias is Shinji Ikari meets Akira Fudo and Bean.
- Marco is Beast Boy meets Cosmo Yuki and Kai Shiden.
- Cassie is Eliza Thornberry meets Frau Bow and Kitty Kitten.
- Ax is Allen Strange meets Karala Ajiba.
- Visser-3 is Lord Zedd meets Gihren Zabi and Doma Ajiba.
- Bill the Galactic Hero is Duke Nukem meets The Tick.
- On the basic level, Willy Wonka from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is Santa Claus meets a Mad Scientist. Depending on the adaptation, the description can be refined further:
- In the 1971 film adaptation he's The Doctor filtered through the Disney Animated Canon.
- In the 2005 film adaptation the filmmakers' comments suggest him to be an amalgamation of Howard Hughes, Anna Wintour, and Charles Foster Kane with the Stepford Smiler veneer of an Excited Kids' Show Host.
- In the 2013 stage musical he's a Disney Animated Canon villain crossbred with a Mad Artist... but more or less on the side of good.
- Battle Royale: Kazuo Kiriyama is Michael Myers meets Hank Olson.
- The Chronicles of Narnia:
- Aslan is almost explicitly Jesus Christ in a Medieval European Fantasy setting ruled by Talking Animals. Alternatively, he is more or less what would happen if Jesus Christ was one of the main characters of The Jungle Book.
- Jadis the White Witch is Satan meets the Snow Queen with elements of Medea.
- Uncle Andrew is Mrs. Macready meets Dr. Smith.
- Codex Alera:
- Tavi is Emperor Augustus meets Julius Caesar meets a less buff (at least initially) and snarkier Captain Carrot Ironfoundersson, with both Avatar Aang's Elemental Powers and Grand Admiral Thrawn's military genius.
- Kitai is Red Sonja meets Avatar Korra as one of the Bosmer from The Elder Scrolls.
- Max is Thomas Raith from The Dresden Files as a Sergeant Rock and no longer an incubus.
- The Awakened Vord Queen is the Zerg Overmind meets Mewtwo.
- According to Word of God, Gaius Sextus was written to be a mix of "reasonably good" Roman Emperors and Erwin Rommel.
- As alluded to above under Kitai's entry, the numerous Marat tribes are collectively the Bosmer/Wood Elves from The Elder Scrolls combined with both the ancient Germanic "barbarian" tribes that the Romans often warred with in Real Life and The Beastmaster archetype.
- The Dark Tower: Roland Deschain is Geralt of Rivia meets The Man With No Name as descended from the mythical heritage of King Arthur.
- The Demonata:
- Grubbs Grady is Bart Simpson meets Akira Fudo, Eddie Dean and Rent Boy.
- Lord Loss is Lord Voldemort meets Pinhead, Zennon and Pennywise.
- Nadia Moore/Juni Swan is Terra meets David meets Bellatrix Lestrange meets Sirene.
- Dirty Bertie:
- Bertie is Lana Loud (The Pig-Pen and an Animal Lover) meets Calvin (Mischievous, Book Dumb, and likes playing pretend.)
- Angela is Angelica Pickles (Little girl in a Princess Phase with a Sweet Tooth) meets Lincoln Loud (A Zany Schemer).
- Diary of a Wimpy Kid:
- Greg is Malcolm meets Horrid Henry.
- Rodrick is Reese meets Terrance.
- Manny is Stewie Griffin meets Caillou.
- Frank is Stan Smith meets Buck Cluck.
- Susan is Linda Belcher meets Sonia Kaspbrak (specifically, its 2017 movie adaptation).
- Rowley is Carl meets Chowder.
- Discworld:
- The Nac Mac Feegle are Smurfs as Violent Glaswegians.
- Rincewind started out as Bilbo Baggins with Blackadder's sarcasm, and gradually had elements of Arthur Dent added to the mix. Alternatively, he's Bilbo Baggins meets Kim Man-seob.
- Doctor Who New Adventures: Bernice Summerfield is Bridget Jones meets Lara Croft.
- The Dresden Files:
- Harry Dresden is John Constantine meets Peter Parker/Spider Man, all while giving the Private Eye Monologue of Philip Marlowe. Alternatively, he's Angel meets Spenser meets Merlin.
- Karrin Murphy is Buffy Summers meets Kate Lockley.
- Thomas Raith is Hawk from Spenser as an incubus and given a Race Lift to being white.
- "Gentleman" Johnny Marcone is David Xanatos meets Al Capone.
- According to Word of God, Waldo Butters was originally written to just be the medical examiner from The Prophecy with black curly hair combined with being a Jewish polkaphile since he needed someone around to spread some levity during his first appearance in Death Masks, but the character quickly took on a life of his own and became someone very different than what Butcher originally intended.
- The Elric Saga: Elric of Melnibone is Geralt of Rivia meets Shinji Ikari meets Edward Cullen.
- Alternatively, Elric is Kullervo meets Hamlet meets Ars Goetia in a Sword and Sorcery world gone wrong.
- Or Legolas meets Hamlet, King Lear, Titus Groan, and Skafloc.
- Emily Bones - City of Ghosts: Emily is Lancelot meets Greta Thunberg.
- Evil Genius Trilogy: Cadel Piggott is Harry Potter meets Light Yagami.
- Goosebumps:
- The Haunted Mask is the Venom Symbiote meets The Mask meets Pazuzu meets the Silver Shamrock Masks.
- Mr. Toggle is Yoshikage Kira meets the Tinkerer meets Drayton Sawyer.
- The Masked Mutant is Eobard Thawne meets Mystique meets Judge Doom.
- The Beasts are the Yautja meets the Wild Things as written by Dr. Seuss.
- Harry Potter:
- Harry Potter is Matilda Wormwood meets Boo Radley meets Frodo Baggins. Alternatively, he's Mildred Hubble meets Luke Skywalker.
- Lord Voldemort is Sauron meets Emperor Palpatine with elements of Adolf Hitler.
- The Homestuck Epilogues turns the original comic's cast into:
- John Egbert becomes Oba Yozo + Nite Owl II + Shinji Ikari + Paul Atredies + Jake.
- Dirk Strider becomes Ozymandias + Gendo Ikari + Robot.
- Jane Crocker becomes Cersei Lannister + The Comedian + Biff Tannen + Masayoshi Shido.
- The Hunger Games:
- Katniss Everdeen is a cynical and atheist Joan of Arc set After the End and in a Battle Royale scenario.
- Or Rachel meets Sarasa and Mitsuko Souma.
- Relatedly, Peeta Mellark is an Michael Cera character (or, alternatively, the protagonist of a John Green novel) trapped in a Battle Royale scenario.
- Or Shuya Nanahara meets Tobias.
- Katniss Everdeen is a cynical and atheist Joan of Arc set After the End and in a Battle Royale scenario.
- It: Pennywise the Dancing Clown is Lovecraft's Nyarlathotep with Freddy Krueger's sense of humor.
- The Jeremiah School: Lucien Morgenstern is Lord Voldemort meets Nicolae Carpathia who becomes headmaster of Hogwarts instead of Albus Dumbledore.
- The Locked Tomb:
- Gideon Nav is Korra meets Duncan Idaho, Brienne of Tarth, Guts, and Utena Tenjou.
- Harrowhark Nonagesimus is Elric of Melnibone meets Alia Atreides, Anthy Himemiya and Casca.
- Ianthe Tridentarius is Azula meets Vriska Serket, Celestia Ludenberg and a more wicked Nanami Kiryuu.
- John Gaius is Leto Atreides II meets Akio Ohtori and King Lear.
- Madeline: Madeline herself is Bart and Lisa Simpson rolled into one (She's an Animal Lover with a good sense of justice, but at the same time is a Little Miss Snarker and likes to prank and scare people).
- C. S. Lewis and others have described Fanny Price of Mansfield Park as "a Charlotte Brontë heroine lost in a Jane Austen novel."
- Magical Girl Raising Project:
- Snow White is basically Madoka Kaname meets Batman.
- Ripple can be described as Homura Akemi meets Big Boss.
- Milly, Molly:
- Milly is Lisa Simpson (Animal Lover, sometimes an Aesop Enforcer) meets Daniel Tiger (Wants to be an adventurer).
- Molly is Lola Loud (Plays with dolls, is in a Princess Phase) meets Fluttershy (Very cautious and an Animal Lover).
- Humphrey is Buster Baxter (Little boy who loves sci-fi) meets Nelson Muntz (The Bully).
- Alf is Egon Spengler (Top of the class, has unorthodox hobbies, is The Stoic) meets Tiny Tim (Is poor, sometimes his role is to be pitied.)
- Mr. Limpy is Mr. Grouse (Neighbourhood old widower) meets Guinan (Likes to tell stories, helps people in a deceptive way.)
- Mog:
- Mr. Thomas is Malcolm Reed (Crotchety British dude) meets Howard Cunningham (Grumpy sitcom-type father.)
- Mog is Ramona Quimby (Accident-prone, misunderstood Butt-Monkey) meets Snowball II (Family cat).
- In Musashi, Oko is Yuri Kagami meets Sheila Dembro from Cheyenne.
- Pippi Longstocking is EmÃlia meets Mônica.
- Rainbow Magic:
- Rachel and Kirsty are Cure Black and Cure White meet Nancy and Barb.
- Fern is Link (elf-like appearance, green colour scheme) meets Antonio Madrigal (love of animals).
- Sky is Princess Anna meets Alice Yotsuba.
- Izzy is Whyatt Beanstalk (entering a fairy tale world) meets Flying Feather (being The Lad-ette).
- Heather is Maguro Maki meets Rosalina.
- Evie is Isabela Madrigal (graceful, primarily purple colour scheme) meets Sherlock Holmes (described as such In-Universe).
- Storm is Virgil Hawkins meets Kikibory.
- Honey is Hibiki Hojo meets Peso Penguin.
- Scarlett is Luan Loud meets Ella.
- Emily is Bruno Madrigal meets Mana Aida.
- Amy is Tsubomi Hanasaki meets Great Tiger.
- Sophie is True (grants wishes) meets Charlotte Pickles (very busy).
- Lucy is Cure Ace meets Flashwing.
- Katie is Mei Lee meets Mr. Fussy.
- Bella is Alice in Wonderland meets Cure Summer.
- Georgia is Linny meets Pinkie Pie.
- Lauren is Ryder meets Red Blood Cell.
- Harriet is Inori Yamabuki meets Blathers.
- Molly is Ariel meets Good Luck Bear.
- Skulduggery Pleasant: Stephanie Edgley is Nancy Drew meets Willow Rosenberg
- Star Wars Legends:
- The Thrawn Trilogy: According to his author, Grand Admiral Thrawn is Erwin Rommel meets Robert E. Lee, Hannibal Barca, Alexander the Great, and Sherlock Holmes. Thrawn's intelligent, but unlike Alexander the Great, "isn't a crybaby."
- New Jedi Order: The Yuuzhan Vong might charitably be described as the Cenobites from Hellraiser plus the Covenant from Halo.
- Teito Monogatari: Yasunori Kato is Dracula meets Aleister Crowley meets M. Bison
- The Twilight Saga:
- Edward Cullen is Spike meets Itsuki Koizumi meets the My Immortal version of Draco Malfoy and a disco ball. Maybe throw in some Heathcliff, too, but without the irony of Heathcliff's character.
- Bella Swan is Ebony meets a gender-flipped Archie Andrews reimagined as a Damsel Scrappy.
- The Vampire Chronicles:
- Louis de Pointe du Lac is Michael Morbius meets Nick Carraway, Akira Fudo, Elric Of Melnibone, Sam Cain, and William Mandella.
- Lestat de Lioncourt is Jay Gatsby meets Ryo Asuka and Herbert West.
- The Witcher: Geralt of Rivia is Batman meets the Jedi meets 80's Action Hero meets Solid Snake in a Medieval Dark Fantasy Power Politics setting similar in tone and style to A Song of Ice and Fire.
- Shakugan no Shana
- Yuji Sakai = Ichigo Kurosaki + Kira Yamato + Yusuke Godai + Shinji Kido + Gamu Takayama
- Yuji Sakai (Snake of the Festival) = Hollow Ichigo + Shinn Asuka (FAITH) + Shinji Kido (Mirror World) + Shinya Mizorogi
- Shana = Rukia Kuchiki + Naru Narusegawa + Motoko Aoyama + Athrun Zala + Ren Akiyama
- Margery Daw = Yoruichi Shihoin + Rangiku Matsumoto + Murrue Ramius + Lunamaria Hawke + Miho Kirishima + Lisa Teagle + Nagi Saijyo
- Marchosias = Kenpachi Zaraki + Ryuk + Andrew Watfield + Magnugiga + Metalgelas
- Kazumi Yoshida = Orihime Inoue + Lacus Clyne + Yui Kanzaki + Shiori Hirose
- Keisaku Sato = Keigo Asano + Nicol Amalfi + Shinn Asuka + Satoru Tojo + Kotaro Shirai
- Yuji Sakai = Ichigo Kurosaki + Kira Yamato + Yusuke Godai + Shinji Kido + Gamu Takayama
- In regards to the Warhammer 40,000 novels:
- Ciaphas Cain:
- The titular Commissar Ciaphas Cain himself is essentially what would happen if both the Adaptational Heroism and Adaptational Badass treatments were applied to some unholy hybrid of Capt. Edmund Blackadder and Harry Flashman and was then inflicted with the Heroic Self-Deprecation of Harry Dresden.
- Cain's main aide (and unofficial best friend) Gunner Ferik Jurgen is a Bunny-Ears Lawyer version of McAuslan meets Jailor Ploppy.
- Inquisitor Amberley Vale is the answer to the question "What if a Genki Girl became the new James Bond and was also a Lemony Narrator?"
- Ciaphas Cain:
- Worm and Ward:
- Taylor Hebert is Carrie White (bullied superpowered teenager) meets Magneto (very powerful supervillain with a large amount of moral ambiguity) with the powers of Smite's Ah Muzen Cab.
- Armsmaster starts as Batman meets Mystery Men's Captain Amazing with the technological genius of Iron Man. As Defiant, he is Kain meets Cyborg.
- Scion/Zion is Superman meets The Plutonian meets the Silver Surfer.
- Victoria Dallon is initially "just" an Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy version of Supergirl in Worm, but following a hellish Trauma Conga Line and loads of Character Development, by the time of Ward she's become (more or less) Supergirl meets Nightwing as a Warrior Monk.
