This book should be mandatory reading, not only for readers/enjoyer of the Fantasy genre but for all readers! My book journal is full of quotes and notes that I have taken during my reading of The Dark Fantastic! I wanted to take my time with this book as the author makes points and I wanted to make sure I fully understood and appreciated everything she had to say. As an avid reader/enjoyer of all things Fantasy, reading this book caused me to take a moment and step back, look at the bigger picture as well as all the minute details to fully understand that representation and inclusiveness in our media is just as important as in the real world. It has already had an impact on my other readings in just a short time.

I have already talked to my local library about making sure they acquire a copy for their collection, and have made sure that our children's librarian has marked it's release on her calendar so that she will read it as well. As I said, The Dark Fantastic needs to be mandatory reading for everyone! Thank you to New York Press and NetGalley for allowing me to read an advance copy of this important work.

I was extremely disappointed by this book. I was so hopeful of something completely different than what I found in this book. I couldn’t even get though the first couple of chapters/sections.

A strong study of selected works of popular culture, and their depiction of “darkness,” both literal and symbolic.

I have mixed responses to this book. On the one hand, it's a very important study of how race is used, viewed, and created in children's and YA literature. Thomas discusses various authors' approaches to race in their works and in the adaptations and fan creations made of them, with studies on Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, Merlin, and The Vampire Diaries. This discussion can be nuanced and thoughtful, but at times it is repetitive and superficial, relying on single statements by fans that are cherry-picked to fit Thomas's hypothesis, On the other hand, Thomas's work is clearly influenced by her involvement in HP fanfiction and is still smarting from being criticized for using another writer's texts in her own FF. In any other field this would be outright plagiarism, but Thomas makes the case that in FF, it is acceptable. Her argument is weak, though, especially as now she is a PhD who should have some scholarly and personal distance from her own, younger, naive understanding of how ethics in fiction works, fan or professional. In any case, I found the book to be unready for publication: it needs better-integrated discussions of theory (not just dropping in a useful quote here and there, but real, deep engagement); it needs more clarity and focus in each chapter/case study (these read like student papers that had not been outlined well); and it needs editing, both developmental and copy-. The book feels rushed, unpolished, and rather simplistic. Thomas has a lot of important things to say about race, fantasy, and fanfiction, but this book was a big disappointment,

I came to this book for two reasons. One is that I’m a fan of BBC "Merlin", and I was happy to see the show finally being considered in an academic work. The other is that I’m a writer, and a White person, who is interested in writing non-White characters and mixed-race relationships – and the more I learn, the more I realise I still need to learn.

Back in 2008 when "Merlin" first screened, I was delighted by the ways in which the showrunners mixed things up. Arthur wasn’t a noble and just king, but a spoiled brat-prince. Merlin was a naïve youth of the same age as Arthur, and not in control of his magic or indeed anything else. And Gwen was not only a lowly servant but also Black, in a place where the ruling family and most (though not all) of the aristocracy and knights were White.

I loved all of that, and very much enjoyed all the fanworks that celebrated Gwen. While the end of the last series was heartbreaking, I loved that Gwen ended up as Queen of Camelot in her own right.

Ebony Elizabeth Thomas shows me, however, that wasn’t enough. While I would quibble with one aspect of her description of Gwen’s bleak ending – Gwen is not entirely alone as she has life-long friend Leon and long-time friend Gaius with her, among others – that’s not enough either. As Thomas says, if "Merlin" had ended after season four, Gwen would have had a fully happy ending: married to Arthur, crowned as Queen, and surrounded by friends including her brother Elyan. It would have been the sort of happy ending that is so rare or even non-existent for young Black women in our stories. The showrunners mixed things up in terms of the Arthurian legends, and are to be applauded for gifting us with a non-White Guinevere – but they didn’t take it far enough when it came to gifting her a happy ending in season five.

It’s not enough to point out that the Arthurian legends always end in tragedy. As Thomas shows in her consideration of young Black female characters in "The Hunger Games", "The Vampire Diaries", and the "Harry Potter" ’verse, Gwen is not an isolated case.

It’s not enough to claim that many of us fans (I hope the majority of us) enjoyed and celebrated Gwen in all aspects of her identity. While I tried to steer clear of it, I’m all too aware of the hostility that Gwen (and actor Angel Coulby) attracted as a person of colour – and waving the #NotAllFans flag misses the point.

It’s not enough that Thomas’s young niece is already used to identifying with characters who are White. As a queer woman (and non-American!), I am used to identifying with characters outside my own identities, too. Needs must! But I have also had the privilege of identifying with a few characters who match me very closely indeed, and time and time again I’ve had that privilege reinforced by the happy endings awarded to White characters. It’s not enough.

On one hand, I am (partially) heartened by the fact that we are obviously meant to care about and grieve for all those non-White, gay and lesbian characters who are killed off as the stories progress. On the other hand, it’s not enough. They deserve their share of fully explored storylines and happy endings, too.

Thomas challenges us with the idea that this lack of full representation in our creative works is due to a lack of imagination. We can do better. We can imagine better. Let’s get in there and write better, too!

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The publisher kindly gave me an ARC of this book via NetGalley, and I have also preordered a hardcover copy for myself via Amazon. The views expressed are my own, and are (always) still evolving.

Can you imagine growing up without stories and characters that you can identify with? What if all characters looked different from the way you do and villains and slaves were the ones who had the same appearance as you do? How would that make you feel?
This book was a necessary eye opener and biography that analyzed Pop culture and media and how it affects children and teenagers of color.
An extremely interesting read! Pick this one up if you like Roxane Gay or N.K. Jemisin. I'm looking forward to more black Sci-Fi, fantasy and books in general.

Thank you Netgalley for providing me with an eARC.