"When people of color seek passageways into the fantastic, we have often discovered that the doors are barred.

The Dark Fantastic explores multiple film and book series and how they include, exclude, or erase diversity.

This was a great read. I agree that the lack of diversity is also a lack of imagination. I can't imagine truly living in a reality where everyone I know looks exactly like me. Diversity in books is needed to reflect the world we live in. Otherwise, we do a disservice to the world.

Highly recommend this read.

Thanks to NetGalley and NYU Press for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Dr. Thomas shares the commonalities she has found in the representation of black and brown characters historically and into the present using four specific examples in media. These characters have been othered repeatedly when they are on the page and even when they are completely erased or are absent. Thomas explains that The Dark Other in stories is “the monstrous Thing that is the root cause of hesitation, ambivalence, and the uncanny.” The Dark Other is “the obstacle to be overcome.” She explains that the fantastic has needed darkness because the stories have needed heroes and villains and this locked the Dark Other into the role of antagonist.

Throughout the book, Thomas lays out the many ways the Dark Other have been portrayed in the fantastic that continues to be manifested in contemporary media. Storytellers and readers accept that stories only work one way – dark pitted against light. The Dark Other as a protagonist or hero has been thought by reviewers and critics to be unbelievable. People have come to accept this fallacy and cannot see beyond what has always been. With example after example, Thomas shows readers how the lack of imagination has kept literature stagnant and falling into the same inequitable patterns for years.

There is a way out though. Thomas shares that there are creatives pushing back against these confines. They are reimagining the world of stories especially within fanfiction. This could also be done within the publishing industry. She also provides a list of ways to emancipate the dark fantastic. The Dark Fantastic isn’t simply a history, but is also a call to action and will hopefully educate and inspire change.

<!-- wp:paragraph -->
<p>Review copy provided by the publisher.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->

<!-- wp:paragraph -->
<p>This is a really interesting work of SF criticism focused on the Dark Other, specifically on Black girls/women on the peripheries of popular media properties. Thomas takes the lessons of the title works and others and uses them as exemplars of larger issues in the genre. She deliberately eschews the old-fashioned academic convention of obscuring/abstracting the critic's voice: she is coming from a very specific place as a late Gen X Black woman from Detroit, and she explicitly (as well as implicitly with her prose choices) rejects the idea of some universal construct called "the reader" who can stand for every reader. This is extremely constructive.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->

<!-- wp:paragraph -->
<p>In addition to the titular works, Thomas spends a fair amount of time on the TV show <em>Merlin</em> and also on both the TV show and the book series <em>The Vampire Diaries</em>, examining the ways visual adaptations of preexisting material interact with fan expectations. She has deep roots in fanfiction fandom and is not afraid to use that experience as a lens in this work.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->

<!-- wp:paragraph -->
<p>Frankly I think a lot of white SFF writers could benefit from seeing Thomas's perspective laid out in detail with examples. The power of "I didn't realize I was doing that, and I'd prefer not to" is pretty strong, and it has to be in the face of "I don't worry about that kind of thing."<br></p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->

In The Dark Fantastic: Race and the Imagination from Harry Potter to The Hunger Games, author and scholar Ebony Elizabeth Thomas considers the representation of ethnic characters in written and filmed media. Thomas begins the book by noting her predilection for speculative work, and I was surprised to learn that she also composes fan fiction.



This book legitimizes my own mingling of academic and affinity-based practice, and showed me that, yes, works like The Hunger Games are complex and open for detailed analysis. At the same time, this book challenged my assumptions about balanced and accurate representations in media.



Genre is yet another way that people are separated, and Thomas makes this case clearly and with ample evidence from the works she examines, as well as a foundation in scholarship. My interest in this book is first as a lover of cinema and literature, but also as someone who has a desire to create positive learning environments for everyone.



Thomas's examination of popular culture through the lens of critical race theory helped me think through these works of fiction from a different perspective. I am grateful for the opportunity to read The Dark Fantastic.



May the conversation continue and may social (and artistic) changes ensue.

This book hit home as this is something that I can understand, not seeing yourself in the media around you. It was such an interesting read and helped me convey and discuss this issue with others around me. I also love the title!

Dare I say it? The Dark Fantastic: Race and the Imagination from Harry Potter to the Hunger Games by Ebony Thomas is my second favorite nonfiction of the year! First off, this cover is stunning! Now that I’m done drooling over this cover let’s get to this review.
Thomas is straightforward in her research and observation in the adventure to dystopian futures. She highlights the race cycle that appears throughout each chapter in The Hunger Games (Rue), Merlin (Gwen), The Vampire Diaries (Bonnie Bennett) & Harry Potter (Angelina).

To quote Thomas "When youth grow up without seeing diverse images in the mirrors, windows, and doors of children’s and young adult literature, they are confined to single stories about the world around them and, ultimately, the development of their imaginations is affected.” I couldn’t agree with her more.

Thomas speaks about Black feminism, Afrofuturism, and highlight the works of Tomi Adeyemi and Nnedi Okorafor whom have written books for young readers that are based on Nigerian and Nigerian-American cultures. There is so much more to this book, for folks like me that enjoy these futuristic worlds, but never understood why black people didn’t really live in these books and shows, well Thomas pretty much explains it one chapter at a time. Thank you, Netgalley & NYU Press, for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

I read this book courtesy of NetGalley, in exchange for a review.

Thomas makes many great points in her central premise concerning the role of the Black (girl) character in the Dark Fantastic Cycle. I was on my Kindle when my 12 yo Nibling asked me what I was reading.

"It's a book about how Black characters are represented in films and TV shows," I simplified.
"Oh, they die first," Nibling replied, and I am *not* making this up.

I found Thomas's analysis captivating and lucid, and thought-provoking, and a supremely enjoyable read as a piece of media criticism. I hope it will spark many debates and arguments.

My review of this is going to be light because I expected something else. I did not realize that this book was non-fiction and due to that I put this book on hold for a bit because that wasn't what I wanted to read at this time.

However, when I did pick up this read, I was blown away by the care and detail the author, Ebony, takes to break down popular stories and how they lack diversity and imagination. And what I mean by imagination is that some writers do not envision a world where there are Black people and other POC or if they are in the world, there are a lot of negative connotations surrounding them.

I know I know people can argue that an elf is an elf an they are not defined by the race terms in the modern world. However, that is not true. And although I can so deeply into this, I will not as you can read the book. It is important to note the lack of diversity within books no matter how good they are. Ebony, takes the time, that most people won't give to point this out and make it clear why it is a problem.

This is not only a good book but a good resource.

Both engaging and scholarly, this is a passionate, urgent, and extremely timely study of the depiction of race in young adult fantasy. One aspect that I find particularly useful for adoption in a college curriculum is the fact that Thomas does not limit herself to the written word; she investigates fandoms and both television and film in popular culture. She is an avowed fan, but she is a literature scholar, as familiar with theoretical terminology as she is with social media. This book cannot help but appeal to scholars wishing to learn more about diversity, but it will also be accessible and "relatable" to their students. Highly recommended.

Last year, and all through January, I happened to read a variety of old and new fantasy novels in diverse settings, and I’m overjoyed at the emergence and success of more and more #ownvoices novels these days! Seeing these positive developments towards a broader range of speculative fiction stories, I sought to jump right into some non-fiction regarding the topic, to get a better idea about the theory behind representation in SFF, and found this book by chance.

Now, „The Dark Fantastic“ reads like a scientific paper at first, and I found the writing accordingly dull during the introduction, but Thomas already raises important questions in her opening chapter; those of accessibility of this „traditionally white“ genre to POC and especially young people of every ethnicity, of modern „participatory“ takes on stories and how they open up media to everyone’s personal but also collective interpretation, and of stereotyping characters of colour that already exist in speculative fiction (though this problem is not entirely explored in the following chapters). I found her concept of the Dark Other and the cycle she passes through fascinating.

This read was far more engaging once it moved on to the analysis of specific franchizes, although, sadly, only four examples of POC in big fandoms were given, namely „The Hunger Games“, „Harry Potter“, „The Vampire Diaries“, and BBC’s „Merlin“, of which I am familiar with only the former two. This provides readers with only a limited spectrum of diverse story arcs, and I was disappointed to find things missing that I had been looking forward to when picking up this book: exploration of POC representation in fantasy in the past (I can’t believe Tolkien’s Middle-Eastern coded Haradrim and other fictional but real-world inspired peoples that are clearly written as villainous/foreign/other were not discussed), positive examples of representation – in particular by POC authors – to look up and support, or even mentions of non-black diverse characters, in times when international politics are encouraging islamophobia. But I understand that these aren’t the topics of this particular work, and Thomas explains her reasons for tackling only the stories of female black characters early on.

I absolutely loved the chapter about Collins‘ Rue! To be honest, I can’t remember the last time I read such an eloquent analysis of a character from recent literature that was not posted on tumblr. Speaking of which, fandom reactions on social media and casting choices are also a prominent and important issues in „The Dark Fantastic“. This also was probably the first time I was confronted with fandom citations imbedded into academic text, which, as a more or less active fangirl, I found interesting yet disconcerting (this is probably not the right word to use though).

The fandom references were too personal for my taste at times (there was a shift from the professional academic writing oft Thomas' earlier parts to the self-centred discussion of the last chapter), and I also thought that some fandom contributions stood out as less well-composed than Thomas‘ own writing. I’ll just assume they weren’t originally written for printed publication, which is fine. As frequently mentioned in the text, this author has been fandom participant for longer than I can read, I just personally would have prefered keeping that aspect in a separate section of the book.

„The Dark Fantastic“ is a cool work of non-fiction that will make readers think and reconsider, and it encouraged me to re-examine my own, white perspective. But it also lacked some answers to the central questions posed, and therefore might be not persuasive enough, for me at least. It just didn’t give me what I had wished for prior to reading it, namely a broad range of (positive) fantasy examples.

I was totally drawn to this title by the beautiful cover, and by the fact that I to fangirled hard over Harry Potter and the Hunger Girls. The other fandoms covered here (Vampire Diairies and Arthur) I honestly have not been able (or interested) in watching more than the pilots which I thought were cheezy and lame. Though I didn't care for the last two fandoms Thomas' writing on the subjects was strong enough to keep me going with the book.

This is a tad academic in style, the topics make a bit more accessible to people who may not have read extensively on philosophy, literature, feminism, critical race theory etc. But I think by virtue of having started out as a PhD thesis (which I assume this was originally, not explicitly indicated anywhere) this had to be quite high level.

I have studies a tad in my undergrad days of feminism, philosophy and critical race scholarship (did not many English courses so lit theory people you've got one on me!) and I was able to follow the arguments reasonably well. I thought the use of block quotes was excessive however, and could have definitely have used some summarization by the author - they did not have to be cited in their entirety, and I don't know that they were necessarily strong in support for the author's arguments.

I liked the chapters on the Hunger Games and Arthur, thought the chapter on the Vampire Diaries went a little too much into the plot details of a show that I have zero interest in, and was quite disappointed with the 'Harry Potter Chapter'. I say disappointed because I thought Thomas would go into the same or more detail as the other works, especially since it is by far the biggest fandom, but it really just served for her to conclude the book.

If it weren't for the block quotes on almost every page I would recommend this to people looking for an intro into feminism/critical race studies in literature/video, but really I think this will only be truly appreciated by fellow academics which is a shame.

"By bridging pop culture, personal experience, and academic study, The Dark Fantastic provides a crucial examination of race and storytelling in sci-fi fantasy media aimed at teens and young adults. Not only does Thomas discuss how Black characters are erased in an inescapable cycle, but she also provides a guide to breaking it. Many have already broken the dark fantastic cycle with new stories, and this book is a good starting point for more."

A really wonderful examination of black characters in white-led popular fantasy series, including the original text, adaptations, and fan responses. I love those critical examination of race in fandoms and the roles black female characters are assigned to by readers' biases. This book is a must-read if you're interested in diverse fantasy!

The Dark Fantastic by Ebony Elizabeth Thomas

This nonfiction book by Ms. Thomas shared her views regarding past fantasy narratives. As a writer, I found her ideas and comparisons very informative and helpful. Her facts and feedback were very insightful regarding what she views current books lack in reaching readers across cultural lines. I think all writers of fantasy genre would benefit if they place Ms. Thomas' book on their reference bookshelf. Authors of futuristic narratives in a multicultural environment may use Dark Fantastic as a tool to captivate a wider spectrum of readers. Ms. Thomas' concepts are so critical.

Thank you NYU Press and NetGalley for this review copy. The Dark Fantastic started out a bit slow for me, but it picked up with Chapter 2 when Thomas started addressing specific books and films. This book is well researched and organized. It explores characters of color in The Hunger Games, The Vampire Diaries, Merlin, and Harry Potter. Thomas addresses issues with problematic representations, invisibility, and long-held systemic racist views. This is an important book for librarians and literature teachers to read to help make informed decisions about the stories we make available to our students.

Thanking NetGalley and the Publisher for the ARC

It took me a while to finish the book. Well, don't take me wrong. It is not that the book is bad. It is just because it took me a while to get myself engaged to this book. The writing is good tho along with those interesting subject matters and the critical opinion from the academic works. But I just feel that those are dry and couldn't get the chemistry from it. I often would have to go back and forth just to reread the parts I could not get.

I wish that the author could develop this book into an interesting narrow topic. I admire her ability to bring the sides either it is bright or darker side of the culture but she also needs to provide further explanation on it.

Thank you to NetGalley and NYU Press for providing me with an eARC!

This took me so long to read because I was annotating. I am not a fast annotater. I enjoyed a lot of this book. I am a black woman who reads primarily fantasy, for reference.
It articulated a lot of my gripes with the way that books with black characters are expected to operate, and do operate in literature.
One of the things that stood out to me was the idea that so many things with black characters are about… sad shit. Oppression, slavery, racism, etc. This book brings up how we use worldly expectations, and expectations from other, older media to shape our perspective of what media should look like.

The writing is… on par with a lot of academic work. Interesting in subject matter, but slightly dry prose. The writing is accessible not particularly dense, so it wasn’t a total slog, but I did find myself having to reread passages occasionally.

As an avid consumer of young adult books (yes, teens and YA) I wish this book delved deeper into that topic. Especially because the YA community is so active online, and responses to works are discusses so publicly. (This is touched on in The Dark Fantastic, but I wanted some more.)

I appreciate her touching on the darker side of fandom culture. It can get wild in some of these fandom arguments, with accusations, and whatnot. I don’t feel that she explained what happened to her fully, though.

The Dark Fantastic opens up a necessary conversation about the social dynamics at play in the fantasy and sci-fi world and fandoms. It was a slower read, written for an academic audience; which I think is important to legitimize this topic in academic discourse. At the same time, there were times I wanted more from the analysis. Thomas is doing important work though, the beginning of criticism that will allow those involved in these social, literary and gaming spaces to examine the systems we are complicit in.

"The Dark Fantastic" addresses a really important and most often ignored issue of misogynoir in media, specifically, in this case, in speculative fiction. The book is a case a study of four story-worlds and their treatment of recurring and main black female characters by both the writers and fans: Rue from the Hunger Games, Bonnie from the Vampire Diaries, Gwen from BBC Merlin, and Hermione and Angelina from Harry Potter. I was especially interested in this book as a media scholar, as well as someone who's been in various fandoms for over a decade and is familiar with the worlds Thomas discusses. Unfortunately, perhaps because of my familiarity with these worlds and fandoms, I found the analysis to be a little too superficial, and wish the book had more to offer. It especially fell apart, for me, in the last chapter dedicated to Harry Potter, where Thomas goes on to discuss her own (negative) experience with fandom due to her own plagiarism; at that point, the book becomes less academic and more sensationalist than I hoped. Nevertheless, I think it's an important book and I'm glad that fandom receives the academic attention it deserves. I am happy to recommend it to anyone interested in the topic of race and gender representation, as well as in fandoms and speculative fiction in general; however, this is an introductory book on the subject and should be treated as such.

Thank you, NetGalley, for the e-ARC!

As a librarian and fantasy reader and watcher, I enjoyed this book but I think it is too academic for the average library user.