An Introduction to Fantasy

by Matthew Sangster

Providing an engaging and accessible introduction to the Fantasy genre in literature, media and culture, this incisive volume explores why Fantasy matters in the context of its unique affordances, its disparate pasts and its extraordinary current flourishing. It pays especial attention to Fantasy's engagements with histories and traditions, its manifestations across media and its dynamic communities. Matthew Sangster covers works ancient and modern; well-known and obscure; and ranging in scale from brief poems and stories to sprawling transmedia franchises. Chapters explore the roles Fantasy plays in negotiating the beliefs we live by; the iterative processes through which fantasies build, develop and question; the root traditions that inform and underpin modern Fantasy; how Fantasy interrogates the preconceptions of realism and Enlightenment totalisations; the practices, politics and aesthetics of world-building; and the importance of Fantasy communities for maintaining the field as a diverse and ever-changing commons.

Genres: Fantasy, Sci Fi Fantasy

469 pages, Paperback

Published September 7, 2023

Reviews

[Mythlee · Rating 5 out of 5]

He looks at fantasy as it's read, watched, and played. Made lots of notes of books I might like to read... Always a good sign.

[Arif Silverman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I tried savoring this book as long as I could, each insight into the genre’s building blocks and history one little treasure after another. It is such a joy reading an academic analysis of so many of my favorite books and shows - it is not often you find published work analyzing ARCANE: LEAGUE OF LEGEND’s relationship to Enlightenment philosophy.

Or perhaps it is - in addition to being AN Introduction to Fantasy, this was also MY Introduction to the STUDY of Fantasy. Sangster draws from an astonishing array of sources that point to a wide field of study related to fantasy. I can’t wait to investigate these references further.

For an academic text, its language is largely very approachable, even as Sangster spins immensely complex ideas throughout. There are dense moments that I struggled through, but I am grateful for the rigor it demanded of me, made all the more delightful by Sangster’s clear love and passion for the genre and its study.

I shall use this book as a shield and sword, defending the genre against its myriad misconceptions even as I advocate for its joyous affordances.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you can’t take Matt’s fantasy across media class, this is the next best thing. A great survey on fantasy as it exists today

[Farah Mendlesohn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this very much, but it's not an introduction to Fantasy, I'm not sure it's even a monograph. The book makes most sense as lecturers/talks/essays, each of them riffing on an idea and following it through to the end. In that it feels a great deal like Attebery's Fantasy; How it Works (2023). Ironically that's a title that would have worked far better for this book. I really like the discussion of language, of worldbuilding and communities.

If I have a niggle it is, as it happens, one Sangster raises himself: Tolkien is very much the centre of this book, even as Sangster acknowledges that this is a hindsight constructed conceit.