In one of those perfect conjunctions of story and audience, I was a twentysomething postdoc in Boston at the time of Beauty and the Beast, which for the unitiated centered on the star-crossed fantasy romance between a crimefighting female DA and a leonine ‘prince’ of an underground utopia. I was hooked, both by the fantasy elements and by the romance, and was rather glad that I moved to the UK before the writers and producers (who included the estimable George RR Martin) had a bizarre brainstorm in the third season and tipped the story into a spiral of tragedy and violence. A number of writers had the same reaction, and in their fan fiction ignored the third season entirely, rewrote the third season, or incorporated the third season – and the new female lead – into their plots, as collected on-line at  The Beauty and the Beast Reading Chamber. As always with fanfic, its quality is variable but at its best, it is very good indeed, particularly in the sequence of stories by Edith Crowe, whose writing is naturalistic, tender and in places very funny.