I suppose I've been scarred by my formative adolescent experiences with fantasy and science fiction

Ha, haven't we all. So much of the older science fiction I read as a teen was so very dated I parsed it almost like fantasy, a fully divergent secondary world rather than forward-looking. (I, Robot and 2001 fly to mind as examples of this.)

The Tough Guide to Fantasyland survived the transcontinental call. It's been a decade; does it need an update for the Harry Potter generation?