Urban Fantasy

[alanajoli]

Some of you may have caught the two columns I wrote for Flames Rising (with the intention of writing several more) about the differences in the types of paranormal romances and urban fantasies that make up the scale of books inside the boundaries of the genre (or expanding them). After a conversation with my library boss, I decided to start putting together a big ol' list and synopsis of sub groupings for her, since it's what I read, and I recommend a lot of titles to our patrons. Just because someone digs vampires in Sookie and Anita Blake doesn't necessarily mean it's the vampires they're after -- in fact, the last person I was giving recommendations to started out from those two series and ended with, "Actually I'd like to have something a little more light hearted and funny," and so I sent her in the direction of shanna_s's Enchanted Inc. So in my list, I'm trying to suss out the qualities that might attract someone to a novel -- maybe they are vampire crazy, but maybe they're looking for something snarky with a Sex and the City vibe (in which case they need Happy Hour of the Damned by mdhenry). Maybe what they loved about Jim Butcher's Dresden Files was actually the private investigator angle, in which case you could go with devonmonk's Allie Beckstrom books, the Connor Grey series by Marc del Franco, of blackaire's Nocturne City series. (There are actually scads of PIs in urban fantasy -- I've just named a few.) Do they want an urban fantasy series with a con artist? Try the WVMP novels by Jeri Smith-Ready. And from there, if they love the radio angle, try Carrie Vaughn's Kitty the Werewolf books or stacia_kane's Megan Chase series. Maybe they totally dug the government agency aspect of Hellboy and B.P.R.D. in the comics, in which case, they should be reading antonstrout's Simon Canderous series. I could keep on this thread for some time -- the point is, while some people are vampire nuts, a lot of UF and Paranormal Romance readers might get a kick out of different aspects of the novels than just vampires vs. werewolves -- which is sort of a non-UF reader way to boil it down.

So, I thought it was hilarious today when Jackie Kessler posted a parody song about urban fantasy (using the tune for "Popular" from the musical Wicked). Did I make sure to include everyone on that list in my list? Who of those famed urban fantasists have I yet to read?

(Of course, I disagree with his looking down on Paranormal Romance, but that could be a whole other entry.)

Comments

[lyster.livejournal.com]

I may be off-base, but I think folks who dig on the darker stuff (terror, protagonists under intense stress, high body count) would get into the Pendergast series by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child; they're emphatically not fantasies, except for maybe the last one, but the fact that an immortality potion or a drug that turns you into a rampaging monster is explained with some pseudoplausible scientific jargonwaving doesn't mean your books aren't fantastical in their effect. :)

[alanajoli.livejournal.com]

That's a great recommendation -- and definitely fits with my theory. It may not even be the *genre* that you like, but some part of the genre that is shared by other genres entirely! :)

[lyster.livejournal.com]

In general point of fact I find genre a less and less useful category these days; people who like space opera of the Lois McMaster Bujold type will love the Lymond Chronicles, which are historical fiction with an emphasis on the historical, & might even go from there into liking The Name of the Rose, and so on. Or, to rephrase: I think it's setting-genres that I find pretty useless, as opposed to story-genres. A techno-business thriller scratches the same itch if it's set in 3092, 1980, 1912, 422 BCE, or The Seventy-Ninth Year of Odegra and Ancient Mu in the sub-duchy of Cazabel on the Blighted Planes. :)