Province of the union.

[cadhla]

It is a Tuesday morning, bright and shiny and sunny and crisp and cool -- the sort of day that San Francisco was invented to provide. I'm wearing a tank top guaranteed to cause vertigo in anyone who chances to look at it directly while I'm in motion, my hair is fluffy and clean, and life is good. (The part where I finished reading Robin McKinley'

Comments

[hobviously]

Awww, and I was going to suggest Kielty. But Corey is good too.

[cadhla]

I try to avoid anything my little sister can't pronounce. Keeps me on genre. ;>

[stagemanager]

I'm dreadfully unfamiliar with "urban fantasy" (as in, never even heard the term before today).

Can you recommend an intro title or two? (An anthology of short stories would be even better.)

[djonn]

The two seminal works of urban fantasy from which most of the genre descends are Emma Bull's War for the Oaks and Charles de Lint's Moonheart. Of the two, the Bull is shorter, more focused, and probably easier to locate just now.

Short stories are a trickier proposition -- it's not that people don't write short urban fantasy, it's that as a rule, they write it for magazines and anthologies that publish it in with Other Stuff. The exception is the Bordertown shared world cycle, overseen by Terri Windling -- except that that's almost a subgenre of the subgenre.

A handful of other books one might look for -- some quite recent, some more obscure: Mercedes Lackey's The Chrome Borne, collecting two of the first in a convoluted cluster of interlinked but mostly freestanding novels; Kim Wilkens' The Autumn Castle; Kara Dalkey's Steel Rose; Megan Lindholm's Wizard of the Pigeons; the series by Diane Duane beginning with So You Want to Be a Wizard, marketed for young adult readers but eminently readable by all serious fantasy mavens

[pknight]

*tosses in 2 cents*

I just finished re-reading Chrome Circle (the second in the Chrome Borne collection), and I remember why I fell in love with Tannim. Also look for the Diana Tregard Investigations (Children of the Night; Burning Water; Jinx High) as really good examples of urban fantasy. (They were also recently re-released with awesome covers.)

The "So You Want to Be a Wizard" books are awesome, too.

[stagemanager]

Thank you!

[ohimesamamama]

I am moping, sick, and making writing progress for the first time in ages.

Dammit.

I'm also willing Scott S. to call me with the POWER OF MY TINY MIND. Wanna work on EK! WANNA!

I am five.

[liret]

I didn't know Haunted was out yet! Must check bookstores now.

[tigertoy]

"(Lycanthropy is a YA urban fantasy/horror about dealing with school, dating, boys, peers and all the other standard YA issues, as well as the additional complications of fleas, chasing cats, baying at the moon and being chased by idiots with tranq guns.)"

OK, sounds like fun, when do I get to read it?