On urban fantasy.

[limyaael]

Quote of the Day:

"I sometimes wish that I could control the weather. But this might be uncomfortable for other people."

-Swinburne.

Comments

[sarafinapekkala]

I'm so glad the first urban fantasy I read was Steel Rose. The main character first encounters the Unseelie, so she's biased toward them and away from the Seelie. Only of course the Seelie aren't all bad either... I highly recommend it.

[kleenexwoman]

Dang, I am glad I read this. I'm about to start writing a book that involves a world where dragons have been hunted to extinction and werewolves form gangs and mug people. I'll have to keep a lot of this in mind.

[klgaffney]

ooh. ranting about my favorite genre to write in. excellent. i think i avoid a lot of the issues by not playing by the rules to begin with, tho.

Too often, the non-humans are prettified.yes. even my seelie fae are pretty vainglorious bastards. they may look pretty, but they're Not Very Nice. i actually even had a problem with the forcing myself to swallow the whole unseelie=evil seelie=good issue--too limiting and unrelatable, too easy to fall into that 2-dimensional character trap. so i decided that the sidhe invented the term, it's arbitrary--fae that didn't fit their idea of enlightened are slapped in the unseelie catagory--including other sidhe. then it becomes an issue of politics, morality, religon, etc. i can get my brain around it

[limyaael]

Those ideas do sound interesting. I like the idea of a fantasy world with the fantasy creatures wholly or partly integrated into the modern era. I used to value Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series precisely for that reason, but...um...it's gone downhill, let's say.

[pyro_rebel]

um...it's gone downhill, let's say.

Understatement of the bloody year. Not that they were that great to begin with, but... :)

[kalorlo]

*drifts by late*

Ooh, I was about to mention your writing as an example of urban fantasy that doesn't do the above. I read some of yours quite a while ago and it stuck in mind :)

So, you have a journal here too... Interesting... :)

[ursulav]

Nice to read this...it always makes me crazy when Random Protagonist comes in contact with the Seelie court and never once questions their motives, but blindly goes along with "These must be the good guys!"

Even if they ARE the good guys, a little healthy skepticism is a survival trait.

[limyaael]

It does the same thing to me. And it hurts especially when the main character doesn't really know the political situation or the legends about elves, just goes along because "They're so PWETTY!"

[irian]

A lot of urban fantasy reads like fanfiction, mostly because of the reasons you pointed out above. They're fun to read to a certain degree, but they leave you wanting for something more substantial afterwards.

[limyaael]

I felt that way after Mercedes Lackey's urban fantasies, and even after a few of de Lint's (notably Spiritwalk, which felt desultory to me). I think some authors never get past, "Giggle, giggle, elves in New York!" and really step it up to anything more.