Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire
  • Mood: geeky
  • Music: OK-Go, "Here It Goes Again."

6 awesome things about urban fantasy.

My pre-release countdown for A Local Habitation [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] continues. I'm six days out now. Books have been sighted all over the place (although still not in my home town, which is probably good for my overall level of twitchiness, if not for the local folks who want to buy them). And I've been thinking a lot about urban fantasy.

I've been thinking so much about urban fantasy, in fact, that it's today's countdown item. So there.

6 Awesome Things About Urban Fantasy.

6. Because urban fantasy is a relatively new genre, there's a lot of flexibility for making up rules as you go along. No one says "oh, this book was terrible because they didn't all meet up in a bar and there was no quest for the magical wing-diddy of Macguffindonia." There's an insane amount of freedom in urban fantasy.

5. Because urban fantasy in an incredibly old genre that's just making its reappearance, there are centuries of tradition to draw on. Seem like a contradiction? It's not. As I've said many times, we are the children of Lily Fair, and we are carrying on the traditions of our fairy tale ancestors. There are monsters in those woods.

4. Urban fantasy gives its authors the freedom to play with creatures from both sides of the divide between "fantasy" and "horror." You can have pixies and werewolves, if that's what makes you happy, and nobody gets to tell you different. It's awesome.

3. The modern/pseudo-modern settings of most urban fantasies make it easier to build engrossing and detailed non-human societies, without needing to first introduce your readers to a whole new reality. That creates an illusionary accessibility that reveals itself only when it's too late to escape. Mwahahaha.

2. The scope of urban fantasy means that it really does contain something for everybody. Maybe you don't like my work. That's fine. Kelley Armstrong is more horror, and Kim Harrison is more sexy, and Anton Strout is more funny. We can find you a match!

1. All the ass-kicking heroines. Naturally.
Tags: a local habitation, busy busy busy, contemplation, making lists, toby daye
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  • 48 comments

rysmiel

February 24 2010, 17:42:16 UTC 7 years ago Edited:  February 24 2010, 18:24:40 UTC

The thing about genre urban fantasy as a whole that does somewhat get to me, much though I love several individual examples, is how much of it is transplanted European mythologies with no trace of the native powers remaining.

That and a bit of a grumble going in here about things that are definitely a) fantasy and b) urban but don't get called "urban fantasy", ranging from China Mieville to Ellen Kushner to Sarah Monette to Walter Jon Williams' Metropolitan and City on Fire (because, dude ? That series is, like, Trantor with magic. It's Totally and Utterly Urban Fantasy.)

seanan_mcguire

February 24 2010, 18:25:46 UTC 7 years ago

I've had to go with "look, the native powers may and probably do exist, but Faerie doesn't exist in the same layers of reality as they do." So the native powers want nothing to do with Faerie, aren't part of Faerie, and are just leaving them the hell alone. (This is because my Faerie requires descent from the primary Three, and I refuse to say "la la Coyote is descended from Oberon." Just no.) I figure that in a lot of cases, your local spirits will follow you when you leave, just because they're accustomed to having you about.

I agree with your grumble, utterly.

ladyfox7oaks

February 24 2010, 19:56:30 UTC 7 years ago

Yeah, cause if Coyote is descended from Oberon, then his love-child with Loki (shapeshifters, after all) would be incestuous- right?