Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire
  • Mood: thoughtful
  • Music: Bree Sharp, "David Duchovny, Why Won't You Love Me?"

Just here to kick ass and chew bubblegum: the shifting face of the urban fantasy heroine.

In keeping with their great love for chart porn, Orbit (my/Mira's science fiction publisher) has posted a fabulous comparison chart of 2008's urban fantasy heroines vs. 2009's urban fantasy heroines. According to the sample set they have scientifically* assembled and presented for your viewing pleasure, stiletto heels and pouty lips are out, while sensible shoes and kicking your ass is in.

Check out the chart. Now check out this blog post by sandramcdonald, which includes a handy visual guide to many "classic" urban fantasy poses. What I find interesting is that the majority of these covers are classic-turned-cliche; they're not bad, they're just things that were very, very popular, and were consequentially overdone.

When I first sold the Toby books, a few people said to me, "You realize Toby's going to be a busty blonde with a tramp-stamp, right?" I acknowledged that I did, in fact, know this, but that I was okay with it if it would get the book out into the world. When my editor at DAW asked if I had any requests for the cover, I said I had two.

"I'd like her to have brown hair, and wear clothes."

Anything else? Nope. Just brown hair, and clothes. Toby is not the sort of girl who goes out in a miniskirt and a halter top—not unless she's under extreme duress—and she's never dyed her hair. I was incredibly lucky, and got what I asked for, along with a leather jacket, a petulant expression, and a gloomy, atmospheric backdrop. She didn't look much like an urban fantasy heroine (a few people even thought she was a boy), but she looked exactly like I wanted her to look. Now, a year later, she looks a lot like an urban fantasy heroine, because the rules have been changing. And it's wonderful!

Don't take this as "all urban fantasy covers used to be bad," because they weren't, and I really, really like a lot of them. All the elements currently in decline have their place in the genre. Toby doesn't have any tattoos...but Alice does (Alice is practically a biker gang all by herself), and so do pretty much all the lycanthropic teens in Clady's universe (since that way, your body can be identified even if you die when not in human form). Toby doesn't wear stiletto heels...but Verity does, and thanks to her specific combat style, she would be more than happy to kick your ass while she's wearing them. I just think it's fantastic that the genre has managed to expand to the point where it can include all these different types of heroine, all presented the way they should be presented, not according to some focus group-ideal that half of them don't live up to.

Evolution is awesome...and, apparently, wearing comfortable shoes.

(*In this case "scientifically" means "whatever the summer intern could get her hands on." It's a generous definition.)
Tags: contemplation, good things, reading things, toby daye
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  • 31 comments

jenk

August 18 2010, 18:33:05 UTC 6 years ago

The problem I have with "paranormal" being hot is that publishers see it as a genre and I see it as a setting. I consider Maryjanice Davidson's Queen Betsy to be chick lit and Toby and Harry Dresden to be hard-boiled detectives and Katherine Grayson as funny romances. But they end up all being pushed as "paranormal". Kay Hooper's category romances from the 80s, which were often published despite the paranormal elements, are ALSO being tagged as "paranormal" now. The mind boggles.

But then I consider Dorothy Sayers, Donna Andrews and Robert B Parker to be different enough that shelving them all in "Mystery" is kind of like shelving them all in "English". ;)

rysmiel

August 18 2010, 18:39:23 UTC 6 years ago

Harry Dresden would strike me as at best medium-boiled, fwiw. The closet I can think of to really hard-boiled in urban fantasy is Charlie Huston's Joe Pitt series, which are very much marketed as "crime that just happens to be about vampyres".

jenk

August 18 2010, 18:59:56 UTC 6 years ago

That could very well be. My intro to detectives was the Spenser books, and I've been shying away from the darker stuff the last few years - going for Larry Block's Bernie Rhodenbarr books, for example, but leaving his darker stuff on the shelf.

dianthus

August 19 2010, 01:14:01 UTC 6 years ago

My latest impression is that Harry doesn't drink enough to be hard-boiled ;-)

autographedcat

August 18 2010, 19:09:37 UTC 6 years ago

I avoided reading Lois McMaster Bujold for years because they had been classified as "Military SF", which was a genre I didn't particularly enjoy. I'm so glad I was convinced to try them anyway.

textileowl

August 18 2010, 19:38:15 UTC 6 years ago

Me too! Though mostly, I wasn't quite the age group for it while they were being published. I've really enjoyed the last couple of months while I read through the whole series.

I have read her other two series, which are fantasy and are also very good.

seanan_mcguire

August 19 2010, 18:09:22 UTC 6 years ago

I consider paranormal and urban fantasy to be different genres. Trouble is, then urban and epic get shelved together, and the confusion trundles on.