In Defence of Urban Fantasy

When Bastard Books did a series of guest posts discussing urban fantasy I was interested. However i was a little surprised by what was actually written. The guest posters by their own admission are for the most part not urban fantasy readers.

They give the impression that they don’t really like the genre, and they have their reasons. One was due to lack of ‘epicness’ in urban fantasy books, and I’ll cover that later. The other reasons tend to be the proliferation of sexually explicit storylines and lurid covers. The issue of highly traditional relationships to the exclusion of non-traditional pairings was also highlighted.

I was initially going to let the cover thing pass, because it’s something the genre tends to be known for, and I’ve even made jokes about it myself. I have looked at some covers and wondered if the books themselves are set in temperate climes, which is why the people on the covers wear so little clothing. Then I actually began to think about it and realized that it’s a myth. Urban fantasy by and large doesn’t favour those sort of covers, paranormal romance does.

People don’t seem to make a distinction between the two, and it needs to be made. Paranormal romance, and romance in this context generally stands for sex, is an offshoot of the romance genre itself. The main difference being that it features vampires and werewolves. It is true that booksellers do shelve the two; paranormal romance and urban fantasy together and there are examples of crossover, but they are definitely separate genres with their own readerships and marketing channels.

I first discovered what is recognized as urban fantasy these days the same way as many others via Laurell K Hamilton’s Anita Blake. I liked the Anita Blake books to begin with. Anita was a tough talking, hard-edged necromancer who was hell bent on vengeance against vampires and she didn’t care about the laws that protected them in the world Hamilton created for her heroine to operate in. At some point the sex became more important than the story and I gave up the series; it’s still going. The Anita Blake series created their own subgenre; vampire porn.

I stayed away from the genre for some time after that, but picked up a book by Simon Green called Nightside. It was okay, but not outstanding. While reading reviews for it I noticed people referencing the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher, so sought out the first book in the series; Storm Front.

I began an ongoing love affair with the Dresdens, and I still enjoy them immensely. Butcher doesn’t shy away from sex, but he doesn’t highlight it. It isn’t the focus of the books, the story arc and Harry Dresden’s interpersonal relationships are.

It wasn’t until I saw Seanan McGuire win the John W. Campbell award at Worldcon 2010, the first urban fantasy author to do so, that I investigated the genre seriously. Rosemary and Rue, the first of Seanan’s Toby Daye books was a revelation. No vampires or werewolves and a really interesting heroine and world. From that point on I’ve sought out concepts within the genre that are different. Faeries, like those in the Toby Dayes, are becoming more and more popular.

Now comes the cover criticism. Once I read it I initially agreed with it, then thought hang on, that’s not right. Chris McGrath’s Dresden and Toby covers never have what is thought of as a typical urban fantasy cover. They’re always fully clothed and often in fairly dark settings, the one possible exception was One Salt Sea and as Toby was a mermaid at the time I think we can let that one pass.

There’s Ben Aaronovitch’s Folly books on which the UK covers display road maps, and what’s in between them isn’t what people think of as urban fantasy either. With a bi racial protagonist and African river goddesses.

I started really looking at the covers after this and thinking about them and I was hard put to find the ones with a hard bodied woman wearing a midriff bearing tank top, posing in such a way that she shows off both her toned body and her collection of tattoos. They exist, and some of them are what I term as urban fantasy, but most are for paranormal romances.

Even a series that straddles the line between urban fantasy and paranormal romance like Charlotte Harris’ Sookie Stackhouses has never used a cover of that sort. The original US covers, which are still in circulation, are bright and almost cartoony in execution. The UK covers are generally a solid cover with a blood splash.

The issue of urban fantasy not being epic, well that perplexes me too. I’m yet to find an epic fantasy where the hero rides an animated dinosaur through a city scape, it happened in a Harry Dresden book, and Harry regularly saves the world, plus the actual scope of the books (it looks at tagging out around 20) is truly epic. Tanya Huff’s Enchantment Emporium had a dragon in it, and some very interesting non-traditional relationships. Atticus O’Sullivan, the 2,000 year old druid from Kevin Hearne’s Iron Druid series took on Norse Gods in one book of that. Laura Resnick’s fabulous Esther Diamond series is about a struggling actress who just happens to get herself into supernatural situations, they’re more comedic than anything and the covers are wonderfully whacky.

You’ve even got books like A. Lee Martinez’s Gil’s All-Fright Diner and Catherine Jinks’ Reformed Vampire Support Group which take the tropes of urban fantasy and turn them on their heads.

I haven’t yet even covered Gail Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate which took steam punk added vampires and werewolves, a wonderfully strong heroine and gave us what Jane Austen might have produced if she’d ever decided to dabble in urban fantasy.

Have a look around with eyes and mind wide open and you may find yourself pleasantly surprised.

Right Hand Magic by Nancy A. Collins

Right Hand Magic by Nancy A. Collins is another entry in the urban fantasy market. It has paranormal romance elements as well as urban fantasy, but only rarely strays into paranormal romance territory and the human protagonist’s love interest is not a werewolf or a vampire (werewolves do make an appearance, but no vampires as yet), but a magical race called Kymerans.

What attracted me to the book, normally any mention of paranormal romance is enough to steer me in the opposite direction, was the premise that there is a borough in Manhattan which is specifically there for magical races to live in, Golgotham, the setting of Right Hand Magic, is not unlike Fabletown in the comic book series Fables, one main difference being that no one knows Fabletown exists, whereas Golgotham is actually tourist attraction. Where else can you see leprechauns rubbing shoulders with dryads or take a old fashioned cab ride from a genuine centaur?

The fact that very few humans live in Golgotham is largely what attracts trust fund baby and metal sculptress Tate to the area. She rents a room in a house owned by an attractive Kymeran named Hexe, who practises a beneficial form of magic known as right hand, as opposed to the left hand kind which puts curses and the like on unsuspecting people. From the moment Hexe appears at the door to answer Tate he has love interest written all over him and that’s the way it goes, but along the way to romance for Tate and Hexe there’s the bust up of an illegal fighting ring run by a vicious and unscrupulous Kymeran mob boss. The finale to that is a hoot with the mob bosses crew going head to head with shapeshifters, demons and a motorcycle gang whose membership is composed of valkyries and amazons.

It’s a fun read, and while the excursions into paranormal romance territory were at times excruciating they were only mildly painful and not explicit, and they were also thankfully rare. The concepts in Left Hand Magic were great, there’s a lot to like about it. Nancy Collins is a little heavy on the exposition early on and at times I felt like I was reading a vistors guide to Golgotham rather than a novel. This does settle down about halfway through and the story starts to take shape, rather than meander on as it was before that point. This also lets readers get to know the three main characters of Tate, Hexe and the runaway shapeshifter or werecat Lukas. Of the three I tended to like Lukas the most, he was the most believable. Hexe was a little too good to be true and tate vacillated between being clueless and the tough tattooed butt kicker that populates many urban fantasy and paranormal romance novels.

It’s pretty disposable fiction, but it was enjoyable and easy to read. I’ve got the sequel (Left Hand Magic) ready to go and I can see this series becoming a bit of a guilty pleasure for me, because I do love the way it deals with mythical races. The dwarves subway and their kingdom directly under the streets of New York was a delight.