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[Previous entry: "WINTER MOON anthology -- One-third Good (Preeti)"] [Main Index] [Next entry: "News from the December 2005 Locus"] 12/02/2005 Entry: "Poll: New Urban Fantasy Series -- Hog Heaven or Overkill?" Here are the urban fantasy series that have been launched in the last couple of months or will be in the following year. That I know of. If you know of others, leave a comment with the info. (I'll add links to Amazon or the authors' sites later on.) You know, I have no idea what to call the books inspired by the success of Laurell K. Hamilton, Jim Butcher, and others other than urban fantasy. If you have a better term, please share.
This is in addition to the current series that are already popular, which leads to the poll question. [an error occurred while processing this directive]
Replies: 7 Comments I think I want to call it something else besides urban fantasy; it looks, in my admittedly brief exploration, like they all have to do with death, (as in ghosts, the undead, speaking with the dead)--urban gothic? Urban horror? Posted by Lisa @ 12/03/2005 10:27 AM ET Well...some have fairies and werewolves and witches. I think many could rightly be called "dark fantasy". Posted by Preeti @ 12/03/2005 02:26 PM ET Maybe eventually there will be a new genre category come out - maybe in book stores or on the books themselves it will say something else. I'm sure that at one time, there were less genres than there are now (Ex. of what I mean: no fantasy or no science fiction). Maybe the new "urban fantasy" or "dark fantasy" series will open up the category even more and eventually become a new genre. Posted by Selia @ 12/03/2005 08:23 PM ET At Borders, Hamilton and Buetler are in Sci-Fi. Vaugn and her Kitty serie is in Romanace. We put them all in Paranormal. We have solved the problem, but the Publishers are sitll debating. Posted by Christiane @ 12/04/2005 11:07 PM ET I'll read the ones that are the most original. I don't mind reading dark urban fantasies like this, but I do want to be entertained with a new twist on the idea! Posted by Joyce Ellen Armond @ 12/06/2005 09:07 AM ET I find the genre title "urban fantasy" a bit odd, myself, but I can't really complain--I had no idea what to call the book, myself, though I think of mine as "paranormal detective novels" and not as fantasy novels at all. But I think the point of the "urban fantasy" label is separation of the modern, city-based speculative fiction type from the bucolic or "heroic" fantasy fiction type. Generally, they all seem to deal with fantasy creatures and situations--vampires and witches/mages being particularly common--and they take place in a modern, urban or suburban setting. It's not really in our control, but usually up to the publishers and distributors to stick on a label they think will ID and sell the book to enough people, not necessarily to label it with dead-level accuracy. Still, so long as people read and enjoy them (mine at least--I'll be honest about my self-interest, here) I'm not going to pick nits about what they're called. kr Posted by Kat Richardson @ 12/06/2005 01:44 PM ET Thank you to all who voted in the poll. The readers of this site are quite decidedly in favor of the new wave of dark, gothic, sexy, horror, paranormal, urban (did I miss anything?) fantasy books. I mean, 63 percent of you are prepared to read every book in the list above based on its categorization alone. I guess "hog heaven" it is! Posted by Preeti @ 12/07/2005 10:55 PM ET
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