Urban Fantasy May Releases and General Book Chatter

Looks like May is a big month for new urban fantasy releases. Tor.com has compiled a list of twenty-two new titles, many of them young adult – 45% in fact.

I’m definitely going to check out Cassie Alexander’s Nightshifted. That sounds like a hoot and a half. It especially intrigues me because it has a bit of a different premise for a change. Instead of the perfectly trained kick-ass fighter heroine, Edie Spence is a nurse who works in a secret paranormal hospital ward. Ha. Definitely sounds fresh to me.

Talking about new releases, I gulped Kevin Hearne’s new Iron Druid Chronicles release down like tiramisu (= best dessert in the universe). I don’t often actually get adrenaline-jitters about new releases anymore, but Atticus O’Sullivan and his get definitely give me hot flashes of anticipation. And his fourth adventure, Tricked, was just as wild, funny and satisfying a ride as the three before that. Awe. Some.

Another book I discovered for myself two weeks ago that knocked my mind and blew my socks off was Angelfall by Susan Ee. That is one roller-coaster ride of action and angst in a dystopian world ravaged by an angel-apocalypse. It has a five-star rating at Amazon from 366 out of 441 reviews, and it deserves every one of them. Now I’m not usually big on angel stories, but my gut instinct made me download this one on to my kindle, and I’m glad I did. I still catch myself thinking about this story and wondering how it’s going to go on, hoping that the next book isn’t too far down the road anymore. The only crux is, that there’s no release date set for the sequel yet…

On the book-to-movie front, I naturally had to see how The Hunger Games had been adapted to the screen. I read the book shortly after it was released in 2008, so I remembered the basics but wasn’t constantly comparing book and movie, which probably made it more enjoyable than it would have been had I read the book only recently – not that the movie differs greatly. IMO, it’s actually an amazing adaptation, staying very true to the plot, the feel, the characters, the look (as I imagined it). I especially enjoyed the glimpses you get of Gale as he watches (or doesn’t watch) the Games; in the book, because of Katniss’ first-person POV, you don’t see him once she leaves her district. Reading the sequels, you of course realize what he must have been going through, but seeing it on screen was nice nevertheless.

Katniss and Gale

My Favorite Read Of The Year (So Far)

I don’t usually post reviews here, but I feel obligated to slap every fellow (urban) fantasy nerd in the head with Hounded, yelling YOU HAVE TO READ THIS!!!

Amazon

Not only is the cover over-the-top-of-Mount-Everest awesome, but what’s inside is so much unexpected fun that I read it in one complete sitting and almost cried with joy when I figured out that the next two instalments are coming out tomorrow (“Hexed” June 7 - that's TOMORROW!!! YAY!!!) and in a month (“Hammered” July 5), meaning I wouldn’t have to wait for years for them.

Here’s Amazon’s blurb:

Atticus O’Sullivan, last of the Druids, lives peacefully in Arizona, running an occult bookshop and shape-shifting in his spare time to hunt with his Irish wolfhound Oberon (whose love for Genghis Khan, Star Wars, French Poodles, sausages and Atticus himself provides the best comic relief I’ve read in a long time). His neighbors and customers think that this handsome, tattooed Irish dude is about twenty-one years old—when in actuality, he’s twenty-one centuries old. Not to mention: He draws his power from the earth, possesses a sharp wit, and wields an even sharper magical sword known as Fragarach, the Answerer.

Unfortunately, a very angry Celtic god wants that sword, and he’s hounded Atticus for centuries. Now the determined deity has tracked him down, and Atticus will need all his power—plus the help of a seductive goddess of death, his vampire and werewolf team of attorneys, a sexy bartender possessed by a Hindu witch, and some good old-fashioned luck of the Irish—to kick some Celtic arse and deliver himself from evil.

Action, humor, excitement, myth and especially the unlimited world building (every mythological, folkloric and religious faction from Native American over Irish, Norse, Eastern European to Indian is alive and kicking) make this a fresh new romp through the urban-fantasy-realms.

The only thing you shouldn’t expect is lovey-dovey romance - though that doesn’t mean Atticus lives a life of celibacy when not even certain female deities can keep their hands off this studly ‘young’ Druid…

Kudos to Kevin Hearne for this amazing debut!

Finding Genre Niches

Great post on How To Find Your Niche In Urban Fantasy. A lot of people in the writing business are saying or predicting that Urban Fantasy is on the decline; there are too many vampires and werewolves and fairies already out in books or being written about, that it’s difficult to find a unique and fresh take on them. But Kevin Hearne, author of a new UF series, The Iron Druid Chronicles, makes a valid statement:

“There are still plenty of niches in urban fantasy that need filling. To my knowledge, there are no gay or lesbian main characters; there’s a profound lack of gnomish heroes trying to make a difference in a world dominated by human giants; there are no troll girls who think there must be something more to life than guarding bridges, and so on. Go see for yourself; the ideas are out there, waiting for you in the bookstore, between the books that are already on the shelves, screaming in all the voices of the world’s mythology that they deserve some attention.”

There are so many other magical critters besides weres, vamps, shifters and fairies, waiting around in legends, myths and history. A lot of them sexy, disturbed and haunted as hell - a great premise for featuring in modern UF. After all: you can take the kid out of mythology, but you can’t take mythology out of the kid.

I think/hope I’ve managed to do so with my current work in progress…

On Genre: Urban Fantasy Versus Supernatural

Today I want to blog about something I haven’t been able to get out of my mind. On Friday, literary agent Rachelle Gardner reopened herself to queries after a several month long hiatus, and wrote a post about what she’s looking for.

In the category “Adult Fiction”, Ms. Gardner wrote that she is interested in “… Supernatural, … No fantasy or sci-fi.”

As a writer who classifies “her” genre as urban fantasy, and after a quickie research about the term “supernatural genre”, this prompted my following question in the comments section: “… I always pegged "Supernatural" in the fantasy-genre. Or at least the urban fantasy sub-genre. So basically, you're interested in fiction books about spirits, demons, ghosts, etc. - things based on myth and folklore - but don't want to see orcs, elves, vamps and werewolves? I'm just curious as to where you draw the "supernatural" line?”

To which she answered: “You're correct in your assessment. Other agents have blogged about the differences between the genres so I'm not going into detail here.“

So now I’m on a mission to find such blog posts or any other kind of information that will help me draw a line between “supernatural” and “urban fantasy”. Though I think that line is rather a widely overlapping grey zone littered with big-toothed landmines (especially if I were to add “paranormal romance” to the mix; but I will abstain - here’s  a good explanation for the difference between urban fantasy and paranormal romance).

Also, I noticed in 2011’s Guide to Literary Agents, many other agents also listed “supernatural” as what they’re looking for, while not being interested in fantasy or science fiction. I’m never sure whether I can send a query for my urban fantasy novel to these agents. Of course, since I research an agent and what s/he represents before shooting her/him my query, I find out if “my” novel falls under his/her “supernatural” classification. Still, I’m now taking this occasion as a sign to further investigate the subject.

Thanks to Ms. Gardner, I have a good starting point. After researching her clients, I found she represents books like The Resurrection by Mike Duran, which features spectral manifestations, visions, curses, resurrections, altars of adoration, and an autistic child prophet. These are all elements of the “spiritual supernatural”, as I’m going to call it, based on faith and spirituality. By comparison, the typical urban fantasy critters like werewolves and vamps are probably better described as “fantastical supernatural”.

Obviously, this definition creates some overlaps. I know several urban fantasies that feature spiritual supernaturals, like ghosts, spirits and demons. Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson-series for example features ghosts and demons as well as vamps and werewolves. Necromancy and faith are also key themes in Anita Blake’s world by Laurell K. Hamilton, in which vampires and shapeshifters thrive next to ghosts and fairies.

Despite these overlaps, I feel like I understand that fine line - I mean grey zone - better than before. I can’t say that all agents define the differences this way; I’d have to do more research to be sure. Every agent is different, so thoroughly researching an agent’s likes and dislikes before querying is always a wise approach anyway, and will give me the specifics on his/her perception of genre classifications.