McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
What do you wish would be done MORE in urban fantasy?
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: Qualapec on November 22, 2007, 06:30:08 PM ---You may want to check out the Urban Shaman series by C.E. Murphy. She has quite a bit of Celtic influence in the stories, as well as the Native American mythology that plays a VERY strong part in it.
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Thing is, I have a very very high bar for Celtic-type fantasies because of having lived the first twenty years of my life in Ireland and hating, with a passion like unto a thousand exploding suns, certain kinds of twee romanticism that show up in a lot of Celtic-influenced fantasies, particularly by USAn authors; will keep an eye out, but it will be a wary one.
For what it's worth, the only Celtic-influenced fantasies I can think of that have actually worked for me are Ian McDonald's utterly excellent King of Morning Queen of Day, and some recent Lisa Tuttle, The Mysteries and to a lesser extent The Silver Bough. And the Celtic gods in Poul Anderson's The Broken Sword work right, it's not at all urban but it's a classic founding work of twentieth century fantasy that everyone should read.
--- Quote ---Also, maybe a character that is actually in a different country than the U.S. or U.K.
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There's a Liz Williams series with is a buddy-cop premise with one cop in a future Singapore and the other a demon from a complicatedly bureaucratic Chinese hell which I am currently looking out for the first volume of.
Also, though they are marketed as straight mysteries, you might want to look up Colin Cotterill's The Coroner's Lunch and sequels, about an elderly doctor in Laos who becomes coroner in
the 1976 (IIRC) communist takeover and who has a peculiar relationship with the spirits of the dead that helps him solve crimes. Very funny and sweet in a peculiar way. Sweet without sentimental's a very difficult balance to get right.
--- Quote ---What would you prefer to P.I.? Someone who just stumbles onto something because of natural curiosity?
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Or someone with a backstory or family history that gets them entangled with whatever odd stuff is going on. Or someone working within a mortal organisation that has a stake in the supernatural world, like Bob Howard in Charlie Stross' Laundry books.
carpathic:
I would think a story told from the perspective of an evil monster. Not one that is good in anyway and not apologetic for being bad. And not a bloody vampire. The mummy book by Anne Rice started to look that way, then they stopped.
A troll in Today's New York city that really does eat children who pass over a bridge. That would be kind of interesting.
Failing that, a story that focused on a more nuanced view of good and evil...
fivestyle:
Someone could modernize the cthulu mythos.
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: fivestyle on November 23, 2007, 02:50:46 PM ---Someone could modernize the cthulu mythos.
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Like Charlie Stross has in The Atrocity Archive and The Jennifer Morgue ?
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: Lightsabre on November 22, 2007, 01:04:15 AM ---Less neurotic sex, more updating for today.
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Oh, and on the "less neurotic sex" front, more sex that people are civilised and sensible about and do not either angst over or get all stickily romantic and centre their lives around, but then I want that in most genres.
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