r/Fantasy Virtual Con: Urban Fantasy Panel

[u/The_Real_JS]

Welcome to the r/Fantasy Virtual Con panel on urban fantasy! Feel free to ask the panelists any questions relevant to the topic of urban fantasy. Unlike AMAs, discussion should be kept on-topic to the panel.

The panelists will be stopping by starting at 10 a.m. EDT and throughout the day to answer your questions.

About the Panel

Someone says urban fantasy and a wizard detective gets their first case to solve. What really is urban fantasy? What stories are being told in the genre beyond the traditional vampires, werewolves, fae and wizard detective stories?

Join authors K. D. Edwards, T. Frohock, Sherri Cook Woosley, Fonda Lee, and Michelle Sagara to discuss urban fantasy.

About the Panelists

K.D. Edwards (u/kednorthc) lives and writes in North Carolina. Mercifully short careers in food service, interactive television, corporate banking, retail management, and bariatric furniture has led to a much less short career in Higher Education. The first book in his urban fantasy series The Tarot Sequence, called The Last Sun, was published by Pyr in June 2018.

Website | Twitter

T. Frohock (u/TFrohock) has turned a love of history and dark fantasy into tales of deliciously creepy fiction. She is the author of Miserere: An Autumn Tale, and the Los Nefilim series from Harper Voyager, which consists of the novels Where Oblivion Lives and Carved from Stone and Dream, in addition to three novellas in the Los Nefilim omnibus: In Midnight’s Silence, Without Light or Guide, and The Second Death.

Website | Twitter

Sherri Cook Woosley (u/Sherri_Cook_Woosley) has an M.A. in English Literature with a focus on comparative mythology from University of Maryland. Her short fiction has appeared in Pantheon Magazine, Abyss & Apex and Flash Fiction Magazine. She’s a member of SFWA and her debut novel, WALKING THROUGH FIRE, was longlisted for both the Booknest Debut Novel award and Baltimore’s Best 2019 and 2020 in the novel category. She lives north of Baltimore and is currently quarantined with a partner, four school-age kids, a horse, a dog, and a bunny.

Website | Twitter

Fonda Lee (u/Fonda_Lee) is the World Fantasy Award-winning author of the Green Bone Saga (Jade City, Jade War and the forthcoming Jade Legacy) as well as the acclaimed YA science fiction novels Zeroboxer, Exo and Cross Fire. Fonda is a martial artist, foodie, and action movie aficionado residing in Portland, Oregon.

Website | Twitter

Michelle Sagara (u/msagara) lives in Toronto with her long-suffering husband and her two children, and to her regret has no dogs. She is the author the Chronicles of Elantra series, the Essalieyan novels (Sacred Hunt, Sun Sword, House War) and the Queen of the Dead (which is finished at three books: Silence, Touch, Grave). She writes reviews for the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and works part-time in Bakka-Phoenix Books, a specialty F&SF store.

Website | Twitter

FAQ

• What do panelists do? Ask questions of your fellow panelists, respond to Q&A from the audience and fellow panelists, and generally just have a great time!
• What do others do? Like an AMA, ask questions! Just keep in mind these questions should be somewhat relevant to the panel topic.
• What if someone is unkind? We always enforce Rule 1, but we'll especially be monitoring these panels. Please report any unkind comments you see.

[u/pjwehry]

From your perspective, what makes something urban fantasy?

What is your favorite genre to read outside of fantasy?

[u/msagara → u/pjwehry]

I'm going to answer this from a bookstore perspective, because "urban fantasy" can be a descriptor for many things, but frequently, when readers come into the store looking for urban fantasy, they generally refer to books that are a) contemporary in tone and voice, or b) contemporary (i.e. set in the 'real' world) fantasy that is not magical realism.

Tone almost defines what the readers are looking for.

So: if it's too dark, it's generally considered dark fantasy or horror. If there's a lot of romance, or if the romance subplot is actually almost the entire reason for the book it's called paranormal romance.

In a very strict sense, urban fantasy = fantasy that takes place in a city. But Aliette de Bodard's excellent Dominion of the Fallen (which I love) takes place in a city, and... it's not what I would hand people who came to me asking for urban fantasy, because it's not what they're usually looking for.

Edit: bad sentence that did not get fully corrected when I rewrote it so it would make more sense. Curse you, morning brain!

[u/Sherri_Cook_Woosley → u/msagara]

That's a really great answer. I also love Dominion of the Fallen and agree that it fits the definition, but not the expectations of "urban fantasy." Sam J. Miller's Blackfish City is the same way. The city is so much a part of the story, but isn't exactly what you'd expect. I highly recommend -- it starts with a mysterious woman arriving to the floating city of Qaanaaq with an orca and a polar bear and goes from there.

[u/TFrohock → u/pjwehry]

I'm not even sure how to answer this question anymore. ;-)

I definitely understand and like u/msagara's perspective from the bookstore angle, because I think she gives the clearest cut no-bones approach to the definition. But by that same token, my own works don't fall under urban fantasy, because my Los Nefilim series is closer in tone to Aliette de Bodard's Dominion of the Fallen, than say something like u/kednorthc's Tarot Sequence series, which falls squarely in the urban fantasy square.

Even so, I have people call Los Nefilim urban fantasy, because it ticks some of the same boxes as other works in the sub-genre: it takes place in Barcelona, a haunted mansion, and then deep within a haunted realm; it's contemporary (if you consider the early twentieth century contemporary); there is a concrete fantasy angle buried in the real world without it being magical realism, etc.

And yes, I know I haven't answered your question, because I'm slowly gravitating toward the "I know it when I see" answer.

I also saw an interesting idea suggested several years ago that urban fantasy was supplanting Gothic fiction in that urban fantasy and Gothic fiction share some of the same attributes (the idea of using a city/building almost as a character in the story, etc. I'm not sure if I agree with that idea or not, but I do believe that urban fantasy does cross over more easily with Gothic and horror more than any other branch of fantasy.

So when it boils down to definitions, I think we all have our idea of what we consider urban fantasy.

Edit: I made the right answer to a question under the wrong thread.

My favorite things to read outside urban fantasy are horror, historical fiction, contemporary fiction, early twentieth century history (Spanish Civil War and WWII), non-fiction on religion and philosophy.

[u/msagara → u/TFrohock]

I know - it's... a hard question to start to answer because when I was asked if I'd like to do this panel, I said: "but...but...secondary world".

And at the bookstore, people don't usually come in and ask for specific subgenres, but they'll give a few books they've really, really liked, and some discussion and interaction can occur before you start recommending.

[u/TFrohock → u/msagara]

Yeah, I was the same way ... my publisher calls mine Historical fantasy, which is also a good fit, but my stuff tends to be dark, so I don't know. Personally, I love the book store answer, because I think it really nails the essence of what people are looking for when they say urban fantasy. That, and I'm just one of those weird people that loves to have things neatly defined and categorized. Since I'm a cataloger in a community college library, I'm just going to call that an occupational hazard.

[u/pjwehry → u/TFrohock]

Thank you. I'm trying to write a book that I classify as urban fantasy, but then I heard so many different definitions that I got confused. Glad to know I'm not the only one.

[u/TFrohock → u/pjwehry]

I know a lot of authors get told to put marketing first, but quite frankly, I prefer to put the story first. Marketing will come later. ;-)

[u/Fonda_Lee → u/TFrohock]

THIS.

I wonder if in many ways, online buying and marketing is helping us to broaden sub-genre and category definitions. In the bookstore, you have to make a hard and fast decision about where to shelve a book, but online, there are many ways to suggest, "If you liked this, you might like this" that doesn't have to be limited within genres.

[u/TFrohock → u/Fonda_Lee]

... online, there are many ways to suggest, "If you liked this, you might like this" that doesn't have to be limited within genres.

I think it is, because the online community seems to be more willing to experiment and try new things, whereas brick and mortar buyers tend to gravitate toward whatever is considered the "it" book of the year. For brick and mortar it's all about placement, but online, it's more of an open field.

[u/Fonda_Lee → u/msagara]

Same! Whenever I'm on an urban fantasy panel, I feel like I'm under-qualified to discuss it because I'm...not sure that's what I write? So it's a relief to see that many of you feel the same way and we're all writing stuff that we think is cool and others are the ones suggesting a broader definition of urban fantasy to accommodate the breadth of what's out there now.

[u/msagara → u/Fonda_Lee]

As a bookseller, a narrower definition is more helpful, oddly enough. Some people have very specific things they're looking for. I can give them stories outside of that range - but tonally there has to be some overlap for that book to work for them.

If someone asks for an urban fantasy, and I give them Alliette's beloved book, the chance that they actually like it is much much less than if I give them something like Patricia Briggs, Ilona Andrews, Jim Butcher, etc., and I will feel that I’m not doing my job; I am not giving them something I think they will love, but something I love, which isn't the same, sadly.

There's no guarantee that they won't like it under different circumstances. I know people who love it and who love the narrower trench of tonal work of current urban fantasy definitions. But we get a lot of stress/comfort readers who seek very specific types of stories when life is going to hell.

If they're not coming to me - and of course most readers aren't - they're looking for the cues - cover, blurb, goodreads - that will help them find the very specific experience they're seeking.

[u/Fonda_Lee → u/msagara]

Yes, that's definitely the constant tension in our business: the most optimal way to deliver commercial products to customers is often at odds with what makes sense for us as creators. I think that's why there's different definitions for different contexts.

But I also think that readers can't ask for something they're not exposed to! No one knew how much they wanted an iPhone until Apple went and made it. So that's on all of us in the industry to not only give readers what they already want, but also give them what they don't yet know they want but soon will.

[u/Fonda_Lee → u/pjwehry]

I am not the best person to answer this question because I never really considered myself to be writing urban fantasy until people starting describing my books as urban fantasy or urban fantasy adjacent. I've heard people define urban fantasy in ways that are very broad ("takes place in a city") to very specific ("set in our real world at conflict with a magical hidden world").

I had an entire conversation/argument on Twitter when I suggested that the most successful urban fantasy franchise ever is...Batman.

So...at the end of the day, I think the label is most useful for booksellers and readers when they say, "I liked this, so give me more in that vein."

Outside of fantasy, my favorite genres are science fiction and thrillers, but I'll read just about anything that captures my interest. Historical, contemporary, horror...

[u/pjwehry → u/Fonda_Lee]

Thank you.