Urban Fantasy: What’s Weird, What’s Next?

Book CoverSonya Bateman and I want to know: what do you want to see in urban fantasy this year? I don’t mean vampires and werewolves, Battle Extreme round XVII. Urban fantasy has expanded to include a whole mess of folklore and mythology, and it shifts rapidly to include things I’d never heard of before. So what are you interested in, and what are you tired of? You like genies, dislike faeries? Dig selkies living in the Central Park pond (they’d be very green) but are tired of crouching gnome, hidden leprechaun? What weird thing would you never expect to see in an urban fantasy? (I am personally hoping for an entire LINE of Sheela na Gig urban fantasies: She’ll kick your ass… and her vagina doubles as a U-Store-It!)

Sonya has two ARCs of her next book to give away to random commenters (US only please), to increase your impulse to Google bizarre mythology. Hit me with your best folkloric oddity. 

Comments are Closed

  1. LadyRhian says:

    I like the idea of Wereravens. Or how about non-usual weres, like Werelynx, were-coyotes, werebears, Wereowls… or how about a wereswan? I know an early Anita Blake had one of those, but swans do mate for life, or so they say…

    What about creatures from Voodoo? There’s an unused mythology. Or Pooka, for the unused faerie-creatures demographic. Satyrs, Nixies, Pixies, Naiads, Oreads, Nereids, Dryads… there are many unrealized concepts from the world of myth and legends.

    Or look at eastern legends: Tanuki, Kitsune, Yokai, Oriental Dragons (which tend to be associated with rivers, clouds and water rather than the fire of Western Dragons). Or Japanese mythology- imagine someone who falls in love with Susano-no-Mikoto. Or the god, Monkey, Or one of the Bodhisatvas. Or Asuras?

    What would not like to see any more: I will definitely put my vote on incompletely thought out world-building or books where it’s pretty much all sex, all the time. I’d like to see less of what has been done before, like Alpha male equalling barely this side of asshole. I like seeing stories where the author turns the usual on its head, like Patricia Briggs Alpha and Omega series, or her Mercy Thompson series. How about a Vampire who used to be rich but lost it all in the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and is still struggling to come back from that?

    How about a vampire who was never rich? Used to be a bum, got snacked on and turned, which caused him to straighten up a bit, but life is still a struggle for him? How come we never see any vampires made in the middle ages with Smallpox scars? Or a vampire who used to be a werewolf, but because those two races hate each other, is shunned by both? How about we stop beating the European myths that have been over done, and do the ones that haven’t?

    And for the lady who mentioned wanting books about Selkies, Virginia Kantra did that, a trilogy ending in a book called “Sea Lord”. It didn’t work too well for me, but YMMV.

    I’m looking forward to someone like Cupid- a guy with wings who can shift into a Putti-like form and whose job it is to bring love to the world- and then he ends up falling in love- but he doesn’t want to shoot her with one of his arrows, he wants her to fall in love with him for him- heck there could be a whole race of putti-like beings, and their love destroying counterparts who get the arrows of lead that cause people to fall out of love or to hate each other. Imagine one of them falling in love with a mortal!

    Spamword- across57. Across at least 57 cultures, all we can find to write about are Western Vampires, Western Werewolves and European myths and legends? Really?

  2. Becky says:

    Wen Spencer used the oni, kitsune, and elves in Tinker and Wolf Who Rules.  I hear she’s writing again after taking a break for a while, and I have my fingers crossed that there are more books in this series.

    Kelley Armstrong had a kitsune in a recent short story about Jeremy, the head of the American werewolf pack in her Women of the Otherworld series.  And there have been strong hints that there will be more Japanese mythology and creatures to come.

  3. Faye Gallant says:

    JamieSings said:

    I love, love, LOVE dragons and unicorns and don’t think they get enough work as heroes in books.

    How about a virgin unicorn hero who is torn between his propensity to drool over similarly chaste blondes and his growing attraction to a sexually experienced, empowered, modern (urban) heroine?
    Maybe he was a Russian prince cursed by Baba Yaga for being narrow-minded and unappreciative of female sexual power? Immigrated to NYC following the communist revolution? Fears kitsch yet is kitsch?

    Please?

  4. Kat Sheridan says:

    For Lan, who wanted Mermaids, and Jane, who wants the other-wordly creatures to have saomething to do with changing the world, you both need to pick up Judi Fennell’s first three books about Mer people. And the latest, Catch of a Lifetime, includes a relationship between a Mer woman who wants to form a joint commission with humans to bring awareness of their activities on the environment, and an environmentalist, who just wants a normal relationship. Fun and humorous and heart wrenching. And I’ve beta read the first in her next trilogy. Can you say djinn? And hot from the first page!

  5. Kim says:

    I know little about Urban Fantasy, but if you are looking for a strong women who takes no prisoners, consider Pele, the Hawaiian goddess of fire, lightning, dance, volcanoes and violence (no relation to Pele of Brazil).  Hawaiian mythology explains how the Polynesians came to settle the islands 2400 miles from anything but Pele stands out with her lovers’ quarrels, temper tandrums, and take-what-she wants attitude … she happens to live in Kilaueua, one of the earth’s most active volcanoes (that continuously spews lava into the sea, thus enlarging her island of Hawaii).

  6. Wendy says:

    Well, if you’re cool with m/m, you can’t get much more adorable sexy sweetness than Ann Somerville’s Fluffy Tale.

    (yeah, she never calls the kem ferrets, but we know the truth)

    Cool, thanks! I’ll totally check it out.

  7. scribblingirl says:

    No wonder I love this site! Look at all the suggestions that have been posted! I don’t have anything to contribute as far as what I would like to see, everything posted sounds great!

  8. AllyJS says:

    Agree with all the ones mentioning Russian folklore. Or in that vein, what about the classic ballet stories? A lot of them deal with enough passion, betrayal and magic to be amazing.

  9. Kingfishereyes says:

    Ah Lynne how I agree with you, also I love the Carthys and watersons 😛 “A Dark Light” and “Holy heathens and green man” are amazing!

  10. avrelia says:

    I wanted to add a couple of things to my previous comment:
    first, I am not in US, so not here for a contest.

    second, though I stand by my Baba Yaga suggestion, urban fantasy doesn’t need to appropriate any old mythology to be awesome. Cities, urban settings can have great myths of their own. Statues that are coming alive, raccoons that have sinister plans, crazy cat ladies that rule magical underbelly of a city, buildings with misplaces time and space… I want more weird and whimsical in my urban fantasy, and less vampires.

  11. Lee says:

    If we’re going to do Urban Fantasy what about all those lonely crocodile people in the sewers?

    I really love stories where mythologies clash – American Gods was not a romance, but the mixture of Norse and Egyptian mythology was fascinating. If you are in an urban setting, it is natural to see clash of cultures.

    As an American, I would like to see more explorations of Native American mythology.  There are a diverse range of myths just in the American west.

  12. Alex Ward says:

    I just finished the Dark Heavens trilogy by Kylie Chan, which combines Western (Aussie ex-pat in Hong Kong) and Eastern (god in human form) characters and cultures into a fabulous, richly textured combination of romance, action adventure, and exploration of Chinese culture and mythology. I particularly liked the obstacle preventing the hero (Xuan Wu, the Black Turtle) and heroine (Emma Donahue, nanny) from consumating their relationship. Another trilogy continues the story and is yet to be published but the writing and tension are so good I am looking forward to it rather than resenting being caught up in a longer series than I bargained for.
    There are were-creatures (dragon, tiger, turtle), wholly non-Christian demons, gods and goddesses, and a pantheon of mythology I was totally unaware of until now.

    Spam word: them37 – I would read every book in this series even if there were 37 of them!

  13. Philippa says:

    I could see how Bigfoot could work [look at the ‘Sanctuary’ version]. How about making a female one?

    An erotic take on the original Pygmalion.  Maybe with a male stature this time!

    Tuath de Danaan.

    Owain and the Wild hunt [that could be really dangerous and gothic].

    Green Man [woman?]

    Undercover superheroes/people with special abilities.

    Spirits of place

    Nyads and dryads

    Ent-like creatures

    Blodouedd [or other magically created beings]

    Proper old fashioned wizards and similar.

    Bards

    Time travel

    Alternative realities [maybe a hero/ine from one in which magic is real or similar]

  14. Shaheen says:

    Faye Gallant said:

    How about a virgin unicorn hero who is torn between his propensity to drool over similarly chaste blondes and his growing attraction to a sexually experienced, empowered, modern (urban) heroine?
    Maybe he was a Russian prince cursed by Baba Yaga for being narrow-minded and unappreciative of female sexual power? Immigrated to NYC following the communist revolution? Fears kitsch yet is kitsch?

    Okay, you’re on. You write this and I’ll read it. At least one confirmed sale!

    Spam word: anti38 – no, no, no – pro38 reasons I would read this theoretical book

  15. SheaLuna says:

    (Live in London but also have a US addy so leave it to you whether or not to include me in the draw.)

    I gotta say, I never get tired of vampires or weres or loads of sex or tons of hot guys.  I know they’re done to death.  Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.  I luuuuurves them.

    But I’d love to see more UFs with angels, dragons and pantheons (Greek and Egyptian being particular faves.).  Alternative histories are always a HUGE fave of mine (Though technically scifi, Thomas Harlan’s answer to “What if the Aztec empire never fell?” totally rocked my socks.).  I also agree with @Lee about the clash of mythologies/cultures.  And I do love djinn… lol

    For me it’s less about the “type” of being/magic, and more about the story and characters.  So if someone writes a rocking good story about a were-cockroach, I am SO there.  Ok, maybe not.

  16. David Cheater says:

    I think that mermaid stories fit the ‘were-fish’ category.  I think a lot more can be done with the were-Crow or were-Swan stories.

    How about a vampire who was never rich?

    A few years back Peter David had a funny reverse were-wolf story called “Howling Mad” that included an inpovershed vampire.  I’d love to see more stories where the romantic hero is also a loyal pet.

    There’s simply not enough Jewish heroes in romance novels.

    I’d love if there were more (some?) writers who would write about JEWISH folklore:  Golemim, dybbuks, nephilim, Giborim and Sheddim/She`irim.  (Just hate the term “Judeo-Christian”.  I’m not a prefix!)  There are traditional stories where each of them hit romantic tropes:
    1/  The Golem is a being with a spirit but not a soul.  Some stories have the Golem earn a soul or be granted a soul through the Magic Hoo-Hoo.
    2/  If the nasty dead wife isn’t enough of a distraction for the Hero what happens when she takes over the body of the Heroine?
    3/  Nephilim= forbidden love children of Angels and human women.
    4/  Goliath wasn’t the only giant.  Wouldn’t they call humans ‘little people’?
    5/  Sheddim/She`irim.  Sometimes translated as Satyrs and sometimes translated as Djinni.  They live in the areas abandoned by humans.  How about a snotty Real Estate Agent trying to evict a squatter who turns out to have very hairy legs?

    For Native American legends it would be nice if the people writing them would do more research.  (ie The Navajo don’t think that were-coyotes are nice.  The Windigo is not the guardian of the forest.  The West Coast Indians talk A LOT about a female Sasquatch, D’sonokwa.)

  17. Faye Gallant says:

    Thanks, Shaheen! I’ll see what I can do- I’m a little in love with the idea, myself. 🙂

  18. Cathy says:

    I really enjoy the stories about shape-shifters, but some days I think I’d be nice to have an alternative to the dominating, hela-crazy sex driven, alpha males. How about an animal that most people think of as cute and cuddly but that can be suprisingly fierce – like bunnies. Ever hear a bunny growl? Been charged or biten by an angry bunny? They can be scary – trust me!

  19. Lane says:

    @ Janie:

    UF with the Egyptian slant sounds very interesting.

    Oh, yeah. I always figured there was some gloriously and tragically romantic reason Set went from the hero who defeated
    Apep to the bad boy of the pantheon. (Then again, considering the ‘cost’ of the battle, I’m not sure how that would work out, romance-wise.)

  20. Elemental says:

    For all the jokes about mummies as heroes, Anne Rice actually did a book like that, with the hero being a solar-powered immortal, rather than a bandaged shambler. Imhotep from the first two “Mummy” movies is another example.

    A variant on a mage or witch hero where they actually integrate the modern world into their magic somewhat would be nice to see. Something like a “reality hacker”, someone who can talk to the spirits in tenement buildings or call up a plastic elemental, for example. The usual struggle between magic & technology feels a bit stale by now, plus the theme of “everything was better and more wonderful before the Industrial Revolution” is a bit preachy and unrealistic. Personally, I kind of like the Internet, vaccines and sewer systems, and it’s a bit funny to see mages disdain the scientific method, and then use their codified, reliable magic formulae.

    I’m outside the US, so this and my other post, the second one, can’t be entered—should have mentioned that before, oops.

  21. AllyJS says:

    How about an animal that most people think of as cute and cuddly but that can be suprisingly fierce – like bunnies. Ever hear a bunny growl? Been charged or biten by an angry bunny? They can be scary – trust me!

    I would totally read the werebunny as long as the author doesn’t go the obvious playboy route.

  22. e.lee says:

    Now its angels instead of vampires.

    how about series about succubi and incubi, and repositioned every mythological heroine/ hero in a modern citry

  23. e.lee says:

    Sumerian mythology has potential. Or relocate Greek mythological hero/ines in a modern urban fantasy setting

  24. P. N. Elrod says:

    How about a nice, shape-shifting Hunky Punk?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunky_Punk

  25. Star Opal says:

    Tennin – they’re like angel’s/fairies/swan maidens/selkies all in one! Legend-wise if you steal they’re kimonos they can’t return to Heaven. The versions I’ve heard always start with a man who comes upon one (or a group) while they’re bathing. In one the man steals and hides the kimono and when the tennin asks for it back he demands she marry him (eventually she finds it and returns to Heaven leaving behind him and their children). In another one the man wanted to keep the kimono, as a reminder of her beauty, but when he realizes she needs it, gives it back and gets a wish in return.

    See, you could do like a group of them who got stuck on earth. Or flip it around to male tennin. Or (as in the case of Ayashi no Ceres) you could have her be murderously incarnated.

  26. teshara says:

    I’m all for a hot Loki full of chaos and passion.
    He should wear tweed somewhere in it. I don’t know why…

  27. Janie says:

    Lane—that was funny, good point!
    Philippa—have you read The Owl Service by Alan Garner?  It was so good (about Blodeuedd)

    I second the person who would like to see a wider range of blue-collar jobs too. 

    How would it work to go about bringing Egyptian pantheon characters into, say, a city in the U.S., or Vancouver or whatever? 

    Could there be some sexy secret Afro-Brazilian brotherhood of Capoeira dudes who travel the world fighting injustice and saving people from entrenched systems of domination?  Or maybe they could fight the other secret Brotherhood that mindmelds with politicians and causes them to transfer huge amounts of taxpayer money into banks and whatnot.  Or, they could just fight demons.

    I think sometimes bringing a pantheon of gods into UF might not quite work well.  Gods would be different, have an inhuman take on things.  Maybe our heroes or heroines could be drawn from regular people from that time—say an evil Pharaoh who thinks his reanimated human servant is going to help him work evil upon the world but our hero is trying to take him down, or get revenge for buddies who died building the pyramids or whatever. 

    Hindu mythology would be neat.

  28. Tessa says:

    I’ve long been fascinated by non-Western mythologies, but afraid to tackle them in writing because I worry about 1. getting it right or 2. causing offense (either by seeming to trivialize it, or by getting it wrong). 

    And so as much as I’m curious about mythological elements and would love to read several (many, many, omg you have just expanded my wish list into a huge, many-tentacled (Kraken?) thing it will take years to get thru), what I really want is to read UF written by people of different cultures.  Where the plot line reflects their values and worldviews and isn’t just a standard American/Brit. narrative with Nagas instead of vampires or shinigami swapped in for werewolves.

    So what I guess I want is foreign UF, in translation, which may be a mythical creature itself.

  29. kytten says:

    Damn it, I forgot to say, and now I’m way up there. Am in the UK so no contest for me.

    And I will use this to say one thing that has often bothered me about most fiction with female protagonists. This is more a general rant.
    The writer usually goes to great pains to show how the woman goes to no real effort with their appearance, and it’s spposed to make them ‘better’ then all the vain girls who do.

    I can see that a lot of authors can find this necessary as a reaction to the ‘naturally perfect’ type, but what on earth is wrong with showing the woman enjyoing dressing up and pampering!

  30. crazy52686 says:

    I recently started reading a series by Vicki Pettersson called Signs of the Zodiac and its about superheroes.  I personally love that idea, that superheroes can be made normal and more than just super with their weaknesses to loves from before they became super.  I would love to see more like that.

  31. MarieC says:

    I want to see a series with Death as a matchmaker.  Who else, metaphorically speaking, knows us better?

  32. Caitlin says:

    What I crave in urban fantasy is heroes (and heroines, though I think this is less of a problem with female characters) who are genuine outsiders. I’m sick of hunky alpha males whining about how they are so, so alone in the world. I want men who live on a different wavelength, healers and scholars and bards who don’t embody the hyper-masculine ideal of American manhood. Sensitive, creative, wounded but strong, and slightly sexually ambiguous all a plus.

    I guess I was spoiled, because my introduction to urban fantasy came before this barrage of leather clad demon hunters and supernatural mating rituals. War For The Oaks by Emma Bull, my favorite UF novel in the history of forever, is full of awesome characters that are more than gender stereotypes. Cal and Nico from Rob Thurman’s books come to mind as well. I guess only chicks can write decent male characters?

  33. Caitlin:

    I guess only chicks can write decent male characters?

    Not fair! Jim Butcher continues to excel with Harry Dresden, who remains, hands down, my current favorite male hero of an urban fantasy series. The Dresden Files come to mind again and again as an excellent example of a long-running series in which the lead character develops and grows as a result of all the stuff that happens to him. The Harry of the current books is definitely not the same Harry we got in the early ones.

    Connor Grey in Mark Del Franco’s series is pretty decent as well, and there’s also a series by John Levitt featuring a decidedly non-alpha male main character, a guy who’s a jazz musician with a small dog-like companion, an Ifrit, as his magical familiar.

  34. Caitlin says:

    Anna:

    I of course meant no offense to the incredible Mr. Butcher. I actually like him for the opposite reason: he writes manly characters so well that I love them as much as my preferred brand of artsy pretty boys 😉

    I’ll definitely check out the recommendations. Jazz musician fantasy heroes? Sounds like just my style. Non-alphas need more love.

  35. Caitlin:

    *grin* Gotcha! And yeah, the jazz musician hero is not half-bad at all. Book 1, Dog Days, is a bit unpolished, I think, and re-reading my Goodreads review post of it, I see that my primary beef with it was that the hero, Mason, gets a lot of grief from his fellow practitioners about what a slacker he is, magically speaking. I’m reading Book 2 (New Tricks) now and it’s more polished, so I’m liking that.

    It’s clear to me that the author is also a musician, from how he describes Mason’s playing. Which I really like, as an amateur musician myself. 🙂 And Mason being a bit of a slacker actually very much works for me and ties in with the whole anti-alpha thing.

    Also, his little dog familiar is totally cute.

  36. robinjn says:

    I like the John Levitt books, at least partly because his Ifrit is obviously a Miniature Pinscher in looks and temperament.

    By the way Zal, in the Justina Robson books, is far from a leather covered alpha male with legs like tree trunks. He’s a thin and elf-pretty rock musician with various addictions and more than a few issues.

  37. Caitlin says:

    Yay for book recs!

    I guess I find that non-alpha heroes crop up now and then, but never in the role of the romantic interest. Even my beloved Rob Thurman falls into this trap. She writes great male characters from a male POV, but as soon as she switched to a female POV, all the potential love interests were brooding and hunky. Not all women have identical taste in men, you know?

    And while I’m at it, why are there so few romance heroes who are musicians? This seems to me like a basic make-women-collapse-in-swooning-piles-of-lust thing, just as much as men who play sports or kick demon ass.

  38. So many great suggestions and comments! It’s hard for me to think of what I could really add but…

    For all of you Neil Gaiman lovers and for those of you looking for Urban Fantasy that is really really urban may I suggest Neverwhere.  (I hope I did that link right!)  It was a BBC televesion mini-series as well.  The show is very 80s in a great way, I think, but the book is timelessly urban. And it has a sweet romance as well.

    I guess my wish list would be tight world building as well as a fresh perspective from the hero/heroine.  I guess real flesh and blood people who live in these worlds, deal with them, etc is what I’m looking for. That of course is just good writing and can be found, I know.  I, too, am a huge fan of Patricia Briggs and her contemporaries who do this well, but also fall into that category of readers who came to PNR because I ran out of Charles de Lint and Emma Bull.  So yeah, world building and smart, realistic characters are huge for me.

    Speaking of Emma Bull, I highly recommend the Bordertown stories.  Terri Windling got the ball rolling on this great world and there are several books by several different authors including Bull.  Some of it is hard to come by but it’s worth the the effort to track it down.

    The mythos, legends, or magic from which the UF draws doesn’t matter so much to me.  I’ll read anything well done.  I’m a little tired of half-assed rehashing of the same old same old.  If the vampire has to be so freaking broody and emo about everything at least give me a good reason for it not another melodramatic, unbelievably over the top “X was mean to me” scenario.

  39. Kat Sheridan says:

    For Caitlin, who said:

    And while I’m at it, why are there so few romance heroes who are musicians…

    Look for author Olivia Cunning, coming this fall from Sourcebooks. The first in a series of erotic romance will be released then, about the members of a rock band called Sinners (the first book is called Backstage Pass). At least one of the band members is into voyerism, one is bisexual, etc. Five members of the band, five books in the series. I’ve beta read the first one. Seriously HOT!

  40. Noite says:

    I’m cheating a bit, since my suggestion isn’t UF, but Colleen Houck’s Tiger series (Tiger’s Curse, Tiger’s Quest) combines quasi-were-tigers with Indian mythology in an awesome way.  The books are YA, but I’m well above the YA target age group and I still loved the books.  Plus, an added bonus was that the hero definitely wasn’t an alpha-jerk and actually copped to hobbies and interests outside of the stereotypical hero.

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