1990s/2000s Urban Fantasy Novels – A Ramble « PekoeBlaze

Well, due to tiredness and writer’s block, I thought that I’d talk briefly about 1990s and 2000s urban fantasy novels today.

Whilst I’m not an expert on the genre, I’m also not totally clueless about it either. And, although the urban fantasy genre was popularised by the TV show “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” (1997-2003), it existed in novel form well before that. A couple of early examples include Nancy A. Collins’ edgy 1989 vampire novel “Sunglasses After Dark”  and Laurell K. Hamilton’s 1993 vampire hunter novel “Guilty Pleasures“.

If you haven’t heard of urban fantasy before, it’s basically just dark fantasy but with a modern-world setting. As the name suggests, these stories are often set in realistic cities and they feature a wide array of paranormal characters (Vampires, werewolves, fae, demons etc...), some sort of magic system and often either a detective-thriller and/or action-thriller plot.

The main character is often an absolute badass, a hardboiled detective and/or an anti-hero. Romantic sub-plots are common, but not obligatory, in the genre. And, whilst it usually has a fairly dark and gothic sensibility, often with horror elements, urban fantasy novels are different to dedicated horror novels since the intent is to thrill the audience rather than frighten them.

Another well-known TV show in the genre is “Supernatural” (2005- 2020) – even if it often features rural settings. Plus, the awesome 2003 film “Underworld” also fits into the genre too.

Along with crime-thriller novels about serial killers, urban fantasy was a horror-adjacent genre that gained prominence when – after the glorious 1980s heyday of pulp horror fiction – the mainstream publishing industry lost interest in the horror genre for over a decade. Urban fantasy sort of took over from all of the gloriously goofy monster novels that apparently filled bookshop shelves during the 1980s. The main difference being that many of the “monsters” were actually well-written or interesting characters, rather than just ferocious scary creatures.

Another interesting thing about the urban fantasy genre is that it is almost always written from a first-person perspective. Whilst some of this lets the genre hearken back to the days of 1920s-50s hardboiled crime fiction, it mostly seems to be there for the sake of dramatic intensity, focused storytelling and characterisation. It also lends these stories a more subjective element which fits in surprisingly well with all of the fantastical and/or magical elements as well.

And, whilst the genre has some familiar tropes and elements, there was also at least some amount of variation within it. If you wanted hardboiled detective stories, then there were Mike Carey’s “Felix Castor” novels, Jim Butcher’s “Dresden Files” and Lilith Saintcrow’s “Jill Kismet” series.

Lilith Saintcrow also wrote “Working For The Devil” (2004), which added cyberpunk elements to the genre. There were also cool “gothic vampire action movie” stories in the form of Jocelynn Drake’s brilliant “Dark Days” novels. And, if you wanted the main character to be a bit more of a “goody two-shoes”, then the earlier “Anita Blake” novels by Laurell K. Hamilton also existed too.

I also love the fact that 2008 saw the release of both Lilith Saintcrow’s “Hunter’s Prayer” (which I’m reading at the moment) and Jocelynn Drake’s “Nightwalker” – both of which are ridiculously cool horror-infused action-fests with gothic elements. Yes, both novels were parts of larger series that continued after 2008, but I just love the fact that both of these novels were released in the same year. Both also have really badass cover art as well:

(Click for larger image) Seriously, imagine seeing this on a bookshop shelf back in 2008. So cool 🙂 If anyone is curious about the artists, the “Nightwalker” cover was made by Don Sipley and the “Hunter’s Prayer” cover art was made by Calvin Chu.

Whilst people are apparently still writing urban fantasy these days, the genre’s popularity seems to have given way to fantasy-romance or “romantasy” fiction instead. And I miss the days when popular “low-brow” fantasy novels were a bit edgier and cooler and more badass. Where, yes, there were romantic sub-plots but there were also cool action sequences, gothic nightclubs, cursed magical rituals and intriguing detective mysteries, all set in gloomy – often American – cities with a tiny hint of the film noir or cyberpunk genre to them. Stories where the main character was often a bit of a hardboiled detective, an ancient vampire, a fearless demon-hunter or a badass anti-hero as well.

Like, yes, fantasy-romance is probably the “pulp fiction” of the modern age, but old 1990s/2000s urban fantasy novels often had a pulp sensibility to them in the best way possible 🙂 And they were just a product of a slightly edgier and more gothic age, one when the world was a bit more hedonistic and mass market paperbacks were more common. A time when, despite the cool “oil painting” book covers of the 1980s fading away, novel cover art often still included at least some dramatic visual storytelling. I don’t know, they’re just a surprisingly cool genre of books.

—————

Anyway, I hope that this was interesting 🙂