[Jan 2017] - Urban Fantasy - Discussion Thread

[Nora]

My favorite urban fantasy is probably Terry Brooks' Word and Void Series. While it has ties to his Shannara books, it is set *before* the nuclear cataclysm that remakes the world before the Shannara books begin.

Hey about that... Is the book better than the series? Because in like, episode 2, the half elf dude wakes up groggy from a dodgy night, and a complete stranger (to him) shows up and goes all 'come now, we're late on our quest, whoever skipped to tell you you are a chosen son of magician/kings/whatev lied to you. Hurry, questing time.'
and he's all 'huuuh?'
and goes questing, me thinks?
I immediately stopped watching. It pulled every single tropey cliche trigger I have.

Also, the demon was taken RIGHT OUT of Isengard. Seriously.

Anne Rice half founded the genre.

I thought that might be the case, but I am always conflicted with vampires and where they fall, but I suppose there's an area where fantasy and horror overlap.

She did not limit herself to vampires. She wrote The Mummy, which I loved, and several books on witches. And ghosts! Oh god and she wrote Servant of the bones, which pleased yet confused me so much...

[Lady Ty]

The Mayfair Witches with the Taltos are an unusual series, have just finally been able to get it on audible so it may make a comeback. ** But just noticed this theme is meant to be in contemporary and Anne Rice is not.

Urban fantasy is so much wider than the steampunk style or paranormal romance. The well written and carefully planned such as Peter Grant series offers much more. Dresden and Iron Druid are great on action and comedy and a whole new look at fantasy characters from myth and legend.  Iron Druid in particular had very good Celtic and Nordic myth information. Although I am a devoted fan of both these,  they have just about reached the end of their novelty and both authors have decided there will be a limit, but both were entertaining.

[Alex Hormann]

My favorite urban fantasy is probably Terry Brooks' Word and Void Series. While it has ties to his Shannara books, it is set *before* the nuclear cataclysm that remakes the world before the Shannara books begin.

The first book, Running with the Demon, is still one of my favorite books I've ever read by Brooks, and the following books are great as well. But if you're look for "urban fantasy" I heartily recommend it.

Y'know, I read those a while back, but never associated them with Urban Fantasy.

Meanwhile, my idea is pretty much sorted, but won't be written until after University deadlines. Has a very Torchwood feel to it, I think.

[tebakutis]

My favorite urban fantasy is probably Terry Brooks' Word and Void Series. While it has ties to his Shannara books, it is set *before* the nuclear cataclysm that remakes the world before the Shannara books begin.

Hey about that... Is the book better than the series? Because in like, episode 2, the half elf dude wakes up groggy from a dodgy night, and a complete stranger (to him) shows up and goes all 'come now, we're late on our quest, whoever skipped to tell you you are a chosen son of magician/kings/whatev lied to you. Hurry, questing time.'
and he's all 'huuuh?'
and goes questing, me thinks?
I immediately stopped watching. It pulled every single tropey cliche trigger I have.

Also, the demon was taken RIGHT OUT of Isengard. Seriously.

OH MY GOD.

The TV series (The Shannara Chronicles) was, in my personal opinion, terrible. Granted, that's just my opinion. But yes, they changed practically everything I liked about the characters and the plot of the book from which they pulled the (corpse) of the original story.

It was just bad. Also, their version of the Reaper made me think of the Dovakhin from Skyrim, which meant I constantly expected him to yell FUS RO DAH!

However, the BOOK on which they based the first season of the TV show (The Elfstones of Shannara) remains one of my favorite fantasy books. Elfstones isn't what I'd call urban fantasy, since the world is fantasy in all respects other than its "nuked 1000 years ago" origin, but it is dark fantasy, and of the first three books, Elfstones remains my favorite.

The characters in the book make sense, the demons are frightening and awesome instead of tropish as they are in the show, and the ending ... well, that might be the only part the TV series came close to getting right (but Terry Brooks still did a far better job in the original book).

So yeah. Not a fan of the TV series. And it's not a sore point at all.

[Elfy]

My favorite urban fantasy is probably Terry Brooks' Word and Void Series. While it has ties to his Shannara books, it is set *before* the nuclear cataclysm that remakes the world before the Shannara books begin.

Hey about that... Is the book better than the series? Because in like, episode 2, the half elf dude wakes up groggy from a dodgy night, and a complete stranger (to him) shows up and goes all 'come now, we're late on our quest, whoever skipped to tell you you are a chosen son of magician/kings/whatev lied to you. Hurry, questing time.'
and he's all 'huuuh?'
and goes questing, me thinks?
I immediately stopped watching. It pulled every single tropey cliche trigger I have.

Also, the demon was taken RIGHT OUT of Isengard. Seriously.

OH MY GOD.

The TV series (The Shannara Chronicles) was, in my personal opinion, terrible. Granted, that's just my opinion. But yes, they changed practically everything I liked about the characters and the plot of the book from which they pulled the (corpse) of the original story.

It was just bad. Also, their version of the Reaper made me think of the Dovakhin from Skyrim, which meant I constantly expected him to yell FUS RO DAH!

However, the BOOK on which they based the first season of the TV show (The Elfstones of Shannara) remains one of my favorite fantasy books. Elfstones isn't what I'd call urban fantasy, since the world is fantasy in all respects other than its "nuked 1000 years ago" origin, but it is dark fantasy, and of the first three books, Elfstones remains my favorite.

The characters in the book make sense, the demons are frightening and awesome instead of tropish as they are in the show, and the ending ... well, that might be the only part the TV series came close to getting right (but Terry Brooks still did a far better job in the original book).

So yeah. Not a fan of the TV series. And it's not a sore point at all.

Elfstones and the the Shannara books, with the exceptions of the other ones mentioned here are all epic fantasy. The show was dire, I thought it was actually worse than Legend of the Seeker, because that was at least unintentionally funny a lot of the time. They also wasted the talents of Manu Bennett.

[The Gem Cutter]

They also wasted the talents of Manu Bennett.

I never really saw him in anything except the Gladiator show with Lucy Lawless, so I didn't realize he was such a good actor. But yeah, I found it ironic that the best actor (imho) on the show was the beefcake guy, at first. Then I felt bad for him and the rest. Just a heap of glistening clichés, I thought.

I don't think anything about the Shannara series is Grim-dark or Dark Fantasy, I think it's straight Epic. My two cents.

[ScarletBea]

Has a very Torchwood feel to it, I think.

You got me with that!!!

[m3mnoch]

oooh!  oooh!  i have an idea!

wry, gruesome, and i totally want to take this nugget and turn it into a book.  or, at least, a longer short story.

*shakes fist at word limits*

. . . but, i can totes clip a bit to fit our format here.

[tebakutis]

So I wanted to throw an idea out!

I'm currently managing the F-F Writing Contest Twitter account. At the moment, my updates are limited to putting our theme up each month (pinned tweet) and posting every 10-15 days to remind people who follow the account that they can still submit their own story, or vote.

In addition, I've followed a bunch of authors and publishers so I can retweet book deals and such that might be interesting to folks, as well as the occasional post I find amusing.

However, I thought it would be cool to actually start posting a Tweet each time a new story goes up. Basically, pick a short excerpt (a line, really) and post a Tweet with that, as well as a link to the thread. So essentially, everyone who participated would get a quick shout out on the Twitter feed when they posted.

So my question for our authors is - how do you feel about this? I know some folks, for example, will post a story early with the intent to edit it later, so you might not want people being notified about it "early". Other people might not want their work posted at all (unless it won, of course). So, what are your thoughts?

Alternately, we might let people specify when they post if they want to be linked? We already have people including their Twitter handles when they post (if they have Twitter) so maybe we could let people "opt-in" and say it's cool for the F-F Contest twitter account to broadcast that their story is up?

Basically, I want to provide more updates/content for the Twitter than just - "come read!" or "come vote!" a few times a month.

Thoughts?

[m3mnoch]

that sounds awesome!

seems like a ton of work (comparatively), but it could be really, really cool.

dooo eeeet!!

[JMack]

I'm all for it. I second the notion that someone flags if they want it teeeted.

[Elfy]

They also wasted the talents of Manu Bennett.

I never really saw him in anything except the Gladiator show with Lucy Lawless, so I didn't realize he was such a good actor. But yeah, I found it ironic that the best actor (imho) on the show was the beefcake guy, at first. Then I felt bad for him and the rest. Just a heap of glistening clichés, I thought.

I don't think anything about the Shannara series is Grim-dark or Dark Fantasy, I think it's straight Epic. My two cents.

He's done a fair bit of stuff. I remember him as Crixus from Spartacus of course, but I know him better as the Australian Secret Service agent Slade Wilson in Arrow. On that, I wonder if a super hero story classifies as urban fantasy, it seems to be it's own little subgenre at present.

[tebakutis]

Cool, so, here's what we'll do.

For this month, we'll try this idea. When you submit your story (assuming you're reading this thread :p), go ahead and include the word "READY" in the post, alongside your Twitter handle, word count, and whatever else, if you're okay with me using it to draw in Twitter readers. Basically, the READY tells me you may still make changes, but you're still okay with people reading it.

That gives me the all clear to post a line from your story on the Twitter feed for the contest (thus giving me content that's not repetitive!) and helps provide a trickle of contest related content that's not "Read now!" or "Vote now!", which I try to avoid spamming.

So as an example, let's say we'd done this last month. I'll pick Lordoftheword's story. If he posted READY when he first posted it on Nov 19, I could tweet something like this.

"The iPhone never should have made it into the teleportation chamber, and the boy damn well knew it!" @dustinbilyk

http://fantasy-faction.com/forum/1750-234/(nov-2016)-1750-submission-thread/

Now people might have a reason to check out the contest as opposed to a generic "read our stories!"

If this goes well and @xiagan likes it, maybe we can add the instructions (post READY if you're okay with us tweeting your story) to future contests.

EDIT: If there's a line you particularly like, you could even DM me and let me know.

[Lady Ty]

I'm currently managing the F-F Writing Contest Twitter account. At the moment, my updates are limited to putting our theme up each month (pinned tweet) and posting every 10-15 days to remind people who follow the account that they can still submit their own story, or vote.

In addition, I've followed a bunch of authors and publishers so I can retweet book deals and such that might be interesting to folks, as well as the occasional post I find amusing.

Thanks teb, noticed how interesting the twitter thread is now, have put a notification tick on so I don't miss as Twitter moves fast and sometimes forget to actually look at any particular thread.  Appreciate all the news etc.

[tebakutis]

[Thanks teb, noticed how interesting the twitter thread is now, have put a notification tick on so I don't miss as Twitter moves fast and sometimes forget to actually look at any particular thread.  Appreciate all the news etc.

Thank you! I'm trying to find a balance between making sure there's something of interest every few days or so, but also not spamming people. So we'll see how that goes!