Urban fantasy. Everyone knows what it is these days. There is even a romance-novel category for it. But back when I started writing it, it was a very new “place” to set a fantasy novel—although to be fair, a lot of things that were once classified as “horror” would be classified as “urban fantasy” today, like Fritz Leiber’s Conjure Wife or my own Diana Tregarde books. But when I started the Bedlam’s Bard and SERRAted Edge series, it was brand new, and no one had ever considered putting elves in a mall or on a racetrack, making them qualify for the category of “groundbreaking.”
So I’ll toot my own horn a little and submit for your consideration (as Rod Serling used to say) both those series. The Bedlam’s Bard series, beginning with A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows, featured the debut of “mall elves”; the concept made sense to myself and co-writer Ellen Guon, because we posited elves as being tied to sacred groves, and many of the malls going up at the time in California had to be built around groves of native trees. The actual genesis of the series was a pen-and-ink sketch of a couple of bored looking teenage girls dressed in ‘80s hair and bling, loitering in a mall—and if you looked closely, you could see the pointed ears just barely sticking out of their hair. The SERRAted Edge series, on the other hand, was born of Larry and my mutual love of (real) sports car racing, and featured a division of Sports Car Club of America called the SouthEastern Road Racing Association. It asked, and answered the question, “What if elves never stopped challenging humans at crossroads, but just changed the (literal) vehicle of challenge?” And Baen came up with the tagline “Hot cars, fast elves, and kids on the run.”
Probably the most brilliant urban fantasy series I know is also set in what was at the time not only an unusual, but an unusually detailed setting. Charles de Lint’s Newford books and stories are set in a fictional Canadian city that includes such inventions as a college and a First Nations tribe that are so lovingly described that I always have to double-check and remind myself that no, I cannot visit Newford, much as I would like to. I, and the rest of his fans, could probably draw a complete map of Newford, find the Jilly Coppercorn’s studio, locate our favorite coffee-shop and tell you exactly where Newford’s folk musicians busk and have gigs. If given the choice of “what fantasy setting would you like to actually live in,” I’ll take Newford, hands down.
Right up there is Pamela Dean’s Tam Lin, a retelling of the Scottish legend of the same name, set in a the fictional college of Blackstock. I love this book, and it’s on my “reread” shelf; whenever I get nostalgic and want to go back to college, I read this, and Dorothy Sayer’s Gaudy Night, and the craving is satisfied. College always seemed a little other-worldly to me, and this setting gives me a double dose of academia and mythos. Blackstock is the college I wish I had gone to, complete with the academic track I wistfully wish I had been able to take. Oh, and a heaping helping of magic.
The Wild Cards shared-world series curated by George R. R. Martin and Melinda Snodgrass is touted as being science fiction, but to me, superhero fiction is a lot closer to fantasy than science fiction, so I am listing it here as well. As far as I am concerned, there’s very little resembling science in Wild Cards, and a whole lot of handwavium—and I am not saying that as a pejorative. Concentrating on character and story rather than physics and biology makes it resonate all the more for me. The setting is unusual, not because it is mostly in New York City, but because it is uncompromisingly adult, very dark and very gritty. I normally don’t like grimdark, but I make an exception for Wild Cards. And because most of it is not written by George, at least I have the comfort that I won’t grow fond of a character only to have him or her die in the next episode.
Lastly, but by no means least, I love Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden series, set in Chicago. I mean, Chicago! Sure, you can imagine strange things lurking in the Victorian neighborhoods of New York, and hiding in Central Park, and you can stretch your disbelief to imagine vacant-eyed elves amusing themselves in a Californian mall, hopped up on caffeinated drinks (addictive and narcotic for elves), but I come from the Chicago area and Chicago is so … prosaic. So blue-collar. So … ordinary. It takes a special kind of writer not only to set an urban fantasy series there, but to make you believe in wizards living in basement apartments, and trolls under the Chicago Bridge. Seriously. Trolls? In Chicago? At least, trolls that don’t live in their mommy’s basement? It’s particularly a treat for me, since I’m so familiar with Chicago, to see how many landmarks I know and have visited that Harry interacts with. Although, Jim? If you’re reading this? Go check out the University of Chicago Campus, particularly the Rockefeller Chapel. I think you’ll get some ideas.
Originally published September 2017.
Mercedes Lackey is the #1 New York Times best-selling American fantasy author behind the Heralds of Valdemar series, the Elemental Masters series, the 500 Kingdoms series, and many more. She has published over one hundred novels in under twenty-five years. Her latest book Apex is the spellbinding close to the #1 New York Times bestselling Hunter series.
I love both the Bedlam bard and Serrated edge series. I do enjoy mall elves and think it’s funny they can get addicted to caffeine just like us ordinary mortals but with elves it’s turned up to 11. I couldn’t really see elves racing cars but now that you mention the crossroads it makes more sense. I’m glad your revisiting SERRAted edge I’ve missed them. I just got back into the Wild Cards series a few months ago I like the shared world aspect and powers are both good and bad. The Dresden files is a lot of fun and Harry is one of my favorite Wizards. I’ve only read one Newford story that I can remember but they sound good as does the Dorthy L. Sayers. Now I have something new to read on vacation.
Not to mention, of course, the excellent “Secret World Chronicles”. Who wouldn’t love super-heroes vs. space Nazis?
I love the SERRAted edge series as well – if you’re reading these comments, and there’s anything that you can do to get them out in Kindle form…. I admit to downsizing many of my 3K+ books and going to almost all ebooks for various reasons, and these are some that I do miss and would happily buy again. All the more so since, since the first reading, I’ve started doing DEs and am beginning to eye W2W as a possible next step!
I think that I’ve both read and enjoyed all of the others on this list too, with the singular exception of Gaudy Night, which is a rarity. All fine choices!
I like Harry Dresden’s Chicago well enough, but I do prefer the Chicago with Mr. Patrice and Doc Hallownight. Especially the museums.
The Felix Castor series, Child of Fire books, Aaronovitch, Mookie Pearl, Joe Pitt and The Collector series all left me wanting more. Love Butcher but he left me wanting less. Will try de Lint again but more fantasy than ‘urban fantasy’ from my first take
Borderlands – a shared series with a lot of stories and a few novels – Emma Bull “Finder” is my favorite novel in the series as are her other novels (outside the series)
Dorothy L Sayers “Lord Peter Wimsey” series are detective novels set in the 30’s – not urban fantasy but Gaudy Night is about college as long as college is Oxford in the 1930s and the hero/heroine are prone to speaking Latin. I like “Murder Must Advertise” myself but have read them all.
What exactly is Urban Fantasy? – modern cities (not too different from our own) with elves/folklore? If you look it up it includes vampires and there are just too many damn vampires so I’m excluding them (not that they are always bad – see “The Others” novels but that is a different reality not just our urban cities with underlying folklore.
I have to submit the 20 sided sorceress series too.
I asked Charles de Lint once where in Canada Newford was supposed to be and he said Americans think Newford is a Canadian city and Canadians think Newford is an American city. He never specified one way or the other and like it that way. I don’t know if this changed in the latter books or not.
@6, I second the Borderlands series – such a great concept, with so many great writers. Also have to give a shout out to Emma Bull’s novel, War for the Oaks, one of my favorite reads of all time. And yes, Charles de Lint’s Newford novels and stories; I want to live in Newford and know these wonderful people. @7, that’s such a lovely concept, that Newford’s “location” is in the mind of the reader. Being American, I’ve always thought of Newford as being near Ottawa. I’d be curious to know where Canadian readers think it would be located.
@8: Charles de Lint is from Ottowa, but as another American reader, I wound up thinking of Newford as Toronto, because (a) I knew de Lint was Canadian, so I thought of it as a Canadian city; (b) the two cities are roughly the same size, given a reference in one story to Newford’s population (de Lint set his first books in Ottowa, but has said that he wanted to create a larger city to serve as a setting), and (c) Newford is described at one point as being on the north shore of a lake, just as Toronto is on the north shore of Lake Ontario; this last one was my main reason for thinking of it as Toronto. (And Newford’s lake seems to likewise be a large one, given that one of de Lint’s early short stories reveals that it has a hidden community of mermaids living in it…)
However, in reality, I don’t think that the analogy really holds up; other than the lakeside location, I doubt that the two cities have that much in common.
I wouldn’t call it urban, but if you stretch the genre to include realistic modern settings with fantasy incursions, I highly recommend Sharon Lee’s carousel series, beginning with Carousel Tides. In Archers Beach, Maine, there’s something uncanny about the carousel in the barely-solvent amusement park. And about some of the residents, for that matter. Vivid worldbuilding and wonderful characterization. There are characters you would love to meet at the town diner for a grilled blueberry muffin, and some you would definitely prefer not to meet in an isolated wood or wetland.
Emma Bull’s war for the oaks is even better than Finder, and is very specifically elves and others in a highly recognizable 1970s or 1980s era Minneapolis.Seanan McGuire is very clearly her heir… and for something different, how about Wen Spencer’s Tinker books, with Pittsburg. That gives you elves, monsters, magic,teenage girls, rock bands and racing. What’s not to love?
Of course Neil gaiman’s london in neverwhere was also pretty basic to a new genre.
Vik @@@@@ 11:
War for the Oaks was published in 1987, so it’s specifically mid-1980s Minneapolis. (And definitely one of the earliest “elves/faerie in a modern city” stories, predating Ms. Lackey’s novels by several years.)