Are Readers Growing Tired of New Urban Fantasy?

[LDWriter2]

First of all: I don't think Lord D'Arcy would be any form of steampunk. It used magic not steam or 1800 to early 1900 tech to do things. Could be magicpunk maybe.


Second of all: I loved that series too. The new guy did a few, I forget the exact number but it was low. He changed a couple of things but kept most of it the same. His writing style is different of course and you can tell when the series switched over. But he was good.

[Yeratel]

I loved the Lord D'Arcy series. I was unaware that anyone had continued them. I will have to look for the Michael Kurland stories.

Michael Kurland is pretty good, and blends seamlessly into Randall Garrett's universe with the novels A Study In Sorcery and Ten Little Wizards.  Kurland also has another series all his own, featuring Sherlock Holmes' nemesis, Professor Moriarty, as the protagonist.

[Yeratel]

First of all: I don't think Lord D'Arcy would be any form of steampunk. It used magic not steam or 1800 to early 1900 tech to do things. Could be magicpunk maybe.

That's why I said "a presursor to steampunk", though it really is in a class by itself.  The technology is steam era, with locomotives, and airships, and wireless telegraphy in a 1950s time period, where the Plantagenets still ruled England, and never succeeded in colonizing the Americas, and magic was the core power source of governments and medicine.

[LDWriter2]

Michael Kurland is pretty good, and blends seamlessly into Randall Garrett's universe with the novels A Study In Sorcery and Ten Little Wizards.  Kurland also has another series all his own, featuring Sherlock Holmes' nemesis, Professor Moriarty, as the protagonist.

Hmm, thought there was three or four...maybe I made them up in my mind. 

That is a universe I would love to be able to write in. I wonder if there is any fan fic anywhere online.

[LDWriter2]

That's why I said "a presursor to steampunk", though it really is in a class by itself.  The technology is steam era, with locomotives, and airships, and wireless telegraphy in a 1950s time period, where the Plantagenets still ruled England, and never succeeded in colonizing the Americas, and magic was the core power source of governments and medicine.

I didn't recall the airships but I know they had a magic telephone and a couple of other devices.

[Yeratel]

Hmm, thought there was three or four...maybe I made them up in my mind. 

That is a universe I would love to be able to write in. I wonder if there is any fan fic anywhere online.

Pretty sure there's probably a ton of fanfic out there, but I haven't gone looking for it.   
Michael Kurland collaborated with Randall Garrett on some of the short stories, and he pops up as a character once or twice. The two novels he put out were authorized by Randall Garrett's estate.

[OZ]

I always wondered if Glen Cook's Garrett PI was given that name as a nod of the head to Randall Garrett. Before the Urban Fantasy trend Lord D'Arcy and Garrett PI were the best known (at least to me) investigators in worlds where magic is prevalent.

[Yeratel]

I always wondered if Glen Cook's Garrett PI was given that name as a nod of the head to Randall Garrett. Before the Urban Fantasy trend Lord D'Arcy and Garrett PI were the best known (at least to me) investigators in worlds where magic is prevalent.

Yep, Randall Garrett and Michael Kurland, and other Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Detective writers who knew and liked each others' works would work the other authors' names and characters into the stories. In one of David Weber's Honor Harrington sci-fi stories, in the far distant future, one of the characters is reading an ancient Earth detective story featuring "Garrett Randall, P.I.".