Epic Fantasy - Contemporary Earth Setting?

[SlimMason]

How might an Epic Fantasy play out, if the great quest was set in the streets of New York, or any other city?

Do you know of any books that really capture the grand scale of Epic Fantasy, but in the real world?

If not, what would you expect from a novel claiming to be this kind of book?

[LizW65]

Depends...how epic do you consider the Dresden Files, for instance?
Harry Potter is set nominally in the present day real world and could qualify as a fairly epic fantasy; the first 5 seasons of Supernatural are a TV example.  Buffy might be one as well. (I never saw it, though, so I can't comment.)

[SlimMason]

Something BIG. Something that uses dozens of specific, real world places. Like having an adventure akin to Lord of the Rings, but instead of going to Mordor you have a bank, a library, an art museum. Earth is the strange world you must navigate to complete your quest.

Imagine a Banker, a Concierge, a Curator, and the Mayor are all fighting over a magic ring. Your job is to take the ring to the city dump to throw it away... FOREVER!

I have a few UF story seeds that arn't ready to sprout yet. I'm looking for different things to experiment with.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

George R.R. Martin's The Armageddon Rag, which I seem to be quoting a lot today, seems close to the sort of thing you are asking for; it is about a journalist in the early 80s catching up with the members of a fictional supergroup (who are about two-thirds Zeppelin and one-third The Doors) that broke up spectacularly in the early 1970s, and also the friends he hasn't seen in the decade since; the fantasy component appears slowly and grows gradually, but it is world-threatening and genuinely terrifying by the end and I admire it immensely.

[Paynesgrey]

Raiders of the Lost Ark comes to mind.  Granted, a movie, not a book.  But if you look at what it was derived from (King Solomon's Mines, Alan Quartermain, She, and the like, add a mystical component, and you'd have Epic Fantasy Potential.

[Quantus]

Recent Terry Brooks has been filling in the timeline gap between modern day and the distant post-apocalyptic fantasy setting of his Shannara series, that would probably qualify.

The indiana jones "occult happening behind WW2" seems a popular choice, since epic world change was abounding anyway.

Not precisely fantasy, but any large scale alien invasion story you've heard of would probably be a decent example if you just replaced "alien" with something mythological. 

The challenge I see with it is that to get that level of EPIC!! as I see it you have to have events with far-reaching, world level implications and changes, and that by nature forces you to deviate rather sharply from the "real-world" modern day setting you start with.  The trick would be to do that without going to far into something post-apocalyptic

[tuttman1234]

It may not seem like it at first, but I think the Jack Ryan series Tom Clancy did would fit what you're describing.

[Quantus]

It may not seem like it at first, but I think the Jack Ryan series Tom Clancy did would fit what you're describing.

Epic sure, but fantasy?

[Paynesgrey]

Well, you'd basically need to adjust things so the world included fantasy elements.  Jack Ryan or John Clark trying to find the arms dealer who has an electrum talisman filled with L. Ron Hubbard's toenail clippings or Rasputin's Cursed Teaspoon Of Barak-Tor.

The Repairman Jack books by F. Paul Wilson have a good Fantasy/Horror thing going, but don't have the "epic" in the sense of traveling the world fulfill some questy thing that needs done.

[OZ]

I read a book some time ago that was trying for this. It was a "magic returns" type situation where magic came back to the world and although most people remained human, many changed to become other creatures that fit what they were. One example was an extremely wealthy man that spent all his time accumulating more wealth gradually changed into a dragon fiercely guarding his horde and adding to it at every opportunity. Some "gang bangers" became goblins and some mechanical engineers and/or miners became dwarves. The idea was great but the book was (IMHO) only mediocre at best. I think there might have been a sequel but it never really got legs. I can't remember the author or the title of the book. If it had succeeded I think it would have been an epic fantasy in a Contemporary Earth setting. Places didn't change only people. A dragon, for instance, might claim a high rise for a home and gnomes and dwarves might take over subway tunnels or sewers and expand their homes from there. The setting was conteporary even if the characters had changed.

[Paynesgrey]

Brings to mind also Mercede's Lackey's Serrated Edge series where elves and suchlike live among us and most just don't know, and Wen Spencer's Tinker where Pittsburgh is plopped down in Elfhome for 30 day intervals.  But again, there isn't much in the way of horses and Questness.

[LizW65]

A film example of what you're looking for might be Terry Gilliam's The Fisher King, in which the search for the Holy Grail is brought into modern-day Manhattan.

[Dresdenus Prime]

My current book is aiming to be something like this. It was originally intended to be a standard Urban Fantasy, but there are quite a few out there already, a lot of really awesome ones too. I wanted to do something a little different. I guess this could be considered Alternate Universe Fantasy? Haha! Who knows?!

[Aminar]

Would the Percy Jackson series qualify? I'm reading them as research for my job mentoring kids and they seem to fit the bill storyline wise.  They're a bit short to be truly epic but they follow the same plot structure and the like.

[Quantus]

Would the Percy Jackson series qualify? I'm reading them as research for my job mentoring kids and they seem to fit the bill storyline wise.  They're a bit short to be truly epic but they follow the same plot structure and the like.

taken as a whole I think so.  They are certainly modern day, have epic fantasy battles for the fate of the world taking place in downtown New York.  As you say they are individually on the short side, and definitely aimed toward a younger demographic, but they have all the key features I can think of