Your Pet Urban Fantasy Cliche Peeves

[Galvatron]

I'm quite tired of vampires that are nice.

I like the vampires of Lost Boys, 30 Days of Night, David Welligntons stories.  Vampires like that are great.

Zombies are getting tiring, I like the genre but most of the new stuff isnt adding anything to it.  I will check out the series Shecky mentioned though because of who the author is =)

Mostly I just have had enough of nice monsters, I want mean nasty monsterous monsters. 

[Wordmaker]

Right with you. I miss the days when vampires were something to be afraid of. One of the things I love about Dresden Files. The vampires are damn scary.

[Galvatron]

Ya, werewolves are quite guilty of it also these days. 

One thing I like, and would like to see more of, is authors making up new monsters and critters for their own universe instead of borrowing old mythos for everyhting.

I dont mind old myths, but its just a plus when I read a book were things are made up or at least when the author populates a story with things he/she created for them self.

[Wordmaker]

I play with that a little in Silent Oath. But I made a conscious choice to use inspiration from real mythology for the series. I love old mythology so I enjoy seeing reinterpretations from different authors.

But yeah, seeing some new monsters out there would be pretty cool.

[Galvatron]

I never use to mind seeing the same myths re done in UF, but for me at least, I want new things right now.  Now a story that has mostly established mythical critters but a few new ones is fine, and sometimes if the author puts their own spin on someting and makes it unique enough thats fine with me.

I just get tired of seeing the same things in each book i read.  Its the same thing for fanatasy, in the years I've been reading fantasy I have had my fill of elves dwarves orcs and trolls.

Its not that its bad or that I wont read something with them, but if I am at the book store and in one hand I have a book of reused critters and a book of brand new ones in the other, I will tend to buy the book with new stuff just to see how something a bit different.

[Wordmaker]

I do like seeing different interpretations of myth. But I'd love to see something really new.

[mithrandirthewhite]

That's the thing with UF is that with a lot of fantasy the classical "giants" of Fantasy has made it feel like things get recycled too easily.  That's more of a problem with Epic/High Fantasy but it can bleed over into UF.

I wanted the scenes to serve specific roles in portraying character development and revelation, so I kept them very vague.

Thank You!!!

[arianne]

Right with you. I miss the days when vampires were something to be afraid of. One of the things I love about Dresden Files. The vampires are damn scary.

Ah, but even there the vampires are separated into good (Susan, Thomas) and bad (Bianca), so they're not simply out and out monsters anymore.

The thing that currently frustrates me on a writing level is that whatever trait you give to your supernatural beings, somehow it can be twisted to feel like a vampire trait. Zombies who are undead and wandering around looking for someone to love and cherish instead of just bleating for brains; Fae who are seductively gorgeous, can predict the future, can fly etc etc...all end up sounding like imitations of vampires, even when they're not (if that makes any sense). There are only a fixed number of traits an author can go with, and even if you choose to work with a troll or some relatively-unheard-of mythical creature from an ancient civilization, it ALL ends up sounding slightly vampire-y. Is it just me? Or have vampires really taken over the world?

[arianne]

Also, meant to ask this in my first post, but forgot: which plotlines are you starting to find cliche? I find that a lot of the Paranormal romances tend to include a lot of romance cliches, or things like those already mentioned by Wordmaker.

Does anyone else feel that the "parent/sibling as ultimate evil" storyline is cliche as well? ("I AM your father, mwhahaha")

[o_O]

One thing I like, and would like to see more of, is authors making up new monsters and critters for their own universe instead of borrowing old mythos for everyhting.

I dont mind old myths, but its just a plus when I read a book were things are made up or at least when the author populates a story with things he/she created for them self.

^this.     Mythos mining leaves me stone cold.     More mythos mining at this stage simply weakens the source mythoi to the status of cultural baggage.    Ripped, with broken handles and torn lining, stinking of the dump they're left on.




I am also sick to death of worlds and cultures that are just like ours except for the tiny little change of "oh and magic works".   


  The world as it is, politically, socially, technologically, economically, is simply too much a product of a certain series of outcomes, and if magic is at all relevant to it, then the outcomes would have tallied up differently.   


Put another way, if the world is just like ours except for magic working then you will have immense trouble convincing me that anything magic-related in your books is possibly going to have an effect on the world as it moves past the events of your books.

[LizW65]

I'd like to see more good standalone novels. Not everything has to be a trilogy or an open-ended series (or in the case of movies, a franchise.)

A few plot-related things I could do with a lot less of:
-protagonists, male or female, who get to behave like assholes with no consequences whatsoever
-a protagonist who turns out to be the Chosen One, or indeed particularly "special" for any reason
-power creep to the point of absurdity (especially when powered up by sex, as many of you have already mentioned)

[Ziggelly]

I, for one, would seriously like to see an Urban Fantasy heroine who doesn't have multiple guys fighting over her. Unless you're trying to be a romance novel, what the hell is wrong with stable, healthy, long-term, relatively drama-free relationships?

... Also, what's up with there being no heroes in the world who have good families? In any genre? If there's a hero, their family is either dead or seriously messed up. Why?

[LizW65]

Also, what's up with there being no heroes in the world who have good families? In any genre? If there's a hero, their family is either dead or seriously messed up. Why?

Insta-angst. Just add trauma and stir!
(I'm not crazy about this particular trope either, and am subverting it in my mystery series: both protagonists had reasonably happy childhoods, and still have living parents and lots of relatives with whom they have good relationships.)

[Snowleopard]

Tired of vampires.
Really don't like modern braaaiiinnnns type zombies.

[Quantus]

I dont mind using existing mythos, but I am starting to get a little tired of the Norse tie-in.  I understand that it is mostly my perspective as part of the Western, English speaking audience, but there are so many other mythologies to draw from besides the ever-present Norse and Greek.   When was the last time you saw one that drew heavily from the Persian pantheon, for example.  I understand the perspective of avoiding the more active religions like the Hindu or drawing from some of the more fantastic elements from the Koran (though that consideration doesnt seem to stop anyone away from the judeochristian side of things, oddly enough).  But there are tons of rich, fascinating, and in this day and age relatively obscure pantheons and mythologies that rarely seem to ever pop up, unless they are  footnotes in larger "everything exists" stories. 

ok, weekend musings over