What do you wish would be done MORE in urban fantasy?

[ailishsmom]

Yep.  Terry Pratchett has written most of them.

I guess that's true! As well as Christopher Moore, now that I think about it.

[JamiSings]

Yep.  Terry Pratchett has written most of them.

Some of us don't like Pratchett that much though.

I'd like to see some that take place in our world, not a made up one like the Discworld books, where the hero and herione are oridinary looking peolpe. They're not some perfect super model/wrestler type. Just a couple of adverage Joes and Janes that kick supernatural butt.

[13x13]

I had a idea flit through my head today.  The protagonist is a 20 something slacker, gets by doing computer work.  However, he is left a large sum of money from his grandfather and an artifact that gifts him with the ability to see things how they really are, and the luck of the Irish.  Was thinking of having his first adventure be fleeing from a Faeries and other ghoulies, because someone put a hit on him.

I figure the luck of the Irish think is kinda necessary since a normal joe schmoe confronted with homicidal supernatural folks needs some sort of edge, other than martial arts, etc.

[Kali]

I figure the luck of the Irish think is kinda necessary since a normal joe schmoe confronted with homicidal supernatural folks needs some sort of edge, other than martial arts, etc.

The Luck of the Irish thing could play great.  He's running, trapped in a blind alley by a banshee, grabs anything at hand to throw at it, and luckily one of the things he grabs to throw is rusting iron hinges that someone threw out.  Or something.  You'd have to be careful it doesn't become too much of a deus ex machina.

Or you go the other route and have it only help him out in small ways, but the big stuff he's on his own.  Like he needs to call someone and luckily finds the one working telephone booth in the slums.

You could also have a mentor figure.  Something Bob-esque, who can give advice but not really interfere much.  A drunken fairy godmother who was in love with his grandfather (fairies take lifetimes to get over heartbreak), maybe a book of sayings his grandfather left him that, when opened randomly, gives advice that's really obscure and only understood at the moment it's needed (or even just after).

[Mario Di Giacomo]

Couple of comments here...

About the endless saga things.  There's a difference between writing standalone stories in a shared universe (like Jim does), and writing multiple volumes of one story that doesn't seem to be heading for an ending anytime soon.

As for what I'd like to see?  Different kinds of fantasy being explored, not just Gothic horror and Celtic mysticism.  And stories that take place in different modern environments, not just big cities and quaint villages.

Oh, and at least 20 more Dresden Files books.

[Shecky]

Some of us don't like Pratchett that much though.

I'd like to see some that take place in our world, not a made up one like the Discworld books, where the hero and herione are oridinary looking peolpe. They're not some perfect super model/wrestler type. Just a couple of adverage Joes and Janes that kick supernatural butt.

One of the things I enjoy so much about the Discworld books is that the "heroes" are, well, MUCH less than perfect. The underbelly comes out on top (if you'll pardon the mixed metaphor ).

[JamiSings]

I figure the luck of the Irish think is kinda necessary since a normal joe schmoe confronted with homicidal supernatural folks needs some sort of edge, other than martial arts, etc.

Just don't let it become a crutch in which he gets out of every situation. Some should call for him actually thinking of something. Or a friend coming up with a plan. There should also be something that counter acts the LOTI. Like how kryptonite can bring down Superman.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

We need a Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin in one.

The Dead Man and Garrett in Glen Cook's Adjective Metal Noun series are heading in that direction.

There's also, confusingly enough, Randall Garrett's Too Many Magicians.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

The Luck of the Irish thing could play great.

Particularly the luck of the real Irish, which is that everyone fights with everyone else and it rains all the bloody time. 

Like he needs to call someone and luckily finds the one working telephone booth in the slums.

There is a magical payphone just outside Beaudry Metro station in Montreal which has the property that if you try calling someone from it three times they come out of the door beside you.  I have only tested this on one person, but I'm going to use it in a novel anyway.

[caynreth]

I'm just bored to death with vampires and werewolves. There are so many better mythos out there to work with! Be creative, author peoples!

[13x13]

I was thinking of having the luck not actually be that lucky. The main character is lazy, angry, and a 20 year old adolescent. So what he really needs to be a "man" is to build character.  So the luck knows this any puts him into situations that are beneficial to him in the long run...assuming he survives.

So his luck is just as likely to have him open up the phone book on the first try and find the number he is looking for, as it is to put him in the middle of a gang war(which would help him to develop his reflexes and stop complaining and realize that when he previously thought his life sucked he had no idea.)

So luck essentially has a plan to turn our protaganist into a hero, no matter how difficult or dangerous it could be.

[JamiSings]

So we've got an average Joe for a possible hero. But how about a Plain Jane? Come on, I can't write worth a darn and I really think people need to write (something other then cheap romance novels) where the fat girl kicks supernatural butt.

Okay, granted, it's partly because one of my dreams is to be the inspiration behind a great character. *chuckles* But also because I want to see a fat girl kick a werewolf in the head.

[novium]

I like them a lot.  The Atrocity Archives, which is the novel The Atrocity Archive plus the novella "Concrete Jungle", is readily available in paperback, and Jennifer Morgue is currently in hardback.  They are about the division of the British intelligence services devoted to containing Lovecraftian threats, who these days mostly tend to pick up and recruit hacker-types who are innocently fiddling around with obscure bits of mathematics.  The office politics is really something; it's like Dilbert with necromancy. Specifically, Atrocity Archive is pastiching Len Deighton, and Jennifer Morgue parodying Ian Fleming, though the central character is more of a Neal Stephenson type.  There is at least another one coming.

Disclaimer: I have beta-read for Charlie, though only one not-yet-published novella in this series.

He writes well. Too well maybe!  One thing that creeped me out about the atrocity archive is how well he managed to evoke the nazis. I was studying german history from the 1930s when I read it... and it conjured it up just a little too well for me. Usually I think the tendency is to make the nazis cartoonishly evil, to add crime after crime to their name... despite the fact that those embellishments always managed to fall far short of the true thing.  this book managed to hit up the horror, so that what he added did not seem like an embellishment as much as an extension. That if the world of the books existed, that is how it would have been.

[Kiriath]

I agree about the multiculturalism. I've heard that Lavie Tidhar does a lot of this, bringing in Hebrew mythology. I've had Snake Agent (the Liz Williams book) suggested to me before, and I plan to getting around it. American Gods had some occasional variety in it, too.

More... types of urban fantasy would be nice, too. There's a lot of detectives, and the Magic Council, which pops up everywhere, even in the Potters, is really starting to irritate me. How about something different, like an undersea investigator or an Indiana Jones archeologist? Strain the genre.

I have a Sidhe spy book brewing, though I don't know enough of the mythology to be able to write it yet. To my amusement, Simon Green got to the spies first, with The Man With the Golden Torc.

Oh, and technomancy. Hell yes. Magitech! Like WebMage, or the Mage the Ascension RPG. With some geeks in a world like that, some video game references could pop up.

Other countries, other cities... I love threads like this.

[JamiSings]

What if magic was something that goes in cycles and there's sometimes centuries before a true witch or wizard shows up? So there is no higher ups telling them what's right and wrong. No council what so ever? What if there's been no real magic between the end of the Black Death and today? What if they have to learn it all for themselves and make their own person choices? What if some higher being just randomly throws out magic talents to test people and see if the earth is mature enough to handle magic?