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

[Moritz]

- I don't like that wholke PI & romance area of Urban Fantasy which is so popular at the moment. Actually, while I love Dresden Files, that's about as far as I'll go in that direction. I'd like more evocative magical worlds, like the stuff by Gaiman.
- I'd like more UF set in Europe (I have to admit that I am a bit eurocentric anyway)
- I agree on including more average people.
- what I'd like with a shared world for UF would be if you had writers from real different cultures who contributed "their parts of the world" for something set on earth.

short story on problems with "average people": I was working on the setting and characters of a graphic novel set in an urban fantasy version of my hometown and wanted to include a teenage girl with no special powers or skills whatsoever. the idea was that she could be the one the readers could relate to most. I talked about it with my illustrator and he said that it was a stupid idea. I am now considering putting her "accidentally" near major events and that there is some kind of hidden reason for that. not sure about it though. [btw, the setting of this is a bit more far out than typical UF, set in Europe, and the supernaturals start out rather average  ]

[Franzeska]

Wish someone would peruse through the thread and careful and concisley put togther the most comman issues in a bull it point list

That's bullet point.  I've just read this whole thing for the first time, and while I'm not going to go back and assign numerical rankings, these are the issues people have mentioned a bunch:

1. More diversity! -- We want different settings (Europe, other US cities, other parts of the world).  We want authors who sound like they actually know about non-US cultures.  We want US authors who make use of the actual diversity of the US.

You've all read the Watch books, right?  The Russian urban fantasy series by Sergei Lukyanenko?  The solution to everything being too US-centric is to read more foreign books.

2. More magical diversity!  --  We want less of the trendy mythologies and critters and more of the weird ones.  (Though we don't all agree on which should stay and which should go.  Personally, I could do without any more "celtic" anything ever, and East Asian stuff often sounds like an anime ripoff.)  We want real folklore monsters instead of movie Dracula.  We want folklore we haven't heard of before and monsters that aren't in every single other UF book.

3. More magical diversity! -- Some of us like science-y magic, others don't.  All of us agree that authors should be more creative about their magical systems.  They need to be internally consistent and not the same as White Wolf or every other UF book.

4. More diversity of heroes!  -- Ok, ok, no hero is going to be ordinary ordinary, but could we at least have some short, fat people in with our Xenas?  Or someone who's not a PI, half vampire, or changeling?  Or at least some plausible adults?  These stories are set in the real world; let's have some heroes from there too.

5. No more sex!  --  We're fantasy fans, not softcore porn vampire romance novel fans.  More plot and less nookie, please!  Pointless canoodling is what fanfiction is for.

6. No more series-itus!  --  Many of us are sick of long series (not me!), but we're all sick of series that go on and on for no reason.  Trilogies and stand-alone books, please!  Overall series plot, please!  No more jumping the shark Anita Blake style, for the love of god!

7. Good prose!  --  Just because we like genre fiction doesn't mean we don't like good writing.  Publishers need to stop pushing out crapfests just because they're in a trendy subgenre.  We want good books!


So, basically, we want fresh, interesting books by actually talented authors instead of Extruded Urban Fantasy Product.

[hamiltond]

That's bullet point.  I've just read this whole thing for the first time, and while I'm not going to go back and assign numerical rankings, these are the issues people have mentioned a bunch:

1. More diversity! -- We want different settings (Europe, other US cities, other parts of the world).  We want authors who sound like they actually know about non-US cultures.  We want US authors who make use of the actual diversity of the US.

You've all read the Watch books, right?  The Russian urban fantasy series by Sergei Lukyanenko?  The solution to everything being too US-centric is to read more foreign books.

2. More magical diversity!  --  We want less of the trendy mythologies and critters and more of the weird ones.  (Though we don't all agree on which should stay and which should go.  Personally, I could do without any more "celtic" anything ever, and East Asian stuff often sounds like an anime ripoff.)  We want real folklore monsters instead of movie Dracula.  We want folklore we haven't heard of before and monsters that aren't in every single other UF book.

3. More magical diversity! -- Some of us like science-y magic, others don't.  All of us agree that authors should be more creative about their magical systems.  They need to be internally consistent and not the same as White Wolf or every other UF book.

4. More diversity of heroes!  -- Ok, ok, no hero is going to be ordinary ordinary, but could we at least have some short, fat people in with our Xenas?  Or someone who's not a PI, half vampire, or changeling?  Or at least some plausible adults?  These stories are set in the real world; let's have some heroes from there too.

5. No more sex!  --  We're fantasy fans, not softcore porn vampire romance novel fans.  More plot and less nookie, please!  Pointless canoodling is what fanfiction is for.

6. No more series-itus!  --  Many of us are sick of long series (not me!), but we're all sick of series that go on and on for no reason.  Trilogies and stand-alone books, please!  Overall series plot, please!  No more jumping the shark Anita Blake style, for the love of god!

7. Good prose!  --  Just because we like genre fiction doesn't mean we don't like good writing.  Publishers need to stop pushing out crapfests just because they're in a trendy subgenre.  We want good books!


So, basically, we want fresh, interesting books by actually talented authors instead of Extruded Urban Fantasy Product.

Well said.

[Moritz]

You've all read the Watch books, right?  The Russian urban fantasy series by Sergei Lukyanenko?  The solution to everything being too US-centric is to read more foreign books.

well, there just aren't that many, not only because of few translations but also because the markets in other countries are much smaller. I recently read a German vampire novel which is in the general urban fantasy direction and it was rather stupid* (there are also 2 werewolf books by the same author, but I didn't bother checking them out).

*the style, the story, the setting, the characters, the (lack of) motivations - everything annoyed me.

[comprex]

Well said.

I like her.

[Franzeska]

well, there just aren't that many, not only because of few translations but also because the markets in other countries are much smaller. I recently read a German vampire novel which is in the general urban fantasy direction and it was rather stupid* (there are also 2 werewolf books by the same author, but I didn't bother checking them out).

*the style, the story, the setting, the characters, the (lack of) motivations - everything annoyed me.

Ha ha ha.  Well, there's no guarantee that foreign books will be any better than American ones, but they're almost certain to be less American.  I loved Night Watch specifically because it was set in Moscow and kept mentioning Russian rock bands and random details of modern life there.  As always, the real problem is that brilliant authors (and translators for that matter) just aren't as common as bad ones.

[Shecky]

As always, the real problem is that brilliant authors (and translators for that matter) just aren't as common as bad ones.

The only difference between those two camps is that even bad authors can have a following. Bad translators don't work long. And there just aren't that many translators, period; the good ones (i.e., the ones who keep getting work) get held on to like grim death, and companies hunting for good professional translators often end up getting mediocre, uninspired ones... and hang on to them, because they don't want one who's actually BAD.

Most of all, though, competent translators are not cheap when working freelance. I'm one of the few with a full-time contract; I'm making okay money at it (in exchange for stability and reliability of paycheck - you'd be amazed at how many companies hire cousin Fred who took a year of language X back in high school to do their "translations" because it's cheaper that way), but my freelance rates are about double my hourly rate here, and that's far from chump change. Most companies that worship at the Bottom-Line Temple take the cousin-Fred route, and that makes the translation just stupid. Hell, publishing companies want to pay their freaking AUTHORS as little as possible, and those are people who have a direct, quantifiable effect on the company's profits; you think they're going to want to spend enough money to get a quality translation? It's appalling how many corporate suit-racks think that translation is something you can do with a $35 computer program and only grudgingly hire an actual PERSON to translate, and they're NOT going to be willing to pay them what they're worth.

As usual, it comes back to the two-of-three choice: good, fast and cheap. You can get any two together at any time, but never all three. And given the more-and-more-standard corporate mentality, guess which two they choose.

[Franzeska]

Most of all, though, competent translators are not cheap when working freelance. I'm one of the few with a full-time contract; I'm making okay money at it (in exchange for stability and reliability of paycheck - you'd be amazed at how many companies hire cousin Fred who took a year of language X back in high school to do their "translations" because it's cheaper that way),

Yeah, no kidding.  I have vague aspirations of being a translator, but unfortunately, I'm more cousin Fred level in all of the foreign languages I've studied.  Out of curiosity, are you a literary or technical translator?  I know companies love to "save money" by hiring idiots to do the technical stuff, but I thought the problems with literary translation went beyond that--that there just isn't enough of a market in the US for translated fiction to support a proper crop of professional literary translators.  It seems like everything really famous/good/important is translated by a professor and anything pulpy by someone with no creative writing skills.  (Well, ok, not everything, but it does sometimes feel that way.)

[Shecky]

Yeah, no kidding.  I have vague aspirations of being a translator, but unfortunately, I'm more cousin Fred level in all of the foreign languages I've studied.  Out of curiosity, are you a literary or technical translator?  I know companies love to "save money" by hiring idiots to do the technical stuff, but I thought the problems with literary translation went beyond that--that there just isn't enough of a market in the US for translated fiction to support a proper crop of professional literary translators.  It seems like everything really famous/good/important is translated by a professor and anything pulpy by someone with no creative writing skills.  (Well, ok, not everything, but it does sometimes feel that way.)

The same level of problems exists in both technical and "creative" translation (and I do both); they're just different. The best translations are done by people who are actually experts (or at least extensively knowledgeable) in the field - you can't do a GOOD translation unless you're very familiar with the subject. For example, I can translate a literary text and a user's manual (for most common-market items, anyway), but I wouldn't touch translating a legal or insurance document if my life depended on it. FWIW, a professor's translation is not necessarily a good one, especially if they're prone to a particular school of lit-crit - imagine Dresden translated by someone who's a champion of Marxist lit-crit (i.e., seeing Marxist ideas in everyfreakingthing). Again, the best translators are full-on pros who charge a pretty freakin' penny... and are worth it, because the output is exactly as good as the input. They deliver neither more nor less than is in the original text, and that's a helluva lot harder than it might seem. But, business mentality being what it so often is, "just translate all the words" is too often the order of the day, which is why you get instruction manuals that mean exactly bupkes and works of literature that read flatter than Kansas.

[Moritz]

I loved Night Watch specifically because it was set in Moscow and kept mentioning Russian rock bands and random details of modern life there.  As always, the real problem is that brilliant authors (and translators for that matter) just aren't as common as bad ones.

the book I was referring to is a real offender because in one sentence the author rants through his protagonist how many english words people use nowadays, and then a page later he writes "kicken" and "fighten". 

abolut translators: I just remembered that I am officially registered as a translator  (but not certified. i.e. I have no translator training, just two native languages. I have the registration so that companies get the taxes thing right with me. But I have never translated prose, just interviews and technical reports)