Are Readers Growing Tired of New Urban Fantasy?

[Figging Mint]

Pat Elrod was griping on FB the other day that she needed to come up with a new genre that would put her in the J.K. Rowling class of best-sellerdom, and that vampires and wizards seemed to be overdone.

Go back to source mythoi.   Stop digging in other people's tailings.

[LizW65]

I can't wait for zombies to stop being trendy, they really have no appeal to me.

Agreed; I don't get the appeal of what is, basically, a mindless animated corpse at all.
What I'd really like to see is some clever tech/science based Steampunk fiction with no paranormal elements whatsoever.

[OZ]

What I'd really like to see is some clever tech/science based Steampunk fiction with no paranormal elements whatsoever.

I wouldn't mind seeing this if someone could pull it off. It wouldn't even bother me if they cheated a little on the science as long as the writer knew the science and was aware of when and why they were breaking the rules. I say that because I don't know if I would even consider it steam punk if there weren't some mechanical marvels that might not strictly be possible unless they were in a universe where the laws of physics were slightly different than our own.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

What I'd really like to see is some clever tech/science based Steampunk fiction with no paranormal elements whatsoever.

Steampunk is actually the other fashionable genre thing I can't wait to be over, fwiw.  Between the frequent unpleasant colonialist undertones and my lingering affection for the laws of thermodynamics, most of it does not work for me at all.

[OZ]

...and that, the affection for the laws of thermodynamics, is why I don't know if anyone could pull off a steampunk story with no paranormal elements. I have read more than one steampunk story where perpetual motion machines were common but people marveled at a motorcycle or someone could get much more energy out of a system than they ever put into it. I can't enjoy that great a change from reality especially when it is introduced as not being supernatural. I would, however, like to read a steampunk story where the supernatural touch is light and only used when absolutely necessary.

[Shecky]

The few steampunk stories I've read and enjoyed reminded me of this little plum: "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Which describes the "accidental" (i.e., an ill-understood discovery in an alternate timeline) steampunk stories quite well.

[LDWriter2]

The few steampunk stories I've read and enjoyed reminded me of this little plum: "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Which describes the "accidental" (i.e., an ill-understood discovery in an alternate timeline) steampunk stories quite well.

I haven't read that many yet but I can see why some people would have problems with having to put aside their unbelief. Some of the tech does seem to defy certain physical laws even though I have read a couple with no real paranormal...at least what I usually think of as paranormal.

But in that case sorry to report that they are on the raise. I don't think but I'm not sure if it will take over like UF did but there will be quite a few new ones.

BTW I like some of it, especially a spy thriller type series I am reading.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

The few steampunk stories I've read and enjoyed reminded me of this little plum: "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Which describes the "accidental" (i.e., an ill-understood discovery in an alternate timeline) steampunk stories quite well.

Indeed.  And come to think of it. I'm very fond of The Adventures of Brisco County Jr., and I suppose that's close enough to steampunk that I should modify my earlier position thereon.

I do think there is a difference in scale, though between a story that intentionally takes place in a world with intentionally alternate physics that look like magic (not that I can think of very many; Richard Garfinkle's Celestial Matters, which did not quite work for me, and a couple of excellent Ted Chiang novellas particularly "Seventy-Two Letters") and one that is sloppy on conservation of energy solely for the sake of getting to have cool clockwork automata.

[Figging Mint]

I find the correlation between clockwork automata and colonialist attitudes rather interesting, do you attribute that to outright copying (and perhaps over-nurturing) of 19th cent. prevalent attitudes or to something within the technological premise itself?

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

I find the correlation between clockwork automata and colonialist attitudes rather interesting, do you attribute that to outright copying (and perhaps over-nurturing) of 19th cent. prevalent attitudes or to something within the technological premise itself?

I think it represents some authors taking on steampunk/Victoriana as one fused monolith of ideas and images and implications rather than really analysing deeper consequences of changing some elements of a setting.  But then, I have an ongoing grumble about failure to think through economics of fantasy worlds, or consequences on population growth of magical healing, or consequences of magic in general, that really I am resigned to only getting very occasional counterexamples for. (Short of writing them myself.)

[OZ]

And I thought that I was being anal when I had a problem in "science" fiction worlds with predator to prey ( if indeed there were any prey at all) ratios that were all out of whack. I try not to even think about economics in most sci fi or fantasy countries or it will make me pull out the little hair that I have left. There are also the systems of government that sound wonderful but would rapidly implode if someone tried to use them with real people. Usually I just intentionally overlook this sort of thing but every once in a while it sneaks up on me and slaps me in the face.

[Snowleopard]

The willing suspension of disbelief.
I can do it but I refuse to hang it by an unravelling cotton thread over the Grand Canyon - that's just
too much to ask.
As you say, every now and then it just up and slaps you in the face
and you can't enjoy it anymore.

[LDWriter2]

Getting back to UF books.

For some reason I recently remembered one more. A HD type of character. I can't recall the writer but the title is "Urban Knight". It's a YA book I think by the way it was written but it has a recommendation from William Shatner on the cover. I know there's a second one out some place but I haven't seen it.

And there is another series that might be UF. A kinda fusion of UF, alternate universe with a touch of steampunk. I say it might be UF because the tech is late 1800s or earlier 1900s. Not sure what time period UF has to be in to be UF. Looks like an English type culture but in a made up country not in London. I say a touch of steampunk because they fly in airships not airplanes but it fits with the made up culture and tech development. 

Anyway it's the Renegade Wizard series by K. E. Mills. I recently found out there's a fourth which I rejoiced about because the third sounded like the end. But Barnes and Noble didn't have it last week.


If you want plain old fantasy definitely read the series-Raines Benares- by Lisa Shearin. Or did I suggest that one already? In either case it's worth reading.

[Yeratel]

I'm not sure whether to class Randall Garrett's alternate history "Lord Darcy" stories as Steampunk, or precursors of Steampunk. In the alternate universe, magic works, which has held back the development of technology to the point that by the 1950s, the world's technology base was just getting to where it was in Victorian times, in our timeline.  Both Garrett's original stories, and the continuations written by Michael Kurland are good reads, though.

[OZ]

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.