As I mentioned in a previous post, when I started reading urban fantasy, it meant something a little different than most people take it to mean these days. As a result, my recommendations don’t always show up on most folks’ lists.

[So here I go, kickin’ it old school]

I get asked a lot about what kind of research I’ve done on werewolves. Which is kind of an odd question, because they’re fictional creatures and technically I could make up whatever I want. But there’s a long, vast history of folklore, stories, and pop cultural expectations about the beasts, and I think most people want to know what folkloric sources I’ve used.

The answer is: I haven’t, much. Instead, I’ve turned to wolf biology to help me build a better werewolf.

[Read more]

If ten people are talking about urban fantasy, they’ll actually be talking 
about six different things.  When I first started paying attention to things 
like sub-genre definitions (early 1990’s), the term urban fantasy usually 
labeled stories in a contemporary setting with traditionally fantastical 
elements—the modern folktale works of Charles de Lint, Emma Bull’s punk 
elf stories, the Bordertown series, and so on.

But the term is older than 
that, and I’ve also heard it used to describe traditional other-world 
fantasy set in a city, such as Fritz Leiber’s Lankhmar stories. Vampire 
fiction (the books of Anne Rice, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, and P.N. Elrod for 
example) was its own separate thing.

Lately I’ve been wondering—when did “urban fantasy” come to be used 
almost exclusively to describe anything remotely following in the footsteps 
of Buffy and Anita?  Stories with a main character who kicks ass, and with 
supernatural beings, usually but not exclusively vampires and werewolves 
(with liberal sprinklings of zombies, angels, djinn, ghosts, merfolk, and so 
on) who are sometimes bad guys but often good guys.  Those ubiquitous covers 
of leather-clad women with lots of tattoos.

[Well, I think I have an answer.]