Ok…since I was suckered into Sookie and company while finding Sookies first book in an airport…which provoked a thread I started about whether I had just shudder read and shuddershudder enjoyed a romance novel…
I have sought out interesting and similar books. I have also found out it has a name…urban fantasy.
Now, I really like SF but never got into fantasy. Now that it takes place in what is our world or close, I find myself liking it.
I have picked up (besides Sookie) and enjoyed the most:
Kat Richardson (Graywalker) - Her writing style…I can’t really explain…but I like it. It is relaxing and interesting. It is nice to read from the point of view of a woman who is…just…well…not overly emotional, loves puzzles and seems so clueless about her emotions and others. I know she has been criticized for exactly this but I really like it. Definitely an underrated writer from what I can tell
Kim Harrison (Rachel Morgan) - whoa boy. Opposite of the Graywalker. This is one screwed up chick. Very fun to read. I also like that she is growing up and realizing that her screwed up antics will get her killed.
Jim Butcher - Not much can be said. The King
Rob Thurman (Cal Leandros/Trixie) - Keep an eye on this author. Very different and very fun to read. I put Rob right behind Jim Butcher on this list because noone can be aheadof the king!
So - unlike the previous post where I wished to be told I wasn’t unmanly to read it (Sookie) I have decided that I do like em and will read em :). However, have others read these and, more importantly, are there other authors similar that I would like?
Justin Gustainis (Morris/Chastain series) – similar to Jim Butcher’s work; in fact, I think they know each other. He’s only published 3 so far, but he has at least 3 more in the works.
Ilona Andrews (Kate Daniels) – probably my favorite of the genre. Andrews has also started a new series called On the Edge, and the first book was pretty entertaining.
Patricia Briggs (Mercy Thompson) – werewolves and vampires and fae, oh my! Love the Mercy Thompson series, hate the *Alpha and Omega *series. YMMV.
Yup. There aren’t a lot of guys in the genre - Rob Thurman is a she too, by the way - but Gaiman, Butcher, and Charles de Lint are probably the most well known male writers.
Since the OP likes the same authors as I do, I’ll recommend Kelley Armstrong and Particia Briggs too. I like KA’s books a lot more, but PB’s are not too bad. I’ve recently started in on a book by Kelly Gay called The Better Part of Darkness that’s off too a pretty good beginning. Oh, and Justine Musk, the ex-wife of Paypal’s creator, isn’t too bad either, at least based on BloodAngel.
You’ve already read War For The Oaks by Emma Bull, right? Most self-respecting urban fantasy fans like it a lot.
I was gonna turn you on to Jim Butcher. He’s no great literature, but he sure is great fun! I love his books.
Tim Powers is hit or miss for me. Far and away my favorite book by him is Last Call: poker as chaos magick. It’s all conspiracy-theory, pop-math silliness, but my hands were shaking with excitement during the last 60 pages of the book, and that’s never happened before or since.
I just read one that barely qualifies: it’s an urban fantasy set in Paris. Catch is, it’s 17th-century Paris, where Cardinal Richilieu has a small pet dragon sitting on his desk and wyverns serve the military. It’s called The Cardinal’s Blades, originally in French, and a helluva lot of fun.
If you want to dip your toes into the created-world fantasy milieu, there are two great urban fantasies I have to recommend. For pure fun along the lines of Jim Butcher, try The Lies of Locke Lamora, a lovely con-artist story. For serious crunchy weirdness with an insane city as the main character, try Perdido Street Station by China Mieville. People love it or hate it, and there’s little room in the middle.
One last sorta-sorta recommendation: The City and the City, also by China Mieville. It’s set in two fictional modern-day cities, it’s a hard-boiled detective novel, and I can’t say anything else without ruining its fun.
I also recommend Briggs, and I liked the first few of Rachel Caine’s books.
I like Tanya Huff’s Blood books, which feature the 400-yr-old vampire Henry Fitzroy in modern-day Canada. I also like P.N. Elrod’s Jack Fleming books, about a vampire detective in 1930’s Chicago.
Most recently I’ve read Mike Carey’s urban fantasy series starting with The Devil You Know. It’s a bit like Harry Dresden in London, darker and with admittedly less snark.
I dropped in to recommend this one. Carey is best known for his Sandman comic spinoff Lucifer. The Felix Castor novels are really fun supernatural noir, in a London where the dead rose on Y2K and now exorcists are a real necessity. I’ve read the first two and I’m waiting for Dead Mens Boots to come out in paperback before I move ahead with the last two I got from the UK. I highly recommend them!
He’s actually really, really good. Dresden is firmly genre fiction, not necessarily literature as such, but Butcher is very talented at weaving coherent storylines, setting clues and foreshadowing, creating an interesting world, and giving his writing life and excitement. He’s a good author; he just happens to be an RPG and fantasy geek.
As for Neil Gaiman, I just recently read Neverwhere. It’s almost too simplistic a novel for him, since it’s a novelization of a miniseries, but it’s still really engaging and as urban fantasy as you can get. Loved it.
There are only two books so far, but if you can handle really dark stuff, you might like Charlie Huston’s Joe Pitt novels. Warring clans of vampyres in Manhattan. I think Huston rivals Elmore Leonard when it comes to dialogue.
There are four books in the Joe Pitt series now. I thought of recommending those, too, but I hesitate because they’re ultra violent, which I wouldn’t normally enjoy. But Huston’s fantastic dialogue keeps me reading them. (I must look up this Elmore Leonard.)
I’ll second (third?) recommendations for Gaiman and Mieville, and throw in Martin Millar - I’ve only read a couple of his books - Milk, Sulphate and Alby Starvation and The Good Fairies of New York, but I highly recommend both. They’re a different tone from Gaiman or Butcher - there’s not really a quest or anything, just people (and fairies) worrying about getting laid or winning a fiddle competition. Great writing, though.
