Troperville
Editing Help
Tools
Toys
|
A broad genre label, this includes just about any setting which involves present-day Earth with a magical element. There is usually a Masquerade of some kind, but the most daring of these sorts of settings and stories, like GURPS Technomancer, actually integrate magic into normal society. If this isn't the case, though, there's guaranteed to be another society ( or five) just for the supernatural beings.
At times, this is a case of The Magic Comes Back. Other times, there has been an Ancient Conspiracy to keep up the Masquerade throughout all of recorded history. In some cases, it's a version of our world with magic added to it. Other other times you have All Myths Are True settings, and the mythological creatures and deities have had to adopt to modern times.
In short, put a single vampire in something, and it's horror. Put a gaggle of them in there and mention the phrase "vampire politics", it's urban fantasy.
A popular genre for Tabletop RPGs. See also Gothic Punk. Compare with Magic Realism and Cosmic Horror.
Examples
open/close all folders
- Neil Gaiman's The Sandman.
- Fables, by Bill Willingham, is about the adventure of the characters (and creatures) of Fairy Tales and folklore stories such as Snow White, Jack (of "and the Beanstalk" and "the Giant-Killer" fame), and the Big Bad Wolf (now going as Bigby Wolf) in modern day New York.
- Hellblazer.
- Hellboy: Urban Fantasy mixed with Cosmic Horror of the Cthulhuoid variety
- Witchblade; while Sarah gets to fight against countless demons, monsters and supernatural creatures lurking inside New York, everybody at the NYPD thinks she just happens to be a detective who gets too many weird cases.
- Furthermore, most readers don't realize that Sarah lives in a shared universe filled with mutant cyborgs, killer androids, two alien races fighting a secret war, stranded time travelers, secret government conspiracies that manufacture human weapons of mass destruction, a secret society of witches, among other things. Most stories don't mention that, preferring to keep Sarah in a self-contained world, but when parts of the larger mythos do creep in, it can feel a little jarring.
- Mage, by Matt Wagner, which is kind of like what a superhero comic would be like if the character's powers were magic and they and their opponents keep things under wraps.
- Sabrina The Teenage Witch, including its adaptations in other media.
- Dragon's Wild and Dragon's Luck by Robert R.R. Aspirin. It specifically explains why you don't see dragons flying around and what else fey do nowadays.
Fan Fic
- Lilith Saintcrow's Dante Valentine and Jill Kismet series.
- Kelley Armstrong's Women Of The Otherworld series.
- Amelia Atwater-Rhodes' Nyeusigrube books. Generally they take place in Massachusetts.
- Clive Barker's Imajika, Weaveworld, and The Great and Secret Show — among many others...
- Holly Black's Modern Tales Of Faerie.
- Patricia Briggs's Mercy Thompson series.
- Emma Bull's War for the Oaks takes place in modern Minneapolis, and the places (clubs, parks, etc.) mentioned are real.
- Charles De Lint's Newford stories and novels.
- Diane Duane's Young Wizards series (except when it goes under sea, off planet, or into parallel dimensions).
- Several of Neil Gaiman's novels: American Gods, Anansi Boys, Neverwhere and Coraline all apply.
- Simon R Green's Nightside series.
- The Anita Blake series by Laurel K Hamilton are set in a world just like ours, but with magic and magical creatures: Necromancers work for the police department to put down supernatural threats, Vampires are recently considered citizens, and werewolves are victims of prejudice. Urban Fantasy mixed with Gothic Horror and a good helping of erotica.
- Mercedes Lackey's SERRAted Edge books and their related spin-offs, both by herself and in collaboration with other authors.
- Michael de Larrabeiti's Borribles books feature immortal elf-like child-thieves who live in the baseboards of modern society and battle their eternal enemies, giant talking, tech-savvy rodents called "Rumbles".
- Most of China Miéville's work is considered Urban Fantasy. Although the world is much different from ours, the setting is urban and technological. Perdido Street Station is an outstanding example.
- Tim Powers' Last Call, Expiration Date and Earthquake Weather. His novel Declare is a hybrid of urban fantasy and Cold War spy story.
- Non-Discworld Terry Pratchett books, such as the Johnny Maxwell Trilogy and the Bromeliad, are definitely Urban Fantasy. Or possibly Urban Science Fiction, it's hard to say.
- JK Rowling's Harry Potter novels. (Until you get to Hogwarts and the "Wizarding world" which looks more like a cross between 20th-century America and 18th-century Europe. Actually justified in Hogwarts when it was enchanted to keep muggle technology out.)
- The Dresden Files takes place in a Chicago like this, down to the magic, monsters, and Masquerades, although its style might be a slightly tongue-in-cheek take on White Wolf's World Of Darkness setting.
- Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles straddle the line between Urban Fantasy, Gothic horror, and erotica.
- Princess of Wands, by John Ringo, for which a sequel is coming in the near future.
- The works of Charles Williams make this Older Than Television.
- Tad Williams' The War Of Flowers for the greater part takes place in Faery, but one much influenced by our contemporary world.
- The Nasuverse, all of it (see also under Video Games).
- Kara No Kyoukai, Nasu's first published series of books, explain how souls and Akasha work here.
- DDD, a currently releasing series of Light Novels, is exploring the subject of true demons (not to be confused with the similar Oni).
- The Magic Time series of novels, created and co-written by Marc Scott Zicree, combine Urban Fantasy with After The End.
- The Word and Void trilogy. The rest of the Shannara series is more of a post-apocalyptic fantasy series.
- The Night Watch series.
- Mortal Instruments.
- The Shared Universe Bordertown is a city on the border between the "real world" and Faerie.
- Hand Of Mercy features angels rather than vampires, but it's set in recognisable pieces of present-day Britain.
- Jeff VanderMeer's Ambergris books, The City of Saints and Madmen and Shriek: An Afterword are set in a fictional city of Ambergris in a world that has little to do with our own, but is developed enough to have motor vehicles (which are never called "cars"), and telephones. The most abnormal thing in the setting is a race of Little People known as the Graycaps that live in the tunnels under the city and suffer no human trespassers, but the only records from a person who ventured there, if taken for a fact, imply massive subterranean realms of impossible scale spreading beneath the ground.
- Kim Harrison's The Hollows series.
- Richelle Mead's Georgina Kincaid series of novels (Succubus Blues, Nights, Dreams and Heat) about the titular succubus in Seattle and her satanic peers, who are just a small corner of the Diabolical Bureaucracy.
- Mead's other series, Dark Swan (currently consisting of the novels Storm Born and Thorn Queen), too.
- Sarah Rees Brennan's The Demons Lexicon involves Demonic Possession in modern-day England.
- The Science Of Magic
- The House Of Night —
Vampires Vampyres are an everyday part of life. They are generally regarded by the church as at the same level as gay people and abortion.
- The October Daye series.
- Artemis Fowl
- Twilight
- Broken Saints, although the fantastic elements are rare and selectively placed.
|
|
