Adult Urban Fantasy Hits the Lil’ Screen
Published by Lisa Kansas September 7th, 2008 in Books, Culture, Entertainment
I’m talking, of course, about True Blood, set to premiere on HBO tonight at 9 pm. I am sorta embarrassed to admit that I actually went and got HBO added to my cable package just so I could see the thing. Worse and worse, this is the first television show in about, oh, ten years that I actually am making a point of trying to watch, myself, on purpose. I feel incredibly peculiar, like I’d suddenly gone out and bought a stack of bridal magazines or something. Maybe I’m mutating! and this is, like, the first sign.
As anybody who reads fantasy knows, the urban fantasy subgenre is The Big One and has been for several years now. I can stick my nose up in the air a trifle about the phenom and say that I was an urban fantasy reader loooong before it became the “it” subgenre–I was a Sonja Blue fan in the early ’90s, which most people, even those who obsessively read urban fantasy, still don’t know about, and I knew who Laurell K. Hamilton was before the first Anita Blake book was ever written. Nowadays it’s hard to find fantasy that isn’t urban fantasy, and folks that you wouldn’t ever really imagine penning a word of the stuff, such as Robin McKinley, she of the generally quite lyrical and decidedly nonsexual fantasy prose, have cranked out at least one urban fantasy novel. For anyone who doesn’t know what urban fantasy is, it’s set in modern times, usually in the city but not always, featuring most often (though not exclusively–Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files are one notable masculine exception) a strong female protagonist speaking in first person, who spends the entire book kicking ass and taking names and generally being lusted after by any number of incredibly hot dudes who are usually (but not always) supernatural in nature. Men have been pumping out this type of fantasy for themselves for decades, identical in most respects with only the genders reversed and the bulk of the protagonist’s abilities not necessarily of a magical nature as they are for the females–it’s pretty obvious from a psychological aspect why women have concentrated their own characters’ ass-kicking abilities in the paranormal rather than the sheer muscle or specialized combat training. As it turns out, which should surprise nobody but the sexist, the desire to be the toughest, coolest problem-solver on the block while being hotly desired by multiple drop-dead gorgeous members of your preferred sexual orientation is a universal human desire, not a gendered one.
So anyway, the True Blood series is based closely on one of my favorite urban fantasy offerings, a series of books called the Southern Vampire Mysteries by an author named Charlaine Harris. The protagonist is Sookie Stackhouse, a small-town Southern barmaid who is uncontrollably telepathic, in a world where vampires have “come out of the closet” just a few years before after a Japanese biotech company invented workable synthetic blood. As it turns out, Sookie can almost never hear vampires’ thoughts, which she finds madly attractive, half-nuts as she is from listening to the endless cacaphony of mindless noise and outright malice from her fellow humans’ brains day in and day out. It’s one of my favorite urban fantasy series for the following reasons: (1) Sookie is genuinely comfortable as a single adult woman. She’s also normal–she gets lonely and horny just like everyone else, but though she has multiple opportunities throughout the books to compromise her independence and personal preferences in exchange for having a reasonable specimen of manhood around full-time, she never does. Refreshing. and, (2) the characterization of small-town Southerners is just too hysterically accurate (do keep in mind I grew up in Hicksville Kansas). and, (3) the author is a good writer–great dialogue, flawless grammar, more than just surface characterizations of even secondary characters–in short, everything that author Laurell K. Hamilton, who is half responsible for the explosion of the subgenre in the first place, lacks. (Buffy the Vampire Slayer is, of course, responsible for the other half.)
In case anybody’s interested, either in getting his or her feet wet or as an already seasoned reader, here’s a quick list of some of the notables of the urban fantasy subgenre, with of course my opinions appended. Others’ opinions are always welcome!
1. Of course, the Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris.
2. As mentioned before, Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake series, which is up to something like the 15th book at this point. The first three books were good because they were original at the time and the heroine was realistically tough and likable and the sex was titillating without being overwhelming. The second three books were okay. All books after that turned into 80% erotica and 20% Anita gaining yet another superpower that made her able to defeat whatever undeafeatable baddie was occupying the current literary space. At that point, Hamilton’s horrible grammar, punctuation and sometimes even spelling became impossible to ignore.
3. Also mentioned before, the Sonja Blue series by Nancy A. Collins. I would really, really recommend it to anyone that won’t be put off by the very hard-core sex and extreme gory violence of the books. Her main character is of a cold-blooded toughness that makes most of today’s urban fantasy heroines look like shrieky little girls, and while some of them have tried to explore what it might be like to have a “dark side,” only Sonja’s dark side is realistic.
4. The Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer is getting a lot of press. It is a YA series, not an adult series, so keep that in mind if you try it. Also, you will not be surprised, if you do try it, to find out that the author is a Mormon housewife. The series is very promoting of obsessing with a boy you want to marry to the absolute exclusion of all other life planning, abstinence-til-marriage, pro-life even if the mother is guaranteed going to die in childbirth and marrying at age eighteen with the assumption that this is definitely how you’ll find the compatible person you’ll want to spend the rest of your life with, no question!
5. My current favorite out there is the Kitty series by Carrie Vaughn. Kitty is a werewolf who has her own talk radio show and she refreshingly has absolutely no interest whatsoever in either falling madly in love or having sex with any vampires of any description, nor has she developed a single superpower outside of what she already possessed as a werewolf throughout the entire (currently four-book, with five and six coming out next year) series. What she does develop is independence and maturity. They are awesome.
6. Kelley Armstrong has a whole slew of books, with more to come, called the Women of the Underworld series. The books’ protagonists vary–she has three from the viewpoint of a female werewolf, two from the viewpoint of a female witch, at least one from the viewpoint of a female ghost, one from the viewpoint of a female half-demon and two from the viewpoints of two different female necromancers (death magicians). They vary in quality and originality, with the better books overwhelmingly being written early. Her recent YA book was pretty good, and she’s supposed to be putting one out soon that will feature an absolutely normal human as the main character, which will be an interesting and fresh plot shift. My favorites were the two from the perspective of the witch Paige Winterbourne, called Dime Store Magic and Industrial Magic.
7. The Undead series by Maryjanice Davidson used to be hysterical chick-lit satire from first to last. Each book just got funnier and funnier, til about two books ago, when the characters all became one-dimensional caricatures of themselves whose sole purpose was to toss off one-liners while the protagonist, Betsy, accidentally saved everyone’s lives again. The latest offering was by far the worst and the author herself has indicated that she is taking the series “in a new direction” starting with said latest offering, so I may not be continuing with it. However, I have to recommend the first four or five books.
Expect an update after 10 pm this evening!
UPDATE: I give Episode #1 a “6″ out of “10.” Hopefully it will get a little smoother as time goes on. Some of the dialogue was lifted straight from the book, which was pretty cool, but they took quite the ham-handed approach to Sookie’s fascination with Bill and Sam’s fascination with Sookie–in the book neither of them ever acts like love-struck teenagers and I think it removes a lot of the sexual tension to portray them that way on the screen. It’s true that Sookie in the book is virginal in body, but she’s far from virginal in mind, and the only reason she’s so in body is because it hasn’t been possible for her to have sex with anybody, tuned unstoppably into their thoughts as she would be the whole time. She certainly has no interest in going around gasping at people for flirting with each other in front of her, as she’s shown doing in the show. Also in the book, nobody so much as hints at her telepathy–it is common knowledge but she’s much more reviled for it than indulged, but conversely, she also doesn’t make a big deal out of denial as she’s shown doing in the show. Also, the character of Maudette Pickens was really altered, pretty much obviously because the show’s creators wanted to insert a hard-core semi-porn scene, which I think is kind of pathetic.
I’m shocked that you didn’t mention Kim Harrison’s Rachel Morgan series. I actually love 4 of the 6 you catalog (but found myself OVER the Twilight series by the end of last book; YUCK), including Harris, Armstrong and Vaughn. But I think that Harrison does it better than most, and that includes those 4 I’ve just mentioned. Some other goodies:
-Nightwalker, by an Jocelyn Drake. It’s a new book by a first-time author, and I really enjoyed it.
-Stray (1st in a series) by Rachel Vincent. I’ve loved the couple of books in this series that I’ve read, about a werecat family in the south. So good.
-Dark-Hunter series by Sherilyn Kenyon. These are straight-up romance, except urban fantasy at the same time. Oh, how I love the first 10 or so books in the series. I don’t like the Dream-Chaser books, but everything else has been insanely good.
I’ve tried JR Ward and Laurel K. Hamilton, and didn’t love those books. But almost everything else has been really good reading.
What do you think of the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the movie if you’ve seen it?
Manogirl–I haven’t read the Kim Harrison series; I tried once but it just didn’t “grab” me. However, if I’m gonna get a recommendation from somebody whose taste so closely parallels my own, I’m gonna give ‘em another try. I have been planning on trying to get hold of the Rachel Vincent books!
Anna–I saw the movie when it came out and I loved it. I watched a very few of the TV series episodes; I thought they were okay but they just didn’t “grab” me (I’m sorry to so totally overuse that phrase here, but it’s the best description of what happens to me when I watch or read something that I don’t dislike but that doesn’t particularly intrigue me either). TBH, I think that was more because it was a teen series than anything else–I usually don’t get into teen movies and series that deeply, not since I became an adult (I did when I was one, of course! and there are exceptions).
Their marketing campaign was brilliant. Every time I drove past one of those billboards “advertising” some drink that looked like a bottle of pomegranate juice but was made of fake blood, I kept thinking I had to google that shit to see who the hell would ever buy something like that. Won’t get me to watch the show, but well done anyway.
The later Kim Harrison books are FAR superior to the first in the series. She’s definitely gotten better as she’s written more. I’d say that if you can work your way through the first, you may find the next ones more interesting. I hope you love them as much as I do!
…McKinley is nonsexual? :O I guess she’s subtler and more metaphorical than some, but, :O
I love Sunshine. Sadly it’s one of the few urban fantasies of this variety that I do love; I’ve just never had much of a thing for the paranormal genre, not even this part of it.
Ick, everyone I know seems to say the same thing about Laurell K. Hamilton. Which sucked, because I was hoping she would improve from the first few books, not get worse.
I don’t mind sex in my stories- hell, done the right way it’s downright great. But not at the expense of timing, or the actual plot. The thoughts “would you just cum and get it over with” should never, ever run through my head when reading a novel.
I thoght that the Twilight books were terrible. Well, the first 200 pages of the first one were terrible. THat is where I stopped when I realized that at least 40% of the text is taken up by distracting detail totally unrelated to the plot that any writer beyond 10th grade should have known not to include.
Oh, and it reads like fanfiction from said 10th grader. How it ever got published, I have no idea.
How it is so popular with otherwise smart people, even more of a mystery.
I’m wondering where stuff like Kelly Link’s Magic for Beginners (a short story collection) goes. It pretty obviously doesn’t fit into urban fantasy, but I’m reluctant to push it all the way into dark fantasy or magical realism. Likewise The Bloody Chamber, or for that matter Nobilis, which all have elements of what you’re describing, but form a somewhat different flavor (most of them tone down the noir elements to some degree). (Also, I’m having trouble remembering novels written in this form apart maybe form one graphic one, so perhaps I’m getting sidetracked on something totall different).
I’d just like to add Yasmine Galenorn’s Sisters of the Moon series to the list. She’s up to book four in what is supposed to be a seven book series, from my understanding. Her books are somewhat reminiscent of Laurell K. Hamilton, only with three kick-ass lead female characters rather than only one. The sisters are half-human/half-fae (except for Menolly who is also a vampire) undercover agents from the underworld which is ruled by the Fae.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasmine_Galenorn
“Ick, everyone I know seems to say the same thing about Laurell K. Hamilton. Which sucked, because I was hoping she would improve from the first few books, not get worse.”
Yep, I also tried reading one of her later books and gave up halfway through. I can’t recall which book it was at the moment, but it was virtually nothing but wall to wall sex.
Maybe Angela Carter is too close to lit-rah-chah– well okay, it IS lit-rah-chah– and not Urban Fantasy at all by Lisa’s definition, but Violet already let the cat out of the bag. So to everyone who’s never read it: please do yourselves a favor and devour the “Bloody Chamber” as soon as you can. It’s high in iron.
Faith-
And what’s worse, is it was repetitive wall-to-wall sex. I’ve picked up the past books: the descriptions of sex are VERBATIM in each books.
Is that Molly’s homeless boyfriend from The Starter Wife? If so, I hope he’s taken some acting lessons in the past year, because he was terrible. Like a robot. A sexy robot, okay.
The Twilight books are so, so bad. And don’t give me “They’re YA!”, because that’s not an excuse for writing that reads like its author’s sole education in creative fiction was a casual perusal of fanfic.net.
Yes, june. I have read some really good YA but Twilight is just bad by any standard.
On reflection, I was totally missing the pulp/noir aspect; that’s the distinction. I don’t think Anita Blake ever says, “He was a buffed stud, and in my world a buffed stud could only mean one thing: trouble,” but she comes awfully damn close. (Of the other books, I’ve only read Kitty and the Midnight Hour, and she, as far as I can tell, is somewhat lacking in buffed studs, trouble or no.)
But yeah, The Bloody Chamber is fucking delicious, everyone should have a taste, and this double entendre is probably over now.
I’m loving the ‘True Blood’ series because it’s the genre I enjoy - romance and fantasy combined! I’ve never been big on watching series, mainly because when I start watchong one, it ends up getting canceled before it is even done (Like ‘Blood Ties’)
However, I would LOVE for HBO to do a series on Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Dark Hunter or Gena Showalter’s Lords of the Underworld. Even Kresley Cole’s Immortals After Dark series! Really what I am mainly looking for is romance - romance romance romance! Of course there has to be action or other things, but how often do you see movies or series done after romance books? Hardly ever. I wish I could see more movies done from the romance genre that gets so overlooked.
I’ve watched every episode, but I gotta say I’ve gotten more and more disappointed with each one. The sex scenes are weird and stupid, obviously designed as a mix between bludgeoning titillation and humor value. Sookie is portrayed as a wide-eyed idiot and Bill is portrayed as much nicer than he really was; Sam is portrayed as much more pathetic than he was and that last episode, with Eric..? He and Pam had serious senses of humor (hers was kind of black, but hey). What we got instead was brooding Anne Rice Eurovamps. Bleh! I may bail from the series if this goes on.