FMK #19: Urban Fantasy

[melannen]

Last week's F winner was Mirror Friend, Mirror Foe! I am pretty excited, gotta say. Hopefully it will be both amazing and terrible. None of them were anywhere near a plurality of K, so we get another week with no K. How sad.

I have not finished reading any fmk books since last time, but I HAVE finally finished reshelving all my nonfiction books by dewey number! \o/ (Okay, there were about 90 left after I'd pulled everything in the catalog - I think they are about half ones that I just couldn't find on the first pass, a quarter ones that are in the catalog wrong, and a quarter ones that never made it into the catalog. But that's only about 5%, so not bad. Dealing with them is tonight's job.)

Next step: actually weed the nonfiction now that I know what I have. <_< Also, move things from the 900s to where they actually belong (the 900s are tied with the 300s for my hate, I think.)

Since I was thinking about urban fantasy tropes in my last review post and also moved on to re-reading old DF slash, this week is Urban Fantasy!

How FMK works, short version: I am trying to clear out my unreads. So there is a poll, in which you get to pick F, M, or K. F means I should spend a night of wild passion with the book ASAP, and then decide whether to keep it or not. M means I should continue to commit to a long-term relationship of sharing my bedroom with it. K means it should go away immediately. Anyone can vote, you don't have to actually know anything about the books.

I pick a winner on Friday night (although won't actually close the poll, people can still vote,) and report results/ post the new poll on the following Tuesday, and write a response to the F winner sometime in the next week.

Link to long version of explanation (on first poll)

Poll #18646 FMK #19: Urban Fantasy

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 35

View Respondents

Thin Air by Rachel Caine (2007)

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F
6 (50.0%)

M
2 (16.7%)

K
4 (33.3%)

Dead to the World by Charlaine Harris (2004)

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F
8 (47.1%)

M
2 (11.8%)

K
7 (41.2%)

The Samurai Wizard by Simon Hawke (1991)

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F
7 (58.3%)

M
1 (8.3%)

K
4 (33.3%)

Hounded by Kevin Hearne (2011)

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F
6 (37.5%)

M
1 (6.2%)

K
9 (56.2%)

Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause (1997)

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F
9 (50.0%)

M
4 (22.2%)

K
5 (27.8%)

Last Girl Dancing by Holly Lisle (2005)

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F
6 (60.0%)

M
1 (10.0%)

K
3 (30.0%)

Divine Misfortune by A. Lee Martinez (2011)

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F
5 (45.5%)

M
3 (27.3%)

K
3 (27.3%)

Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire (2009)

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F
10 (41.7%)

M
8 (33.3%)

K
6 (25.0%)

Truckers by Terry Pratchett (1989)

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F
12 (63.2%)

M
6 (31.6%)

K
1 (5.3%)

Dead Easy by Wm. Mark Simmons (2007)

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F
2 (22.2%)

M
1 (11.1%)

K
6 (66.7%)

Naked City edited by Ellen Datlow (2011)

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F
8 (61.5%)

M
1 (7.7%)

K
4 (30.8%)

My Big Fat Supernatural Honeymoon edited by P. N. Elrod (2007)

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F
6 (50.0%)

M
2 (16.7%)

K
4 (33.3%)

Comments

[hannah]

Truckers isn't exactly urban fantasy, but it's not quite anything else, either.

[melannen]

Yeah, there's a couple here that are sort of on the edge, but I needed to make a full set so it did sort of bleed over into "contains fantasy elements while set in more-or-less modern Earth."

[hannah]

I've got the whole trilogy in a single hardback volume I'd be happy to send to you, if you want it.

[lannamichaels]

I loved Blood and Chocolate an amazing amount for a time when I was probably just the correct age to read it. I have no idea how well it ages, but I enthusiastically say give it a one night stand shot and see how it goes :D


As for the Charlaine Harris, I don't remember which Sookie book that is, but I generally enjoyed the ones I've read of them, to the best of my recollection. They don't really stand out that much in my head (other than hating Bill).

[melannen]

I adored Alien Secrets at that age and it's held up (And liked The Silver Kiss when I came to it late) so I have hopes.

I also read and enjoyed some of the Sookie books and the only reason I know this wasn't one of them is that it wasn't marked read in the catalog, I have no memory otherwise.

[isis]

I checked Goodreads, and it's the fourth, and according to my review, "My favorite so far in this series, which, um, isn't saying much." But I got bored with the series later on.

It's the one in which Eric gets amnesia!

[lannamichaels]

Is that the one where at the end, she revokes Eric's welcome to her house and he, like, physically gets thrown out by magic?

[isis]

I don't remember! All I remember is what I wrote on Goodreads. :-)

(in my defense I read it six years ago)

[the_rck]

I've read only one of these, and the category, in general, is something that irritates me every time I try to read it. I can't actually tell which books are good or bad through that level of DNW (it's actually stronger than my DNW for new to me Arthurian retellings).

So I'm sitting this one out because my impulse is K on every single one of them which leads to me thinking I should vote F on all of them to balance that. (The Pratchett isn't an exception because I've hated most of his books that I've tried.)

[isis]

I've only read two of these. As far as the Sookie Stackhouse book goes, it's mid-series, so presumably you know if you like it or not by now. I thought it was fun and easy to read and argh the plotholes. I also read Rosemary and Rue and bounced off it HARD. I haven't actually liked anything I've read by Seanan McGuire, though.

I'm intrigued by The Samurai Wizard because I adored Simon Hawke's Time Wars series, or at least I did when I read them back in the 80s, and I have no idea if they hold up to the passage of, er, time. (These are the books in which the time travel police go back into what turn out to be classic novels - Ivanhoe, The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Prisoner of Zenda etc - to prevent attempts to change the past. This combines two tropes I love, time travel and "person finds self in plot of novel", so basically catnip.) Have you read the other books in this Wizard series? The blurb sounds interesting.

[melannen]

I have not read any of the other books in the main Wizard series; I have, however, read, The Nine Lives of Catseye Gomez, which is about one of the wizards' genetically engineered sentient alley cat partner who plays hard-boiled detective to save his girlfriend's owner from a plot involving an evil animal rights organization (that he has a partner and she has an owner is v. involved in sentient cat identity politics), and also features snats (half-cat half-snails) and it was adorable, but I get the impression that the main books in the series are somewhat different tone-wise. I was waiting until I found a copy of the first one to read the others, but it's been fifteen years and is seeming increasingly unlikely to happen.

(Yhere was also a comic-book adaptation of the first one that I own all but one issue of.)

[muccamukk]

I clearly don't read much urban fantasy, but I will say that Hounded was bloody awful. I made forty pages of unfunny talking dog and naked goddesses throwing themselves at obvious self insert hero before bailing. Best thing about the book was the dishy cover model.

[melannen]

I do like the covers on that series!

[rachelmanija]

I have not thought of Simon Hawke since the 80s, but I enjoyed his books then. Though apparently not enough to keep any of them. I think I read this but recall nothing of it.

Rosemary and Rue has one of the stupidest protagonists I've ever encountered. Lots of people love the books though.

Ellen Datlow anthologies are always worth a read.

[melannen]

It is rare and valuable to find someone with strong opinions on anthologists, thank you. ^_^

[birke]

I haven't read most of these, and I voted K on what I have read. You'd think that means I don't like urban fantasy -- actually, I love urban fantasy, I just have very particular standards. It would be spoilery to discuss exactly why I hated Blood and Chocolate. Rosemary and Rue is boring -- although I feel that way about everything I've read of McGuire's, so my opinion won't count if you like her.

[melannen]

My reaction to McGuire so far has just be sort of 'meh' - readable and fun but not much under the surface - so idk. I was really hoping Blood and Chocolate would be good, though! I really liked the other things I read by that author.

[birke]

Maybe if you wind up reading it you will like it -- there are lots of things to like, just specific things that ruined it for me. I probably should have F just to try and see what you think.

[stardreamer]

Agreeing with <user name="mukkamukk" site="dreamwidth.org> about the Hearne. His hero is 900 going on 19, and I didn't make it very far in either. The series is fairly popular, but I don't think women are his target audience IYKWIM. <i>Rosemary and Rue</i> is the first book in the Toby Daye series, and it does take her a couple of books to hit her stride; my M vote is because once you hit book 3, you're going to want to hang onto them all. I'm picky about my urban fantasy, and for my money this series is one of the best entries in the genre.

[melannen]

Toby Daye really does seem to be either love-it-or-hate-it.

[brownbetty]

+1 Hearne. The dog isn't very doggy, he's more like a video-game dog which you equip like a sword, and the hero, despite being 900 years old, smugly turns down a woman because although she looks hot, she's *actually old and wrinkly* and concealing it with magic. Like a worse Jim Butcher.

[alatefeline]

The Seanan McGuire is a fairly good read, but some of the later books in the series are better. Holly Lisle has written some good books, but I don't know if this is one of them.

The rest *shrugs* ... meh. I hope they're all really awesome authors that I've just coincidentally never run into! Except whatever you end up with a K majority on, I hope that one is terrible. ;)

[melannen]

May your hopes come true! :D The Holly Lisle is one of her attempts to move from the 'fantasy' shelf to the 'paranormal romance' shelf, iirc.

[gool_duck]

'Truckers' is in the middle of a trilogy -- Diggers, Truckers, Wings -- I seem to remember it ends on a downer. I'd recommend against reading it without the next book available.

[melannen]

Huh, everything I looked at said Truckers was the first in the trilogy.

[gool_duck]

I got it wrong! I was so sure I was right I did not even check the thing.