Urban Fantasy: Vampire and Witches and Weres, oh my!

[JD]

I hit the big reveal in Blood Rites. I knew it was coming, but it was still a great scene.
I also started reading the first Kate Daniels series. This will be my first complete novel in the series, but I did read the short story "A Questionable Client" and I absolutely loved it. The main character, Kate, is a merc with magic in a world that has random waves of magic and technology. When magic is up nothing modern, like cars, guns, electricity, ect. works, and when it's down than magic doesn't and all of that stuff does. It's completely random, so you could be sitting at home with you electric lights on watching TV, and a wave of magic will hit and it will all just die. It's also got one of the more unique takes on vampires I've come across. Instead of the suave, Vampire Diaries/True Blood vamps, these are mindless mutated monsters who are controlled by Necromancers. It's also kind of a post apocalyptic story too, with a lot of Atlanta, where it is set, in ruins due to the magic. There's a very detailed world guide on the authors' (while the series is only credited to Ilona Andrews, she actually works as a duo with her husband) site.

[Aeronef]

I have been reading a lot of urban fantasy lately, but none of the books that people have mentioned so far.

The three series I've been reading have been:

--Richard Kadrey's Sandman Slim novels (Sandman Slim, Kill the Dead, Aloha from Hell, and Devil Said Bang). I read Kadrey's cyberpunk novel Metrophage decades ago, and I've been pleased to discover that he wasn't a one-hit wonder. In a world where magic exists, but behind the scenes--magic-users even call themselves the Sub Rosa--a young magician is betrayed by his friends and condemned to Hell while still alive. In Hell, he unexpectedly becomes an invincible gladiator, and at the beginning of the first novel he returns to Earth looking for revenge. Clearly inspired by hard-boiled crime fiction: the protagonist is even named Stark, as a shout-out to Richard Stark's Parker series.

--Charles Stross's Laundry Files novels (The Atrocity Archive, The Jennifer Morgue, The Fuller Memorandum, and The Apocalypse Codex). The nerdy protagonist, Bob Howard, works for an ultra-secret British government agency, the Laundry, that defends the realm (and the world) against cosmic threats from beyond space and time, while trying to cope with the sanity-destroying horror of civil-service bureaucracy. An interesting mash-up of near-future SF, Len Deighton, H. P. Lovecraft, and Yes, Minister.

--and most recently, Chris F. Holm's The Collector series (Dead Harvest and The Wrong Goodbye, which I've just started). For his sins, the undead protagonist has been condemned to work as a Collector, reaping the souls of the damned when it's time to send them to their eternal reward. In the first novel, a routine collection job goes awry when he's assigned to take the soul of an innocent. The third novel will be entitled The Big Reap.

I recommend all three, along with Jason Starr's The Pack, which is about werewolves in New York.

[Greg Cox]

Okay, venturing out of the mean streets of modern cities for a minute, I'm going to plug The Six-Gun Tarot by R. S. Belcher, a sort of urban fantasy set in a frontier mining town in 1869. I've been hyping this book for months as "Buffy meets Deadwood" and it's finally coming out in January. We're talking were-coyotes, fallen angels, ancient Chinese mystics, zombies, lost Mormon treasure, a secret order of female assassins, and a mad scientist . . . all converging on the town of Golgotha, Nevada back during the days of the Weird West. Sounds like it might appeal to some of you folks.

(Full disclosure: I edited the novel for Tor.)

[Aeronef]

^Sounds good. Thanks for the heads-up.

So long as the streets are mean enough, I don't care if they're cement or dirt. I'll keep an eye out for this.

[Merlanthe]

JD wrote:

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It's also got one of the more unique takes on vampires I've come across. Instead of the suave, Vampire Diaries/True Blood vamps, these are mindless mutated monsters who are controlled by Necromancers. It's also kind of a post apocalyptic story too, with a lot of Atlanta, where it is set, in ruins due to the magic.

There's a very detailed world guide on the authors' (while the series is only credited to Ilona Andrews, she actually works as a duo with her husband) site.

Strange i always thought it was credited to both since the name Ilona Andrews is actually a combination of both her and her husbands name and their pretty open on their website about it being a joint authorship. At any rate Kate Daniels is a great series and the character arc that kate undergoes over the course of the books is wonderful but thats just mho. The vampires that inhabit Kate's world certainly are an interesting interpretion.

The Mercy Thompson series, which i noticed is on your to read list, also features non stereotypical vampires (as in their not suave vampire diaries/true blood vamps) but their not as creepy as the ones in the Kate Daniels series.

I hope you enjoy both those series as they are great imho

[JD]

Oh, I didn't realize the name was a combination of both of theirs. All it calls them on their bio on their official website is Ilona and Gordon.

[Merlanthe]

Gordon is their surname Andrew is her husbands first name not sure why the bio has him listed by the surname?

As well as Kate Daniels they also write a series of books the Edge chronicles which also take place in a very vivid imaginative world with interesting twisty plots.

[JD]

I haven't decided if I want to check out The Edge yet. I'll probably wait until I finish the KD series before I make my final decision.

[Technobuilder]

The Dresden Files books are personal favorites of mine.

Jim Butcher has a talent for good storytelling that so far has never failed to satisfy.

I took a mini vacation from work to read Cold Days and I'm already dying to read the next one. Book 15 aka Skin Game (or Bag Man) involves a Heist and since it's a multiple of 5, Nicodemus and the Denarians should be showing up on schedule.

Can't wait!


Only other Modern Fantasy tales I've read thus far are the Quincey Morris and Libby Chastain Occult Investigators series by Justin Gustainis.

Black Magic Woman
Evil Ways
Sympathy For The Devil
Playing With Fire (TBA)
Midnight at the Oasis (TBA)

At one point, Morris & Chastain pass through Chicago and end up at McAnally's... Once I knew that I had to read them. lol.

[Deckerd]

Where did you get that info about the next Dresden book?

[Bob The Skutter]

Technobuilder wrote:

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The Dresden Files books are personal favorites of mine.

Jim Butcher has a talent for good storytelling that so far has never failed to satisfy.

I took a mini vacation from work to read Cold Days and I'm already dying to read the next one. Book 15 aka Skin Game (or Bag Man) involves a Heist and since it's a multiple of 5, Nicodemus and the Denarians should be showing up on schedule.

Where did you see that?

[Technobuilder]

Here you go guys:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gn-qp4aOXc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TbUYNXPKqc (Probably this one around 57min in.)

http://www.livestream.com/penguinboo...a-f25a928fef22

[Deckerd]

Sorry, Technobuilder, it's OK we're up to speed. Bob summoned me from the Nevernever when he found it. Will you be interested in Jim's new steampunk venture? I have to say I didn't warm to the Codex Alera very much.

[Bob The Skutter]

Deckerd wrote:

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Sorry, Technobuilder, it's OK we're up to speed. Bob summoned me from the Nevernever when he found it. Will you be interested in Jim's new steampunk venture? I have to say I didn't warm to the Codex Alera very much.

You read them quick enough considering you didn't warm to them. I thought you preferred them to Game of Thrones and the like?

[Deckerd]

I read them quickly because I didn't warm to them. In contrast I deliberately took ages to read the last Dresden and even then went into withdrawal afterwards.