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...If I End Up In an Urban Fantasy Novel


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50 Rules to Follow If I End Up In an Urban Fantasy Novel

 

I'm sure we can think of more.

 

1. I will not ask paranormal detectives or supernatural cops if vampires or werewolves are better in bed.

2. I will not ask anyone if vampires or werewolves are better in bed.

3. Especially if they’re vampires or werewolves.

4. I will not ask vampire hunters if they have a Mr. Pointy.

5. I will not conjure demons to do my food runs for me.

6. I will not pay delivery people in fairy gold.

7. Love potions never end well.

8. I will not ask fairies if they know Legolas.

9. I will not ask fairies if they know Frodo.

10. I will not ask fairies if they know Tinkerbell.

11. I will not ask fairies if they know Spock.

12. Fairies are not aliens. Even if they come from another dimension.

13. “Hot enough for ya?” is not a good conversation opener with demons.

14. I will not explain Twilight to a vampire.

15. I will not explain Twilight to a werewolf.

16. Explaining any other paranormal book or show to the undead will just give them ideas. Don’t do it.

17. I will not pray to any gods. They tend to be creatively literal when answering.

18. I will not take the names of gods in vain. Many gods have power over lightning and I like my body uncharred.

19. I will not mention leather pants in the vicinity of a dedicated bounty hunter.

20. I will not wear leather pants for any reason.

21. I will not tell female bounty hunters, police officers, private detectives, or anyone else who may encounter the undead on a daily basis, that they would look better in heels.

22. Axes are not for chopping vegetables.

23. Neither are swords, hunting knives, throwing knives, or any other blade weapon.

24. That’s probably not V8 in the fridge.

25. Witches and wizards are sick of Harry Potter jokes.

26. Broomsticks are not romantic presents. Neither are sunblock, shaving cream, razors, embalming fluid, formaldehyde, garlic, Holy water, religious symbols, mirrors, or medical thread.

27. If I see something unfamiliar and mobile, I will not poke it with a stick.

28. Unless I know what I’m doing.

29. And have the appropriate weapon handy.

30. If I have to explain the unexplainable, it’s a gas leak.

31. Ghosts do not act like Casper.

32. I will not assume the moaning, dirty people dressed in rags are alive just because they’re moving.

33. I will not assume anything is alive just because it’s moving.

34. Decapitation is always a solution when battling monsters.

35. Unless it’s a hydra.

36. I will keep sharp, pointy objects on me at all times.

37. I will keep peace offerings on me at all times.

38. Especially when crossing bridges.

39. I will not whistle after dark. Nor will I attempt to summon Bloody Mary.

40. I will not use anyone’s emergency battle salt or defensive garlic as seasoning.

41. I will not address any supernatural law enforcement professional as “babe”, “hot stuff”, “Great and Powerful Master”, “Wonder Woman”, “Superman,” “Wizzard”, or “Your Highness”. The correct forms of address are “sir,” “ma’am,” “detective,” “officer”, and “Mr./Ms. ___.”

42. Just because a car has an anti-damage spell does not mean I can take it on a wild joyride through the city.

43. Even if it’s my car.

44. I will not rub oil lamps in the hopes that a genie will appear.

45. I will not make crank calls about monsters or the undead in the hopes that the hot detective shows up to deal with it. Similarly, I will not make crank calls about dragons for the firemen.

46. If someone offers me free spells, enchanted objects, granted wishes, the best sex I’ve ever had, prophecies of my future, or magic beans, I will say no, even if it’s really tempting and even if I know how to get out of the ensuing situation.

47. I will assume there is a Dark Lord even if I see no evidence supporting their existence. There is always a Dark Lord.

48. If a book is giving off vibes, bound in chains, screaming, or appears to be bound in skin or written in blood, I will not open it.

49. I will not panic, not even if there is an apocalypse or a million undead on my doorstep. Panic does not solve anything.

50. I will try to get out of the novel as soon as possible, if not earlier. And then I will kill the author with my novel-acquired skills.

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Re: ...If I End Up In an Urban Fantasy Novel

 

53- I'll try to make sure I end up in a Jim Butcher novel' date=' and NOT Anita Blake.[/quote']

 

Especially not the later ones which are badly-written soft-porn and not urban fantasy.

 

Which brings us to 53 (a) If I do find myself in Anita Blake novel, I will make doubly sure not to wind up as a member of Blake's "harem".

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Re: ...If I End Up In an Urban Fantasy Novel

 

Especially not the later ones which are badly-written soft-porn and not urban fantasy.

 

Which brings us to 53 (a) If I do find myself in Anita Blake novel, I will make doubly sure not to wind up as a member of Blake's "harem".

 

Easily avoided, I believe. You just have to avoid having dated the author or known her in any way personally in the real world.

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Re: ...If I End Up In an Urban Fantasy Novel

 

Especially not the later ones which are badly-written soft-porn and not urban fantasy.

 

Which brings us to 53 (a) If I do find myself in Anita Blake novel, I will make doubly sure not to wind up as a member of Blake's "harem".

 

The mid to late Run Anita books are Romance Novels with sections of intense Action/adventure. They aren't really written for guys. Also the last couple of Major Anita novels have gotten back to the feel of the early novels (Flirt not being a "major novel"). 90% of the Urban Fantasy genre are books that are written for Women that have deep romance threads. You complaining about this would be like me complaining about the Action genre not having enough interpersonal relationship stuff. Those books aren't written to attract me as a reader, they are written for guys.

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Re: ...If I End Up In an Urban Fantasy Novel

 

The mid to late Run Anita books are Romance Novels with sections of intense Action/adventure. They aren't really written for guys. Also the last couple of Major Anita novels have gotten back to the feel of the early novels (Flirt not being a "major novel"). 90% of the Urban Fantasy genre are books that are written for Women that have deep romance threads. You complaining about this would be like me complaining about the Action genre not having enough interpersonal relationship stuff. Those books aren't written to attract me as a reader' date=' they are written for guys.[/quote']

 

The problem with the Anita Blake novels though is how much they changed. The feel of the first few is pretty well encapsulated by the tag phrase on the back of the first novel: "I don't date Vampires, I kill them." They garnered a noticeable number of male readers due to this.

 

Several novels later they had morphed into raunchy paranormal romance novels, leaving the early audience feeling like the victims of a bait and switch. If they had started as paranormal romance novels I never would have started reading them - and wouldn't care.

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Re: ...If I End Up In an Urban Fantasy Novel

 

The mid to late Run Anita books are Romance Novels with sections of intense Action/adventure. They aren't really written for guys. Also the last couple of Major Anita novels have gotten back to the feel of the early novels (Flirt not being a "major novel"). 90% of the Urban Fantasy genre are books that are written for Women that have deep romance threads. You complaining about this would be like me complaining about the Action genre not having enough interpersonal relationship stuff. Those books aren't written to attract me as a reader' date=' they are written for guys.[/quote']

 

As a guy, I enjoy romance stories. There's no reason why I shouldn't. Blake novels don't read like that (except perhaps the first one or two). They are porn. They lack any meaningful development of character feelings and emotions and instead just use sex.

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Re: ...If I End Up In an Urban Fantasy Novel

 

The problem with the Anita Blake novels though is how much they changed. The feel of the first few is pretty well encapsulated by the tag phrase on the back of the first novel: "I don't date Vampires, I kill them." They garnered a noticeable number of male readers due to this.

 

Several novels later they had morphed into raunchy paranormal romance novels, leaving the early audience feeling like the victims of a bait and switch. If they had started as paranormal romance novels I never would have started reading them - and wouldn't care.

 

Think of the money you save then :)

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Re: ...If I End Up In an Urban Fantasy Novel

 

As a guy' date=' I enjoy romance stories. There's no reason why I shouldn't. Blake novels don't read like that (except perhaps the first one or two). They are porn. They lack any meaningful development of character feelings and emotions and instead just use sex.[/quote']

 

You say that like it's a bad thing.

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Re: ...If I End Up In an Urban Fantasy Novel

 

As a guy' date=' I enjoy romance stories. There's no reason why I shouldn't. Blake novels don't read like that (except perhaps the first one or two). They are porn. They lack any meaningful development of character feelings and emotions and instead just use sex.[/quote']

Ditto Ann Rice. How come if a man writes it it's porn but if a woman writes it is romance?

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Re: ...If I End Up In an Urban Fantasy Novel

 

Ditto Ann Rice. How come if a man writes it it's porn but if a woman writes it is romance?

 

It's romance when the book has relationship and feelings leading up to the sex scenes. Porn is just sex scenes. It is how the people fall in love and sometimes don't recognize that love. The stories are all about 2 people who seemingly have nothing in common, but turn out to be perfect for one another.

 

Which is I guess my point and some of my frustration with the guys that are complaining about the Anita Blake series. While the sex is wild and very explicit (but not as explicit as most porn stories), there are relationship stuff that lead up and are incorporated into the sex. There's good reasons for the sex in both of Laurel Hamilton's series, the story leads to those scenes. There are lines of relationship and love that define what Anita will do. While she does have a number of sexual partners, she doesn't sleep with just anyone. It may sometimes look that way, but it is way far from the truth. Oh well, I enjoy the books.

 

It's funny how I never really saw them as pornographic in nature. Both my partner and I are so comfortable with the sex and how it's presented that we recommended the series to our mothers. In fact it was such a non issue for us that it never occurred to us to warn our mom's about that content in the later books. Now neither of our Mom's cared for the series (My Mom didn't care for the Vampire slaying parts, and my Partner's mom just didn't connect with the character). Anything I perceived as being pornographic I would never in a million years give to my mom to read. It would be too weird.

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Re: ...If I End Up In an Urban Fantasy Novel

 

The funny thing is that part of the reason she wrote the Merry Gentry novels was apparently to get the sexual energy out of her system so she could write Anita Blake a little less ... passionately. And even those novels have some interesting ideas lurking amongst the orgies and overlong descriptions of characters' outfits. I did give up on them in the end though.

 

At least her Vampires don't twinkle.

 

P.S. I'd actually recommend the October Daye novels to both men and women. The writing isn't bad and the characters are varied and interesting. There is romance but it is slow burning and quite funny in places. There is plenty of darkness and some action but October Daye is no superhero, even if she does share the cockroach-like ability of every Urban Fantasy main character ever to survive a ridiculous amount of trauma in any given book while consistently antagonising creatures that are bigger, older and meaner than she is. She is also an occult detective who occasionally still detects and deduces things, rather than just wandering around while being attacked by a succession of monsters.

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Re: ...If I End Up In an Urban Fantasy Novel

 

The funny thing is that part of the reason she wrote the Merry Gentry novels was apparently to get the sexual energy out of her system so she could write Anita Blake a little less ... passionately. And even those novels have some interesting ideas lurking amongst the orgies and overlong descriptions of characters' outfits. I did give up on them in the end though.

 

At least her Vampires don't twinkle.

 

P.S. I'd actually recommend the October Daye novels to both men and women. The writing isn't bad and the characters are varied and interesting. There is romance but it is slow burning and quite funny in places. There is plenty of darkness and some action but October Daye is no superhero, even if she does share the cockroach-like ability of every Urban Fantasy main character ever to survive a ridiculous amount of trauma in any given book while consistently antagonising creatures that are bigger, older and meaner than she is. She is also an occult detective who occasionally still detects and deduces things, rather than just wandering around while being attacked by a succession of monsters.

 

The descent of the Anita Blake series from a pretty good kick-ass vampire slayer and necromancer fighting scary monsters to badly written Mary Sue porn with serious misogyny issues (the author's issues) is sad.

 

I second the October Daye recommendation. That's a great series.

 

I also heartily recommend T. A. Pratt's "Marla Mason" novels (Blood Engines, Poison Sleep, Dead Reign, Spell Games, and several novelettes on his website). They're urban fantasy with nary a hint of angst or romance in sight. Marla is the chief sorceror of the fictional city of Felport, and as such deals with all kinds of supernatural problems. She too has the uncanny ability to antagonize really powerful creatures--but then, she IS a powerful sorceror AND she has The Cloak . It's an artifact she found years earlier (or maybe it found her); one side is white, the other side is purple. When she wears it white side out she can take hideous amounts of damage and the cloak will heal her; it's kept her alive many times. Purple side out she turns into an inhuman killing machine as likely to turn on her friends and allies as her enemies.

 

She fights (or works with) pornomancers, chaos mages, biomancers, technomancers, masters of sympathetic magic, reality reweavers, and countless supernatural critters of every sort. It's a very imaginative world.

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Re: ...If I End Up In an Urban Fantasy Novel

 

....pornomancers???????!?

 

Yep. Pornomancers, or people who use sex magic. Of various sorts. There's Artie (Marla's mentor) who cast a spell on himself as a very young man to make himself incapable of sex. He still WANTS it, you understand. He just can't have it. Then he surrounds himself with porn, strip clubs, and orgies--and fuels his magic with his own sexual frustration.

 

There's another pornomancer in the series who uses a more traditional approach. He hosts orgies in his home and taps the sexual energy produced to power his magic.

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Re: ...If I End Up In an Urban Fantasy Novel

 

The most important question to get an answer to is' date=' "Can I trust the elves?"[/quote']

 

I think that depends on whether the "Elves" are Tolken style or Sidhe Elves. If they are the latter, you can trust to keep their word to the letter. In otherwords no. Tolkien Elves you would be more likely to be able to trust. Figuring out which they are would be a trick. Tossing iron to a Faerie Elf would PO them and you don't want to PO the Fae.

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