PR are, first and foremost, romance novels, and they follow the conventions of that genre, including a happily-ever-after ending. Urban fantasy of the tough-gals-with-guns/magic variety can include a romance subplot or at the very least some sexual tension, but the focus is usually elsewhere: a mystery, a quest, a thriller plot, and so on. When sex happens, it’s generally a part of life rather than a pillar of the plot. (There are exceptions, of course, most of them written by Laurell K. Hamilton.) Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackpole has paranormal boyfriend problems, but that’s not what the series is about. Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden had a girlfriend, is currently getting cozy with a fellow Warden, and harbors carefully banked feelings for his friend Karen Murphy, a Chicago cop. These things help develop the character, but they don’t define the series. I’ve read mysteries and thrillers that gave more emphasis to sex/romance than do many urban fantasies. I guess all those covers showcasing the south side of a north-bound female, invariably clad in leather or tight jeans, tends to skew people’s impressions of this sub-genre.

So I dunno!

I’d be really interested to find out some more hard numbers about readership. It could be that I just happened to meet the wrong type of women in my life! What I’d give if more of them read Fantasy.

For the record, my love of Fantasy and Science Fiction was passed down directly from my own mother, who’s an avid fan of the genre. So I know better than anybody that those types of stories can appeal to anyone, I just sometimes worry that marketers forget that!

Pamela, just wanted to let you know that Blood Ties has worked its way into the small pile of books I’m bringing with me to Europe.

I’ve read a few Urban Fantasy books, but I rarely get that sort of escapism out of them epic Fantasy and S&S gives me, because they take place in our time and I don’t want to read about our time for fun, it’s such a sucky place.

The rise of Paranormal Romance that obviously triggered the popularity of Urban Fantasy among women came to because the decline of Historicals (those badly researched love stories in historical settings), though it’s a bit difficult to tell what came first, the decline of Historicals or the rise of Paranormals. They surely require even less research than the Historicals, and it seems some readers got fed up with the lack of research in those and therefore stopped reading them. They’ve now turned to the werwolves and vampires. It’s the Exotic factor (Vampires are as much fun as Scottish clan chiefs) and the fact girls can have Glocks.

What I was trying to get across in the original article was that I think a lot of the fault regarding the ‘death’ of Epic Fantasy (an idea that I still have a hard time swallowing, considering the success of people like Patrick Rothfuss, Gail Martin and Joe Abercrombie), lies on the laps of the marketers, rather than the readers.

I actually think you’re right when you say that the rise of Urban Fantasy might not really be the cause of the decline in Epic Fantasy. Rather, as I mention in the article, Urban Fantasy’s rise is riding on the back of the immense success of one of its sub(sub?)-genres: paranormal romance. This, coupled with a fewer number of high-profile releases in the Epic Fantasy field, gives the illusion of Urban Fantasy stomping all over Epic Fantasy.

The fact of the matter is, publishers can only put out so many books a year. If Urban Fantasy/Paranormal Romance are selling like hotcakes, then publishers are going to lean towards publishing those types of novels. Hell, it could just be happenstance that not very many good Epic Fantasies are being written right now, and publishers are trying to fill the void with something else. Women aren’t responsible for the fall of Epic Fantasy, so much as they are responsible for the recent upsurge in Urban Fantasy/Paranormal Romance.

As I mention in the piece, everything I mention is a purposely gross over-generalization. Of course not everyone who reads Fantasy is a slobby male, that’s just my point. For too long, Fantasies been marketed towards this type of individual, it took a kick in the ass from Urban Fantasy/Paranormal Romance for marketers to realize that there was a whole other demographic out there who is willing to spend their hard earned cash on good novels.

It would be interesting to hear from some people within the marketing departments at some of the major publishers and find out the differences between how they approach Epic/Secondary World Fantasy and how they approach Urban Fantasy/Paranormal Romance.

I don’t have hard and fast numbers (or access to them), but a lot of the conjecture about swords, dragons, and predestined orphans being male targeted has been anecdotal. (I suspect somebody will step in soon with the numbers).

I think, in general, there has been a (at least by my perception) that Paranormal Romance is not quite Urban Fantasy, though there is a lot of cross-pollination.

Don’t forget there are a lot more fantasy subgenres:

I started to enter the world of steampunk:
http://www.steampunk.republika.pl/arch/opedia.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_steampunk_works
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steampunk

I bought several books like
Clockwork Heart by Dru Pagliasotti
Whitechapel Gods by S.M. Peters
Court of the Air by Stephen Hunt
The Alchemy of Stone by Ekaterina Sedia
The Alchemy of Stone
PAX BRITANNIA: UNNATURAL HISTORY by Jonathan Green
PAX BRITANNIA: EL SOMBRA by Al Ewing
Pax Britannia: Leviathan Rising By Jonathan Green
The Light Ages by Ian R. MacLeod
The House of Storms by Ian R. MacLeod

Is steampunk also a kind of “urban fantasy”?
If yes then add these books to Pat’s list.

QUOTE
“All we have to decide is
what to do with the time that is given to us.”
J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
British scholar & fantasy novelist (1892 – 1973)

After reading the blog post, I having trouble with the connection between the rise of Urban Fantasy and female-targeted readers and the death of Epic Fantasy. Why must Epic Fantasy be the bastion of men only? Dragons? I purposely picked books during my teenage years solely for the existence of a dragon on the cover. Swords? Nothing wrong with swords. Princesses? Okay, I do admit I would like to see the swords in the princesses’ hands a bit more often. But seriously. It seems that the reading public changes over time, and if a specific genre fails to appeal to the readers’ changing tastes, is it truly the fault of the change in taste, or the lack of adaptation in the genre? There doesn’t seem to be any reason why only Urban Fantasy can draw “teh mysterious womenz” in SFF. I am not quite buying into the sweaty hordes of neck-bearded men and the faint assumption that only nerdy women dare the shelves against them, but now Urban Fantasy has magically handed a stick of deoderant to everyone in the SFF shelves.

There are some other points that have that same hollow feeling to me, but as mentioned far above, I don’t have a degree in genre history and nobody had me take the survey or showed me the all-encompassing results.

So avoiding those, can someone please educate me with some more solid details on why its my fault Epic Fantasy is dead?