bite me: the week in bite-sized chunks

Atom: top billing again this week due to announcing a book/film tie-in of a hormone-fuelled retelling of Red Riding Hood, directed by Twilight’s Catherine Hardwicke and based on the book written by newly-acquired Atom author Sarah Blakley-Cartwright (conveniently at the same time). Expect star-crossed (tantric) lovers, brooding males, pale, sensual females and Muse (probably). Choice quote from the trailer: brooding male lead: ‘I’m wrong for you.’ Amanda Seyfried: ‘I don’t care.’ ETA: March 2011 and not a grandma in sight.



Harry Potter: I can’t not mention the so-dark-you-can-no-longer-see-the-actual-characters-only-hear-them latest Harry Potter being released this week, particularly as it’s the last one-but-one. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 is out now and will be reviewed later on this week. *grabs Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans and forgets cynicism*

NaNoWriMo: shameless self-promotion. This week’s news: me! Writing a guest post during NaNoWriMo month on Jo and the Novelist’s funny and beguiling blog (thankfully undiminished by my post).

Orbit on NaNoWriMo: read Orbit’s blog here for some excellent time-travelling writing advice for the final slog by Editor Dongwon Song, giving professional tips on genre-writing from an editorial POV. Highlights: industry-relevant keywords explained such as ‘hookiness’, ‘pace-y-ness’ and, the all-important, ‘awesomeness’. Who would have thought that your 10,000 word ode to your character’s relationship with his grandma in order to emotionally-ground his vision of her untimely death wasn’t going to cut it? This is where Song’s advice on pace-y-ness comes in handy. This is such a great way for Orbit to engage with new writers, and pass on age-old pie-metaphoric wisdom.

Orbit again: author Rachel Neumeier on the Orbit blog discusses categorization, particularly because she thinks that her series, The Griffin Mage, doesn’t fit strictly into any genres defined at the World Fantasy Convention 2010. This is a great overview of subgenres, but the reason I really like this post is Rachel Aaron’s response. Author of the eponymous antihero series The Legend of Eli Monpress, Aaron writes about the reaction she receives when she’s trying to define what sort of fiction she writes: ‘“oh! Like Harry Potter!” and I’m like no, that’s YA, I write adult fantasy…. and then they give me this dirty look and I have to spend like 10 minutes qualifying that and trying to make sure they know I’m not writing erotica.’ Beautiful. Perhaps the stigma that sometimes surrounds SFF can be mostly defined as simple ignorance. For more information on Aaron and a glimpse between her gorgeous covers, visit her blog.

hardcopy romantics: cover art

Richard Ford’s Occult Steampunk novel (author’s own genrefication) Kultus from Solaris has had its cover art revealed this week, and the author is clearly pleased. By talented artist Frazer Irving, best known for his comic artwork, the graphic-novel influence can be clearly seen. I love this cover, it’s unique and it’s a world away from other photorealistic genre covers out there, which are even used for fellow Steampunk titles like Gail Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate series from Orbit (which are beautiful, striking covers). It also makes a nice change to have the lead, particularly one that is happily described as a ‘bastard’ in the blurb, look like the thuggish fellow he is, instead of Paul Bettany.

Book blurb: Thaddeus Blaklok – mercenary, demonist, bastard and thug-for-hire – is pressed into retrieving a mysterious key for his clandestine benefactors. Little does he know that other parties seek to secure this artefact for their own nefarious ends and soon he is pursued by brutal cultists, bloodthirsty gangsters, deadly mercenaries and hell spawned monsters, all bent on stopping him by any means necessary.

In a lightning-paced quest that takes him across the length and breadth of the steam-fuelled city of Manufactory, Blaklok must use his wits and his own demonic powers to keep the key from those who would use it for ill, and open the gates to Hell itself.

bite me: the week in bite-sized chunks

Atom: This is the sister imprint of Orbit and it’s mostly known for buying the UK rights to Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series (it was only a matter of time before that made an appearance here, opinion notwithstanding). But that’s not all they do! No, they also have the foresight to invite bloggers to their offices, feed them buns and give them a presentation on their upcoming titles. Now that is tasty and savvy marketing. But they missed out on a treat (aha) by not having Edward and Jacob faces on each bun and making people choose between them (because this is what people like to do), and have a bun-off. Because visual aids are useful, and I had too much time on my hands, I’ve mocked these up for you. The original photo was from blogger Amanda Rutter, whose Floor to Ceiling books blog is always a good place to while away some quality browsing time. She also talks about the new initiative Atom are starting called the Atomics that involves teenage bloggers – ah to be young. Read more here.

NaNoWriMo: It’s National Writing Month where every kind of (mad) writer sets aside a whole month to write – what, a short story? A poem? A soliloquy? – a novel, of course. It’s an exercise in sheer determination, bloody-mindedness and willpower, and it doesn’t matter what you write as long as it’s 50,000 words long. Even if you’re not participating, you can hop on over to the forum and peruse topics like ‘NaNoWriMo Ate My Soul’, which sounds promising. For SFF, head over to the genre section where you can read threads like ‘Raise someone from the dead, how?’ and, my personal favourite, ‘If you were an abusive umbrella, what you would yell?’

Top 2010 SFF titles announced: Three of the top 5 are Orbit’s - The Bone Place by Amanda Downum about the sex industry and vampires, Feed by Mira Grant (a pseudonym for Seanan McGuire) about zombies and Republicans in the Midwest and The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms/The Broken Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin, two novels about ordinary people being manipulated by gods in a changing world. There’s also Nnedi Okorafor’s Who Fears Death by Penguin USA’s DAW imprint (the first ever publishers dedicated to SFF) about a post-apocalyptic Saharan Africa and Pegasus’ A Special Place: The Heart of a Dark Matter by Peter Straub, which is actually only a short story/excerpt from A Dark Matter. The full list can be found here in Publishers Weekly.

Solaris book launch: if you’re lucky enough to live in/around London, rather than the publishing-barren Manchester, then you can go to the FREE Solaris’ book launch event at Foyle’s on the 16th November. More information can be found on the Solaris editors’ blog. It’s The End of the Line edited by Jonathan Oliver, a book of Horror short stories set on the underground. This is exactly the kind of book I love – set in the hidden parts of a city and taking the otherworldly element of the underground literally - and I can’t wait to read it. Just check out the blood-smeared cover. Lovely.

Urban Fantasy: a definition

If you Google Urban Fantasy you will find a hectic range of definitions. One quote by SFF author Elizabeth Bear is a favourite of mine (I found it just now): “In urban fantasy you don’t leave the chip shop and go to another world to find the unicorn. Rather, the unicorn shows up at the chip shop and orders the cod.”

But what is Urban Fantasy, and what makes it so different to Paranormal Romance?

Once an all-encompassing term for nitty gritty Fantasy with a distinct urban setting, associated with authors like China Miélville and Charles de Lint, it’s becoming a much-narrowed term, as other SFF subgenres enter the mix.

Defined as thus in J. Clute’s Encyclopaedia of Fantasy (1997):

Urban fantasy … A city may be seen from afar, and is generally seen clear; the UF is told from within and from the perspective of characters acting out their roles, it may be difficult to determine the extent and nature of the surrounding reality. UFs are normally texts where fantasy and the mundane world interact intersect and interweave throughout a tale which is significantly about a real city.

To me, to class a book as being of this Fantasy subgenre, it needs to contain the following ingredients: contemporary setting, set in the real-world and with a real sense of place, city-based, with a male or female lead who has supernatural powers and uses them to kick ass and help people, detective/crime plot, humour, and set in a slightly alternative ‘now’ as humans are usually aware or becoming aware of the existence of certain supernatural beings. These beings include, but are not limited to: vampires (new and old mythology), were-creatures (from wolves to coyotes), wizards/witches, and the fae.

This definition is subject to change, but authors whose series/titles currently fall in this category include: Jim Butcher (The Dresden Files), Patricia Briggs (Mercy Thompson), Chloe Neill (Chicagoland Vampires), Kim Harrison (The Hollows/ Rachel Morgan), Kelley Armstrong (Women of the Otherworld etc), Ilona Andrews (Kate Daniels), Neil Gaiman (Neverwhere), Karen Chance (Cassandra Palmer) and Rachel Caine (Weather Warden). Here’s a great place for more information.

As for comparisons with Paranormal Romance, I mean, it like totally has girls in it, right? And don’t most of them fall in hopeless, soul-entangled love with the most inappropriate of brooding rogues?

Well, yes. And, to further confuse matters, some authors crossover into both subgenres, sometimes in the course of one series (ah, ‘crossover fiction’, a blog topic for another time, you lucky folks). Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series (1993 – present) started off as Urban Fantasy. Kick ass lead with mystical power: TICK. City-based: TICK. Crime-solving: TICK. Supernaturals: TICK. Sexy: tick. And then about halfway through, the themes shifted. Kick ass lead with come-f*ck-me boots: TICK. Sexy: TICK. Bedroom-based: TICK. Crime-solving: who has the time? Supernaturals: yes please!

The eponymous lead went from celibate to, quite literally, gagging for it *blush*. This proved too much for my naive sentiment at the time and I stopped at Narcissus in Chains, book 11. It takes a lot for me to stop reading a series that many books in. Group sex ought to do it though. Inappropriate. I wanted my heroine to kick ass, not kiss it.

But what about other sensitive readers, I hear you cry? Calm yourselves, Headline took over from Orbit (presumably as scandalised as I was) and solved the problem by reissuing the whole series with new covers. Going from the typical photo-realism of Urban Fantasy:



To coming over all Gothic with black and reds, in these quite frankly beautiful covers:



Now readers know a bit more about what to expect. And my moral outrage will have to find another outlet.

To sum: Urban Fantasy made like the universe and expanded, only to contract again, becoming more specialised. If it’s a city filled with supernaturals and policed by a vigilante with burdening powers, and a enjoying a little bit of sex, why not, it’s probably safe to dub it Urban Fantasy. But if the plot is merely a mechanism to make with the happy, it’s probably Paranormal Romance. And if it’s city-based but set in an alternate time and place, it’s probably too confusing to go in to. Let’s just call it ‘Alt-reality Urban Fantasy’, and leave it at that.

a sad day for unicorns - Orbit's Chart of Fantasy Art

I’m going to blog soon on Fantasy cover art, particularly Urban Fantasy's recurring themes (weapon/ photorealism/ scantily clad female). But Orbit have brought it all together in one, easy-to-read chart (with colour!), a summer intern’s update on 2008’s chart by an equally hard-working intern (browsing covers is possibly one of my favourite things to do so I feel no pity, only a deep-seated envy). This covers titles from August 2008-August 2009, so the next year’s worth of covers may deliver something completely different. I’m hoping they really mix it up – once you’ve seen one hooded figure holding a glowing orb, you’ve pretty much seen them all. It really could be anything: I’m hoping for a return to the unicorn, an unexpected but welcome trend for desks, and maybe even a trilby or two.