Over on Twitter, a content creator I follow (who is a book reviewer specializing in SFF – Sci-Fi and Fantasy – and is a fantasy writer himself) asked the following question: “what’s your preferred sci-fi/fantasy subgenre?”
Now, fantasy is my favorite genre overall, while sci-fi… not so much. So my mind went to the immediate answer I always give when I think about this topic, which is urban fantasy. If you’re not sure what that is, urban fantasy is the genre where magical powers and mythical creatures are found in modern-day settings and locations, typically real cities (hence ‘urban’ fantasy). We all know a few examples of these; Harry Potter is inarguably the biggest one, especially the bits set in London. Stuff like Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Supernatural also count. And I do tend to really enjoy works in this genre.
Anyway, I started to think. Is that my favorite subgenre of fantasy? Because I do really love high fantasy also. High fantasy (also known as epic fantasy) is probably the genre that comes to mind for most people when they hear the term ‘fantasy’. A wholly fictional world, different sentient races, awesome magic powers, fantastical creatures everywhere, feuding kingdoms and empires, some Dark Lord or other threatening the world and the heroes that take them down, all that jazz. You’re probably thinking of Lord of the Rings now, and you wouldn’t be wrong. And I love this type of stuff. I’m a worldbuilder at heart; I like coming up with my own worlds and kingdoms, I like coming up with my own creatures and cultures, I like coming up with my own politics and economies. If not for my own writing, then at least as an exercise in writing I enjoy the tropes and trappings of high fantasy the most.
Why is that? Because I feel high fantasy offers the most freedom to just… explore! As a writer, it gives you the most chance to just do whatever you want, make whatever you want, and no one will fault you for anything because you are, quite literally, the God of your own world. Even the weirdest aspects of the worldbuilding (like if you put icebergs in the desert or something) you can justify it if you simply shrug and say, “magic”. And as a reader, high fantasy offers perhaps the highest quotient of wonder and awe, simply because here is a whole new world you’ve never seen before. You don’t know how it works, you don’t know who lives there, you don’t know what you’ll find… but you’d be damned if you don’t want to know! There’s a whole bunch of new peoples with fascinating cultures and traditions and ways of life that is just so interesting to read about. A high fantasy world inherently comes with an invitation to read more and find out. At least for me, it appeals to my desire to explore, to learn, to be curious about the world.
So I thought all this to myself, right? And it is true! I love high fantasy and, in my mind, I love how colorful it can get (sometimes quite literally). The images of lush pristine mountains, wide verdant forests, beautiful cerulean oceans, the endless expanse of the skies, all of it and more… man! It’s so wonderful, and it doesn’t even have to be super well-thought out. Just give me a beautiful world filled with fantastical powers and neat creatures and bam, you’ve got me hook, line, and sinker!
Then I paused. Well, would I then say I prefer high fantasy to urban fantasy? And that got me wondering: why do I love urban fantasy?
Hmm. Well, honestly I love the inherent juxtaposition. The allure of contrasting old-school mythical powers and creatures with a modern-day setting is just… too much to resist. See, on the one hand high fantasy is better because it offers you a world you can’t just find outside your windows, and transports you to a world filled with magic. But on the other hand, urban fantasy shows you the world outside your windows… and tells you, ‘magic exists, right here’ and that is just a perfectly wonderful thing to be able to do. Now, it takes a certain level of skill and imagination to make an urban fantasy work inviting. You can’t just say, “hey, here’s a big modern city and there are fairies secretly living here, isn’t that cool?” I mean, I guess, but what else? What about fairies living in the city is interesting, in and of itself?
But if you say, “hey, here’s a big modern city and there are fairies secretly living here. They hide themselves from most humans using glamour magic because they believe themselves superior over them, and they run secret underground clubs where fairy dust is sold as a party drug; it has a reputation of giving an incredible high as if humans have developed fairy wings for a few hours; only the richest or the seediest of clientele are allowed, and this has created a drug epidemic sweeping the city’s underground that continue to defy explanations from the authorities!” well suddenly you’ve made it extraordinarily interesting.
You see what urban fantasy does? At the hands of a skilled writer, urban fantasy can transform even the most basic, boring, urban cities from mundane modernity into a magical world of its own. But it’s harder to do, because you actually have to work in the fantasy elements with real-life modern culture and technology and sensibilities; you can’t just drop fantasy creatures or races into a city and call it urban fantasy. You have to make the urban itself fantastical. While a good high fantasy gives you a look-see at a whole other world, a good urban fantasy gives you a magical look-see at our world. And while I love both, I think I ultimately prefer the latter because that is pure and adulterated escapism, more than being transported to a world of magic. A good urban fantasy is a form of magic in and of itself.
(as an additional point, you can combine urban fantasy – itself already a genre of mixing sensibilities – with any other genre you want. For example, Dracula is technically urban fantasy as it brings an old folkloric creature in the vampire to then-modern London, and that is firmly Gothic Horror. You can do Romance, if you want to go down the route Twilight and its ilk. The Dresden Files shows you how Mystery stories can work in the genre. You can even do Comedy as Terry Pratchett is known for or, heck, nothing's stopping you from going all-out Epic with urban fantasy either; Skulduggery Pleasant does it. The combination of the urban with the fantastic doesn't stop you from doing anything else you want with the story, and so there's something in the genre for everyone.)
