Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV show has a great deal to answer for. That sentence could be taken either way, really, but I'm getting at the rise in Urban Fantasy in literature that has become apparent since the show ended. Granted there are plenty of other Urban Fantasy shows that have had an effect on the general populace as well as genre fans (Charmed, Heroes, et al), but the tales of stake-toting cheerleader really grabbed people's attention, and created the hunger for more of the same. Of course, there are the 'Season Eight' Buffy comics and the 'Season Six' Angel comics, but many fans have been looking elsewhere for their fix, and have found it in the realms of the Fantasy section in bookstores the world over. Judging by the demand for merchandise and spinoff books from favorite TV shows, the audience is still out there in force.
The main example of how this genre has picked up legions of adoring fans is with the series of Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter novels by the prolific Laurel K. Hamilton. These action-packed novels began with the entertaining Guilty Pleasures (which, incidentally is now a wildly popular comic book series from Marvel). The series originally began in 1993 with the initial publication of Guilty Pleasures, but after the demise of the Buffy TV show, the Anita Blake novels found a whole new audience, who lapped up every sex-and-supernatural-violence-drenched page of the series. Further volumes of the series grew in thickness much like the Harry Potter books did, and with each successive title came another wave of fans.
In the years since this happened, the market has seen something of an influx of new material along similar lines become available, with many variations on the central theme of a feisty female lead character doing battle (and falling in love with) supernatural creatures and demonic forces. Another big name in the genre is Kelley Armstrong, whose Urban Fantasy star began to shine with the novel Dime Store Magic, released too much acclaim in 2004. Armstrong's books deal with Witches, Vampires and other such staples of fiction, transported to a contemporary setting and involving very contemporary situations and characterization. Her books have since come to be the more fantastical benchmark that current Urban Fantasy authors seem to follow. While Hamilton has the action and Buffy area covered, Armstrong covers the part of the genre that fans of the also-now-defunct TV Show Charmed want more of.
Other authors of note include Jeaniene Frost and Rachel Vincent, who are continuing to feed the hunger of the masses with tales of magic and mayhem mixed with contemporary culture. The mixture o the supernatural and the everyday has proven to be a wildly popular mix that readers and viewers have been lapping up in recent years, and the genre continues to build and grow from its beginnings as essentially a spin-off. The genre as a whole can be traced back as far as the 1920s, and has long since been a staple of children's fiction. It is only in recent years that it has made the leap into the realms of adult books, but it shows little sign of slowing down, with more offshoots (such as the Paranormal Romance genre) bursting out of Urban Fantasy every couple of years. The genre has been around for a very long time, but it is really only now that it is making its presence felt as a (supernatural) force to be reckoned with.
The main example of how this genre has picked up legions of adoring fans is with the series of Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter novels by the prolific Laurel K. Hamilton. These action-packed novels began with the entertaining Guilty Pleasures (which, incidentally is now a wildly popular comic book series from Marvel). The series originally began in 1993 with the initial publication of Guilty Pleasures, but after the demise of the Buffy TV show, the Anita Blake novels found a whole new audience, who lapped up every sex-and-supernatural-violence-drenched page of the series. Further volumes of the series grew in thickness much like the Harry Potter books did, and with each successive title came another wave of fans.
In the years since this happened, the market has seen something of an influx of new material along similar lines become available, with many variations on the central theme of a feisty female lead character doing battle (and falling in love with) supernatural creatures and demonic forces. Another big name in the genre is Kelley Armstrong, whose Urban Fantasy star began to shine with the novel Dime Store Magic, released too much acclaim in 2004. Armstrong's books deal with Witches, Vampires and other such staples of fiction, transported to a contemporary setting and involving very contemporary situations and characterization. Her books have since come to be the more fantastical benchmark that current Urban Fantasy authors seem to follow. While Hamilton has the action and Buffy area covered, Armstrong covers the part of the genre that fans of the also-now-defunct TV Show Charmed want more of.
Other authors of note include Jeaniene Frost and Rachel Vincent, who are continuing to feed the hunger of the masses with tales of magic and mayhem mixed with contemporary culture. The mixture o the supernatural and the everyday has proven to be a wildly popular mix that readers and viewers have been lapping up in recent years, and the genre continues to build and grow from its beginnings as essentially a spin-off. The genre as a whole can be traced back as far as the 1920s, and has long since been a staple of children's fiction. It is only in recent years that it has made the leap into the realms of adult books, but it shows little sign of slowing down, with more offshoots (such as the Paranormal Romance genre) bursting out of Urban Fantasy every couple of years. The genre has been around for a very long time, but it is really only now that it is making its presence felt as a (supernatural) force to be reckoned with.
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