Urban Fantasy Recommendations

[SPoots]

Hey all, looking to find some new urban fantasy to dive into and was curious if anyone had any recommendations.

Here's some from my own personal list:

- Dresden Files - because of course you can't have urban fantasy without the fully automagic series itself.

- Felix Castor - a gritty series with an interesting tale on ghosts and exorcists. Was birthed from the writer's work on the Hellblazer comics.

- Hellblazer - because John f****n Constantine!

- Rivers of London - if Dresden Files had been set in England it might look like this. Less glamorous car chases and more police procedural in a world where you have to keep peace between two spirits of the river Thames.

- Almost anything by Neil Gaiman

- Bill the Vampire - this one gets a cautious recommendation. It's narrative style feels very jouvenile at points and the characters are almost Big Bang-esk nerd stereotypes, but any series that starts off with its newly turned vampire main character quoting Darkwing Duck has something going for it.

- Folk'd - a down-to-earth Belfast based urban fantasy that has perhaps the most honest look at the unexpected places we can find ourselves in life and how our plans can break down. With fairies.

 

[Danny McG]

Charles Stross Laundry Files

The Laundry Files - Wikipedia

 

[Danny McG]

Also, have you tried The Rook and sequel?
The Rook (novel) - Wikipedia

 

[hitmouse]

The Good Fairies of New York. Name of author escapes me. Ut he wrote the Thraxas books (another urban fantasy) under a different name.

 

[Cat's Cradle]

I'm so bad with genre definitions, but I wonder if you've checked out Tim Powers? I think many of his books might interest you. A great place to start is Last Call (one of my favorite books, and the first of a trilogy). It's - IMO - an intense, fascinating and gritty book. CC

 

[Danny McG]

Tad Williams trilogy about Bobby Dollar
Bobby Dollar series

 

[SPoots]

Can't say I've heard of any of these. To Amazon!

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Can't say I've heard of any of these. To Amazon!

For some very different stuff - Aliette de Bodard's - The House of Shattered Wings is very clever.

Carlos Ruiz Zafon's Marina is technically magical realism but feels quite urbanist

For something Irish - Ruth Long's Dubh books are well regarded and I like them a lot. (More than the Folk'd books, despite liking the Belfast setting of Laurence's)

 

[hitmouse]

Aberystwyth Mon Amour (& sequels) by Malcolm Pryce. Amusing noir urban detective fantasy set in the West Wales town.

 

[Gonk the Insane]

There's some great suggestions already that I'd second (I've only read Zafon's Shadow of the Wind but he's an incredible writer) and Ruth Long's the only writer I'm not familiar with (and @dannymcg - we have been reading nearly all the same stuff lately: The Laundry Files and The Rook and the Bobby Dollar series, not to mention the Quiller series...).
And the Malcolm Pryce books suggested by @hitmouse are hilariously entertaining.

A couple of others:
Kevin Hearne's Iron Druid Chronicles - more rural than urban, but good fun and lots of interesting languages and mythology mixed in.
Lilith Saintcrow's Jill Kismet series
Kalayna Price's Alex Craft series

 

[Danny McG]

Never heard of the Malcolm Price series.
Will look into these

And Gonk, I couldn't even remember Bobby Dollar recently ....
Urban fantasy series. Zombies and pig-men

 

[Wruter]

Wow, an urban fantasy series set in Aberystwyth, now I've seen everything.

The closest thing I've found to the Dresden Files is the newish series by David B. Coe beginning with Spell Blind (published by Baen). Has the same supernatural PI feel and same entertaining, addictive factor.

 

[Danny McG]

Never heard of the Malcolm Price series.
Will look into these

I've now got the six Aberystwyth books as epub's. All I need is a couple of days peace to consume them.

 

[Biskit]

Since you like Ben Aaronovitch you might like Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next. Not exactly urban fantasy, though it is definitely fantasy and some of it takes place in Swindon..... bit hard to categorise but has something of the same style of humour as Ben Aaronovith.

Since you like Felix Castor, (and if you'll forgive the self promotion) you just might like Hell of a Deal by Mark Huntley-James. Not quite as gritty as Felix. Also only one so far. Book 2 comes out sometime next year...

 

[hitmouse]

I've now got the six Aberystwyth books as epub's. All I need is a couple of days peace to consume them.

Interested to hear what you think of them.

 

[WaylanderToo]

Kevin Hearne's Iron Druid Chronicles - more rural than urban, but good fun and lots of interesting languages and mythology mixed in.

love this ^^^ series.

Also Benedict Jacka's series (not 'urban' as such but still it's nice to have a series set in London TBH

Enjoying the Hellequin Chronicles by Steve McHugh (mainly set in modern times with some flashbacks)

 

[The Big Peat]

Wow, an urban fantasy series set in Aberystwyth, now I've seen everything.

The closest thing I've found to the Dresden Files is the newish series by David B. Coe beginning with Spell Blind (published by Baen). Has the same supernatural PI feel and same entertaining, addictive factor.

I thought Benedict Jacka's Alex Verus books were really Dresden-esque; too Dresden-esque in fact. And I'm not much of a stickler for originality. But it is slickly done, and there's clearly plenty who don't find it too similar based on sales.


Bedlam's Bards series by Mercedes Lackey w/Ellen Guon & Rosemary Edgehill (she switched writing partners halfway through the series) is good classic Urban Fantasy of the mortal magicians, fae, mysteries and pop culture style.

SPoots, how urban do you need your urban fantasy? Or are you open to rural fantasy/modern fairy tales as well?

 

[Mith]

I'll give a nod to Steve McHugh's Hellequin series, nice and action packed. Plus one I've read recently is a series called The Soul Eater by Pippa DaCosta, set in modern day New York, with the Egyptian pantheon of gods being at the forefront.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01I4YBIQS/?tag=brite-21

 

[Danny McG]

Interested to hear what you think of them.

Yeah no probs.
I'll get the first couple read and then see if I fancy carrying on with the rest, mini review either way

 

[Caledfwlch]

Aberystwyth Mon Amour (& sequels) by Malcolm Pryce. Amusing noir urban detective fantasy set in the West Wales town.

As an Aber Boy, I second this! I met Malcolm Pryce when the first was released and he did a signing in what was then the local Ottakers book shop.
It's a bit weird reading them, as he will for example describe going down X Street, a real one, but at the end of it, emerge on the promenade, or down the harbour, when the real street does not.
The whole thing with the Druids thinking of themselves as Gangsters, is hilarious, and the thing with the Town's self described"elite" along with the Druids attending the Moulin club is not far from reality, in the exact area he describes, was a social club very simiilar, for those in the town with the highest self regard, despite all evidence to the contrary - dodgy businessmen, Slumlords, tax frauders etc those sort of people, the ones who "run the town" though the real place probably didn't have Moulin girls it closed down a while back - a new guy bought the building, did his first inspection, and found that not only had the elite driven the inside to the ground, wrecking the infrastructure but had, for example tried to hide the huge holes in some of the walls from him by draping flags, or banners over them, they had literally wrecked the place - old Landlord didn't have a clue, because they were so secretive they never told him about repair problems/issues. The new guy said right, its going to cost me £20,000+ to fix this place just to a basic standard, im going to have to raise the rent (they had also been paying something more akin to a "peppercorn" rent than a real world rent that reflected the real value, they refused, so he said, contract is up next month, so your either leaving, or your paying, they refused, and instead tried to start a smear campaign that failed, and made them look like the idiots they are, now they are homeless

The Physical Education Teacher in them, he sounded, in appearance identical to my PE Teacher in secondary school, except the real chap was a very nice guy, except where Rugby was concerned - "So what if its snowing, and fireballs from a broken up meteorite entering the atmosphere are crashing down, blowing big holes into the pitch, get your kit on, and get on the pitch!" Welsh PE Teachers are somewhat unreasonable with Rugby
It's always annoyed me a little, that the series has been light to non existence as to the actual Status of Wales within it, and the War in Patagonia. Wales appears to be some sort of at least semi autonomous State within them - far more than currrently - it declared and fought a War with Argentina in the 1960's in the series mythos!