Genre Primer: Fantastic Urban Fantasy

The Hollows, by Kim Harrison
Literature has produced many a doomsday scenario (plagues, viruses, environmental disasters, power-hungry pigs, etc.), but few have been as ingenious as the one Harrison employs in her Hollows series: the genetically modified tomato. Into this breach, we find a vastly different world from our own, one in which supernatural beings live openly among plain old humans. Which is how we get the rip-roarin’ witch detective Rachel Morgan, stalking the streets of the Hollows of Cincinnati. While fans may still be bereft, now is a good time to dive into Rachel’s adventures, because they are complete. The Witch With No Name, the 13th and final book in the series, hit shelves last month, and pinned Rachel knee-deep inside a vampiric schism.

Mercy Thompson, by Patricia Briggs
Have Mercy. No, really, do, because Mercy Thompson is a tough-as-nails heroine, but relatably so; she’s not some insane manic pixie action girl a la Lara Croft. A skilled mechanic in the Tri-Cities area of Washington state, Mercy can also turn into a coyote at will. Unusual? Not so much: she lives in a world populated by werewolves, vampires, and gremlins. The series is refreshing in more than one aspect, including its role as a werewolf platform. The pack so often gets relegated to a supernatural side note, but not here. That’s particularly evident in Briggs’ latest Mercy work, Shifting Shadows, a collection of short stories, which includes tales of werewolves of all shapes, sizes, ages, and orientations, as well as heartwarming stories from other areas of the Mercy Thompson universe.

The Iron Druid Chronicles, by Kevin Hearne 
Talk about your underrepresented species in modern fantasy: druids. Hearne addresses the deficit with the fantastically named Atticus O’Sullivan, the last of the Druids, currently residing in Tempe, Arizona. He runs an occult bookshop, but his unofficial job is as a mediator of all supernatural disputes. In the seventh and latest edition of the series, Shattered, Atticus, for once, is not the only druid around, having trained an apprentice and defrosted a mentor. It’s a good thing too, because on top of the usual annoyed deities, Atticus and Co. are juggling yetis, demons, and an exorcism, all punctuated by Atticus’ wonderful telepathic interactions with his Irish wolfhound, Oberon.

The Dresden Files, by Jim Butcher
At 15 volumes and counting, Butcher’s chronicle of wizard private eye Harry Dresden is one of the pillars of modern urban fantasy. Magic is very much alive in Dresden’s Chicago, but the public at large is oblivious to the swirling vortex of doom that often comes close to enveloping them. That’s where Harry Dresden comes in, as a sort of Dumbledore-meets-Sherlock consulting supernatural detective for the police. With each installment, his trials and tribulations grow. In Skin Game, the latest offering, he’s got to help an Ocean’s 11 of weirdies and villains perform a heist on a vault owned by Hades himself. No big.

October Daye, by Seanan McGuire
Life’s tough for changelings in McGuire’s imagining. In her eight-book-and-counting series, changelings aren’t abducted children, but children born of human and fae blood. They’re usually misunderstood in both worlds, and October Daye happens to be one of them. Born in San Francisco and brought by her mother to the Summerlands of the fae, Toby never fit in as a kid, and eventually ran back to the human world, finding employment as a supernatural P.I. But it hasn’t exactly been rainbows and butterflies since, particularly not in the newest addition to the series, The Winter Long, which throws truth-busting punches at her left and right.

Sandman Slim, by Richard Kadrey 
Looking for the gritty, grimy underbelly of urban fantasy? Say hi to James “Sandman Slim” Stark, who is absolutely nothing like those high-fantasy Starks you’ve heard of.  As exciting an antihero as any you’ll find, Sandman Slim is what happens when hell vomits up its hitman with an axe to grind into Los Angeles. In The Getaway God, his sixth outing, Sandman Slim’s in some sort of adult, subverted Percy Jackson-like trouble, with threatening old gods and a heaven-to-hell conspiracy.

The Sookie Stackhouse Novels, by Charlaine Harris 
Unless you’ve avoided both bookstores and HBO for the past decade, you’ve likely heard of a little place called Bon Temps, Louisiana, where 13 novels—including the final installment, Dead Ever After—have focused on the goings-on surrounding desirous waitress and telepath Sookie Stackhouse. In this world, the basis of the show True Blood, synthetic blood has made feeding on humans unnecessary for vampires, so they have begun to live openly. But vampires aren’t the only creatures out and about: there are werewolves, shape-shifters, fairies, and more. It’s a veritable fantasy buffet, with an ultra-relatable main character.

Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter, by Laurell K. Hamilton
With 22 books published since 1993, this is one of the longest-running urban fantasy series, and set the stage for much of what followed. In the St. Louis of Anita Blake, creatures of all kinds are a known part of society. Thus, Anita has the opportunity to be a jack of all bizarre trades: vampire executioner, necromancer, supernatural sleuth, and all around combat warrior. But in her latest adventure, Affliction, she’s confronted with a plague of wily and hungry zombies even out of her ample comfort zone. Despite that set-up, Anita Blake stories can also be quite a sexy read, undead aside, so there’s a little something for everyone.