Loonatic's Favorite Urban Fantasy Novels

Switching gears a bit! Let's dive into the varied genre of urban fantasy. There are lots of flavors, but here are four great books living on that edge between everyday life and suddenly magic:

1. Dresden Files (Jim Butcher)

If you were to page through Chicago’s phonebook, there’s only one name listed as a professional wizard. And while Harry Dresden might not do parties or love potions, he does take on investigations of supernatural sort. One-part magic-user and one-part detective, Dresden barely scrapes out a living. Between his talents and his wits he routinely gets in way over his head with vampires, werewolves, Fae, and all sorts of dangerous beings. Starting off with a bang in Storm Front, the prolific Dresden Files has its main character evolve and explore ever-widening story arcs, never getting stuck in a rut. Throughout the books Dresden gains and loses friends and enemies alike, and the relationships between recurring characters change considerably. And unlike a lot of books about powerful wizards, Harry Dresden actually seems someone you'd actually want to be friends with. Jim Butcher particularly nails the first-person noir storytelling, which is rarely attempted these days and even harder to do well. It's a pretty good strategy, since it gets you his headspace and lets you in on the snarky inner monologue we all have but rarely hear out loud. This is a great example of an urban fantasy series, better if consumed in order but each is a jaunt in its own right.


2. Night Watch (Sergei Lukyanenko)

Mastering urban fantasy is hard enough, but Night Watch shows what can be done when you throw the traditional magics of good and evil into the a spy thriller's messy world of grays. On the streets of Moscow the magicians of Light and Darkness have been kept a tense peace enforced by the Watches, ensuring a balance that does not sit well with either side. In the middle of the scales is Anton, a mediocre Light magician who is just beginning to understand how muddled the lines are. Despite being no one special, fate or the manipulations of the bosses seem to be kicking him into the thick of a cold war. Vampires hunting without a license, a young boy discovering his talents, and a woman with an atomic-level curse hanging over her head push Anton into something he is not ready for and might not survive. Even in it's English translation Night Watch is sharp, gritty, and gripping, following Anton in three different cases on a common arc. Each story dissects the repercussions of good and evil, and about the costs of the smallest of deeds.


3. Dreams Underfoot (Charles DeLint)

On the surface Newford appears to be a perfectly normal big city, but stumble down the wrong alley or open the right door and you're bound to walk with ghosts, Fae, the animal people, and allegories made flesh. In Dreams Underfoot Charles DeLint paints a haunting and believable cityscape, and though he's set several novels in this urban wonderland it's in his short story collections where Newford really shines. In each story you see a different facet or flavor of magic, with tones ranging across genres of adventure, mystery, coming-of-age, tragedy, horror, and pure fantasy. And yet within this shared space it all works, and the city lives through the connections of very real and intensely human characters. Built around them, the rest of the magic and myth seem no exaggeration, only another side of things you'd glanced at but never really seen. So when you walk a strange road with a Romani punk rocker, save a world while in dream, or unravel the mystery of a ghost that only walks when it rains, the characters are the only way you don't get swept off the edge of the map.


4. Un Lun Dun (China Mieville)

Zanna and Deeba are two ordinary schoolgirls in modern London that start seeing things that are far from ordinary. Soon they've shifted into the shadow of their city, into a strange wonderland made up of the refuse and forgotten pieces of our world bled into another reality. When Un Lun Dun's denizens begin to believe that Zanna is a chosen one to defeat the evil Smog, the two are drawn into adventure to seek a weapon called the Klinneract. But of course this mirror city is never quite how it seems, and destinies aren't quite how they're depicted in verse. This one's more oriented towards young adults (and has gotten some flak for it), but to me Mieville's prose and imagination easily reaches wider audiences. The book's structure is a bit odd, but I'd forgive a little oddness in return for all of the book's creative twists. The characters encounter sentient broken umbrellas, ghosts, talking books, roof-runners, garbage can ninjas, and a host of other weirdness. A neat read, and it might just get you to look twice at that odd little milk carton on the sidewalk.