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<blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 8646954" data-attributes="member: 18"><p>So Paul, I can't respect this opinion.</p><p></p><p>There are two ways I can read this:</p><p></p><p>1) You're confusing the Police Procedural approach to storytelling (arguably a genre of its own) with Urban Fantasy. Perhaps if you haven't read much Urban Fantasy, this is unsurprising. Both Urban Fantasy things you mentioned were also Police Procedurals - Rivers and Bright. Rivers of London is unusual, in that it's basically primarily a Police Procedural, but there's also magic. It qualifies as Urban Fantasy because it explores a lot the same themes, but actively avoid and subverts a lot of Urban Fantasy tropes. It's more of a reaction to Urban Fantasy than a clean example of it. The Ravnica book you're discussing is clearly a Police Procedural. But that doesn't make it "Urban Fantasy". I mean, look how many historical books are also Police Procedurals - Cadfael, for example. And sometimes the the policework is implausibly modern, especially if the author isn't that imaginative.</p><p></p><p>But what you've identified is Police Procedural, not Urban Fantasy.</p><p></p><p>2) You're making a bad-faith argument, i.e. one you know is false, in needless attempt to stick with calling something which definitely isn't Urban Fantasy, Urban Fantasy. I hope this isn't the case. It's not how you normally operate.</p><p></p><p>Let be me really clear on this, Urban Fantasy is a big genre that people like us, like everyone on this board, does <strong>NOT</strong> generally read. I cannot stress that not enough. The crossover audience between Urban Fantasy and Fantasy is shockingly small. It exists, primarily through some authors who write both Fantasy and Urban Fantasy, or have something that exists in-between (Clive Barker exists at a juxtaposition of Fantasy, Horror, and Urban Fantasy, incorporating tropes and concepts from all three, for example). Jim Butcher and Ben Aaronovitch are two of the rare authors who do have a crossover audience with Fantasy fans. Urban Fantasy has it own very distinct set of tropes and ideas from Fantasy, tends to be a lot more sexy/sexual than Fantasy (yeah, even more, I know, alright!), and it's not helpful to just misuse the term to describe a pure Fantasy setting that happens to have a single novel written in as a Police Procedural.</p><p></p><p>It's like seeing someone do a choregraphed and elaborate dance with some spins and calling it Ballet because that's what you associate spins with, or because that's what you think that's called, but when someone who likes Ballet sees the same dance, they'll wonder what on earth you were thinking, because this is obviously Interpretative/Contemporary dance and all you've managed to do is confuse people.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ruin Explorer, post: 8646954, member: 18"] So Paul, I can't respect this opinion. There are two ways I can read this: 1) You're confusing the Police Procedural approach to storytelling (arguably a genre of its own) with Urban Fantasy. Perhaps if you haven't read much Urban Fantasy, this is unsurprising. Both Urban Fantasy things you mentioned were also Police Procedurals - Rivers and Bright. Rivers of London is unusual, in that it's basically primarily a Police Procedural, but there's also magic. It qualifies as Urban Fantasy because it explores a lot the same themes, but actively avoid and subverts a lot of Urban Fantasy tropes. It's more of a reaction to Urban Fantasy than a clean example of it. The Ravnica book you're discussing is clearly a Police Procedural. But that doesn't make it "Urban Fantasy". I mean, look how many historical books are also Police Procedurals - Cadfael, for example. And sometimes the the policework is implausibly modern, especially if the author isn't that imaginative. But what you've identified is Police Procedural, not Urban Fantasy. 2) You're making a bad-faith argument, i.e. one you know is false, in needless attempt to stick with calling something which definitely isn't Urban Fantasy, Urban Fantasy. I hope this isn't the case. It's not how you normally operate. Let be me really clear on this, Urban Fantasy is a big genre that people like us, like everyone on this board, does [B]NOT[/B] generally read. I cannot stress that not enough. The crossover audience between Urban Fantasy and Fantasy is shockingly small. It exists, primarily through some authors who write both Fantasy and Urban Fantasy, or have something that exists in-between (Clive Barker exists at a juxtaposition of Fantasy, Horror, and Urban Fantasy, incorporating tropes and concepts from all three, for example). Jim Butcher and Ben Aaronovitch are two of the rare authors who do have a crossover audience with Fantasy fans. Urban Fantasy has it own very distinct set of tropes and ideas from Fantasy, tends to be a lot more sexy/sexual than Fantasy (yeah, even more, I know, alright!), and it's not helpful to just misuse the term to describe a pure Fantasy setting that happens to have a single novel written in as a Police Procedural. It's like seeing someone do a choregraphed and elaborate dance with some spins and calling it Ballet because that's what you associate spins with, or because that's what you think that's called, but when someone who likes Ballet sees the same dance, they'll wonder what on earth you were thinking, because this is obviously Interpretative/Contemporary dance and all you've managed to do is confuse people. [/QUOTE]
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