Maria Lewis

Well, I guess one of the most mainstream examples of what I feel is really excellent urban fantasy is anything by Charlene Harris.

So of course her series, the Sookie Stackhouse series, which got adapted into television, the HBO series True Blood, which was really seminal in terms of

gore and sexuality and adult themes being developed and queer themes being developed and played from mainstream audience.

Her books are really, really incredible and really interesting.

And many of them are sort of set in America's deep South and use supernatural creatures as a way to talk about racism and systematic prejudice, which is really interesting.

And also one of the things I love so much about urban fantasy is that they have serious themes and there's serious things that they're looking at, but it's,

done so in a really entertaining way you know the themes are never at the expense of the story and the story is never at the expense of the theme and i think that's why i love authors like charlene harris rochelle mead is really great she has a young adult series called vampire academy which is very popular but um i think many of her adult books are the succubus blue series and there's more of like a sword and sorcery series that's really great carrie arthur

is kind of iconic in the genre.

You know, she was one of the first people to really kick down the door for very sexy, very gritty urban fantasy and urban fantasy that was set in Australia as well.

A futuristic, dystopian version of Australia, but that in and of itself was very groundbreaking.

Tamora Pierce she's kind of she's like the mother of the genre I guess her worlds are so rich and Kelly Armstrong I mean there's so many in comic books as well I think there are incredible urban fantasy stories in fact some of the best I think like Greg Rucker and Nicholas Scott's Black Magic is a really great example of all the possibilities you can realise in urban fantasy as a sub-genre it's basically a

police procedural with witchy magical elements, which is truly everything I've ever wanted in a text, to be honest.

Well, Sarah J Maas is probably better known for high concept fantasy stuff.

So her fantasy series set in alternate worlds, worlds that people

haven't necessarily seen before, wouldn't necessarily recognize.

It's not New York City with a twist, like something like,

the mortal instruments it's not necessarily dystopian london like something like mortal engines i'm trying to think of examples of things that don't have mortal in the title but there you go and um you know she's been probably one of the most popular authors within that sort of high concept fantasy uh world for the past few years it's very sword and sorcery is a term that often gets used and a lot of her works do have both swords and sorcery in one form or another

I guess the comic book origin story, if we're going, you know, Dark Knight year one or Batman year one, if you will, for all the comic book fans out there, are things like

Matilda, which I know that seems very weird to cite as an example, but that idea, that core theme of a girl who is special, a girl who was other,

I think is something that runs through it.