The Journey thus far…..
In our quest for urban fantasy, we have hitherto journeyed only through the realm of fairy and its migration into the cities of Minneapolis and Newford.
But how did we arrive in St. Louis?
Well, the master of the city, Jean-Claude, invited us, we gave consent, and followed him and his lover, Anita Blake down from the mountains of Transylvania through the lands of Noir, sojourned through valleys of Romance, and arrived at one of our favorite guilty pleasures, the city of St. Louis.
Joining me as guide in this month’s journey is Suzanne McLeod, author of the Spellcrackers.com urban fantasy series about magic, mayhem and murder – spiced with dangerous faeries, Machiavellian vampires, bureaucratic witches, eccentric goblins, and rock-solid trolls!
The history of Urban fantasy leads us into dark places – horror (and characters and elements from horror), quickly became a part of the city.
Dracula was the first to occupy this branch of the urban fantasy, arriving in 1897.
Suzanne: Paranormal romances have been around for as long as there have been stories. There are even elements of today’s modern day PRs in Shakespeare’s The Tempest with its magical creatures and Ferdinand and Miranda’s marriage being part of the play’s Happy Ending, and, of course, in Bram Stoker’s Dracula — though the romantic elements in both of those are strictly between the mundane characters.
Calie: After a long gap, Chelsea Quinn Yarboro added to the history with her St. Germain Chronicles, which combine mystery, horror, and romantic elements, starting with the publication of Hotel Transylvania in 1978. Although St. Germaine is a very sexy vampire, the primary element is not romantic.
Mystery combined with magic formed the basis for our next few stops on our journey to Missouri.
In the Lord Darcy series, starting with Lord Darcy Investigates in 1981, Randall Garrett created a sleuth in the vein of Sherlock Holmes, but with magic instead of science as the underlying mechanism. Again, these take placer in urban settings, but are not modern.
In the Garrett P.I. series by Glen Cook (note that he named his PI after author Randall Garrett), the city of TunFaire makes an appearance on the map. In this series, starting with Sweet Silver Blues in 1987, Garrett tries to eke out a living as a private dick in a corrupt city with his Nero Wolfe-esque sidekick, the Dead Man.
But we also can arrive in St. Louis taking a different route – via the land of Romance.
Suzanne: The first paranormal romances as we know them today were published in the late 1980s/ early 1990s. Two seminal ones are A Knight in Shining Armor by Jude Deveraux (1989), and Outlander by Diana Gabaldon (1991) which feature characters who find their true loves through the magic of time travel. In 1992 the incomparable Nora Roberts published The Donovan Legacy series about a family of witches who again, find their true loves through using their magical gifts.
Some of the first books to turn the monsters into love interests were The Vampire Diaries by L.J.Smith (1991) (who doesn’t love Stefan and Damon!), and Maggie Shayne‘s Carpathian series featuring tortured vampires as the heroes started with Twilight Phantasies in October 1993.
Also published in October 1993 was another seminal work, Laurell K. Hamilton’s first Anita Blake Vampire Hunter book, Guilty Pleasures, which married ‘detective noir’ with ‘fantasy’ and became the genre known as urban fantasy, which then took morphing the monstrous magical creatures into tortured romantic heroes and anti-heroes to a whole other level.
Calie: Guilty Pleasures introduces Anita Blake, necromancer, vampire hunter, and general bad-ass. Anita Blake is by trade an animator, one who raises the dead for money. In Guilty Pleasures, Anita Blake is blackmailed by the master of the city into investigating a series of vampire murders.
Guilty Pleasures combines three genres – Horror, Mystery, and Romance, and thus becomes the first book of a new genre branch – the Paranormal Romance – and thus this new area on the map focuses on romantic love (including an HEA (Happily Ever After ending)), while blending elements of mystery, fantasy, science fiction, and horrors.
Suzanne: The paranormal genre, with or without romance, is a wide one as it can encompass stories with just a hint of something otherworldly such as a human psychic helping the police in Linda Howard‘s Dream Man, all the way through to a full blown fantasy world with a double kitchen sink’s worth of magical characters and creatures in the Spellcrackers books *cough*my own urban fantasy series*cough*
Calie: The Anita Blake series also goes on to give a new option to the traditional tortured romance triangle. When Anita is forced to choose between her two lovers (vampire Jean Claude, and werewolf Richard), she takes a very Zen option. She chooses both.
Suzanne: As the Anita Blake books progress and the character cast list grows, Anita’s romantic relationships also progress and grow from single-hood through various tries at coupledom and finally to polyamory. As this happens the stories become less focused on the external antagonists and the threats they pose, and more about how all the characters relate to each other.
While the added focus on the romantic relationships might not be to the taste of every reader of the earlier Anita books, the inclusion of Anita and the other characters’ polyamory, along with the inclusion of other non-heterosexual relationships and the easy acceptance of these relationships by other characters (with allowances made for the need for ‘narrative drama and conflict in the story’, of course), and the emphasis on all members’ agreement and consent, as well as their willingness to talk and listen to each other (mostly!) is actually a wonderful thing— one that hopefully can help enlighten those who have limited knowledge of, or a negative attitude towards those people who may have a different sexual orientation to their own, as well as allowing those of all types of sexual orientation to have the opportunity not only to be entertained by a story but also the chance to see something similar to their lives and loves reflected in the story’s characters.
Calie: And that’s how we got to St. Louis and the creation of one of the newest genres, the Paranormal Romance.
Hope you enjoyed out trek here and that you get some good rest and relaxation in before our next leg of the tour. You’re going to need to keep all your wits about you as we journey into the heart of darkness….
Suzanne McLeod is the author of the Spellcrackers.com urban fantasy series about magic, mayhem and murder – spiced with dangerous faeries, Machiavellian vampires, bureaucratic witches, eccentric goblins, and rock-solid trolls! The Shifting Price of Prey is her latest book. Suzanne has been a cocktail waitress, dance group roadie, and retail manager before becoming a writer. She was born in London (her favorite city and home to Spellcrackers.com) and now lives on the sunny (sometimes) South Coast of England, with Mr. Mc and their two rescued hell hounds! Books can be bought from any good online store.
Website: www.spellcrackers.com
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