Timewaster's Guide Archive
Departments => Books => Topic started by: Sigyn on September 04, 2008, 06:09:05 PM
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I've been reading more urban fantasy lately, but I'm discouraged at how much of it is R-rated. I was wondering if anyone has good recommendations for clean stuff. Patricia Briggs' Mercy Thompson series is about my upper limit for content.
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Charles de Lint's stuff is good and mostly clean. He tends toward YA. His last one, Blue Girl, I recommended for my 14 year old neice. They tend to take place in a city modeled after Toronto. I am not sure how much, I've never been there :-\
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I second deLint. ;D
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I've heard good things about the Magic Bites series by Ilona Andrews. It's on my to-read list.
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I don't know if this qualifies as "urban fantasy" but So You Want To Be A Wizard by Diane Duane. I didn't like it too much. . . it seemed odd. I don't know. It was maybe just a bit out there for me. But it is perfectly clean and I actually think it's the first in a series.
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I tried Onion Girl by DeLint, and I just couldn't get into it. I've also read So You Want to be a Wizard---it's children's which isn't what I'm looking for right now. Thanks for the input, though.
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The Urban fantasy requirement can be a bit tricky, but I would recommend trying some of Sheri S. Tepper's novels. A few are set in the modern day real world. Almost all of Tepper's books are sci-fantasy, (Man I wish I'd known about her back in TLE meetings when we used to argue the scifi/fantasy distinction!)
I would recommend perhaps first "The Fresco" followed by "Gibbon's Decline and Fall" as those are the two that come to mind as being urban setting. "Gibbon's Decline and Fall" is quicky becoming my favorite book by her; every time I reread it I love it more.
I would also recommend most of her other books, but the rest tend to be set on other planets and/or in the future.
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Tepper is an excellent writer no question. I do have a few issues with her writing. but sigyn may like her. Here's my review of The Fresco: http://www.timewastersguide.com/view.php?id=1540
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Thanks for the recommendations. I'll give them a try.
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Oh, I thought of one more book today while I was at work. "Nightlife" by Rob Thurman
Cliche title, non-cliche book/ideas. Excellent fantasy (this coming from someone who doesn't normally like much urban fantasy mind you.) Profanity free and there is no sex on camera, (one of the other characters is a thousands-of-years-old Pan character and he enjoys his extra-curricular activities, he just talks a lot.)
The sequal "Moonshine" is equally good, I have not read the third book yet so cannot vouch for the sex or lack thereof in book three.
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You may want to check out Simon Greene as well. His stuff is definitely urban and definitely fantasy but trends toward the silly humor. He just started a new series beginning with, "The Man with the Golden Torc". It's a kind of James Bond meets Harry Potter. He has another series of books covering a place inside of London called the Nightside. These are sort of noir/hardboiled detective stories. I don't feel I am doing them justice. I've found them to be more than a little addictive.
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I've found it's hard to have an urban fantasy without having vampires in them, which I'm rather depressed about. Looking over my own bookshelves I've got the Blue Blood series by Melissa De La Cruz. Pretty good, with a nice twist on the vampire idea. They're not exactly well written, but they're still pretty good. There is one scene in the first book that is slightly risque, but I'd give it a pg-13 rating.
The other series I really, really, really LOVE is The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare (of the Very Secret Diaries and Draco Trilogy fame. One of the best Harry Potter fanfics I've ever read. Although, if you are offended by snogging or yaoi, don't read any of her fanfic stuff.) Those are really clean, and while by the end of the firsts book you're wondering if you should read the second book because one of the plot twists kind of royally sucks, I personally think that it will work itself out without being ackward. (Can't say much without spoiling it, but I can say that the stuff to back up my theory is in the second book.) It's really clean with some kissing being the most of it, but it's not the mindless stuff you'll find in a lot of your YA and Urban Fantasy. It's really fresh in some of it's originality, and I love her snide humor.
I know it's a bit more childrens then YA/Adult uf, but the I've enjoyed the Artimus Fowl series by Erin Colfes. It's something that is set in the modern times, and doesn't involve a single vampire, which makes me happy.
Princess Nevermore by Dian Curtis Regan is really good. If you get an older copy it's really dated, and when they tried to update it some of the stuff didn't translate well, but for the most part it's pretty good. Again, no vampires, although there is a "faerie tale princess" type character. But still, I rather enjoyed it.
I would also suggest anything by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes. I don't know if her shapeshifter series is uf, but I know her vampire ones are, and those are my favorite vampire books. They're all really short, but they pack a lot in them. The first one was written when she was like 13 or 14, and it's actually really well written considering. The characters aren't as flat as you might expect, but you can't go into those books expecting them to be litarary masterpieces. Just some quick, fun reads.
If I had to say "You have to try" of those, I would suggest first Cassie Clare (not sure about the spelling of her last name. I'm too used to spelling it "claire" which was her ffs name), Amelia Atwater-Rhodes and Princess Nevermore.
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I will second the votes for both Greene (Nightside is dark but not sexual and the Torc series are just a great ride) and Thurman (though I also have only read Nightside and Moonshine, again pretty gritty but fun times). I also recommend Kelly Armstrong's women of the Oetherworld series (a little more sex but not smutty) and a novel called Dog Days (and its sequel New Tricks) but John Levitt.
Tops on the Urban fantasy list should always be Jim Butcher and his Harry Dresden series of novels but I am assuming that anyone looking for UF has already read those.
The Illona Andrews books are good, if a little vague. By the end of book two there are still a lot of things that we don't know about the main character (whose name escapes me right now) which I am not thrilled with since some of them at least seems to have been left out purely so they can keep coming up.
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Not sure if this fits with the Urban Fantasy requirement, but… there are three books in the series (in order they came out) The Warrior Heir, The Wizard Heir, The Dragon Heir by Cinda Williams Chima. She's a pretty new author (I think these might be her only books), but she's not bad. The editing is HORRIBLE, though.
Hope this helps!
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As a note about the Wizard Heir and the following books they are in the young adult section, and pretty clearly written for a younger audience. Not a lot to challenge an adult in them. I enjoyed the first one, but have to admit that I didn't make it through the second simply because I didn't feel engaged by it.
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Sorry, I didn't know it had to be in the adult section. I thought it just had to be urban fantasy. My bad.
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S'all good, they are decent books and well worth a nod. The OP posted later in the thread that they were looking for adult.
Nothing wrong with tossing some YA or even childrens books on here though and making it a decent list for anyone looking. To that end I would even toss out the Rick Riordan Percy Jackson and the Olympians books which are a fun little read and you can pretty easily get through all four in a day or so. Also I just grabbed Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians by Brandon Sanderson (who I am sure we all know) and just can't stop laughing as I read it, it is really clever.
I loved the first of Diane Duane's Wizard books though I think that they dropped off pretty sharply in terms of quality as the series went on. I know I stopped reading when they found out *spoiler*that whales were wizards too. *spoiler* It was just a little to Star Trek 5 for my tastes, but maybe that's just me.
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OK, good. Sorry I didn't see that.
Yeah I thought the Percy Jackson books were pretty good…young but funny.
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Not sure if this strictly falls within urban fantasy, but for something a bit different, you might want to try the Detective Inspector Chen novels by Liz Williams: http://www.amazon.com/Snake-Agent-Detective-Inspector-Novels/dp/1597801070/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_c
It's set in a futuristic Singapore where the Chinese conceptions of heaven and hell are real - and bureaucratic. :)