Quote:
Originally Posted by haertig
So it works both ways. Too many oddly named sub-genres can be a turn off as well as an invitation. Had I been asked how to describe Jim Butcher's work, I would have called it something like "Crime/Mystery, with a magical twist". "Urban Fantasy" seems like an artificial jumble of unrelated words to me. An attempt to distinguish the genre as something different from all the rest, but doing so in a relatively meaningless way. Basically, it is just plain old Crime/Mystery. With a twist of the occult added. It's not really a "new genre" IMHO.
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Urban Fantasy isn't Crime/Mystery with an occult twist, it's more like contemporary novel with an occult or supernatural twist. It can be crime, but it can also be romance, or family drama, or "someone is trying to destroy the world (or the city or something) and we need to stop them", or something else.
I agree that the genre name isn't very good. But then I don't think "science fiction" is a very good name either. I understand the problem you mention, but it seems to me that -- rather than hoping that the weird genre names drop out of use -- it would be better if you (and others) learn that good books can have weird genre names attached to them.