dark/urban fantasy recommendations please

[igorsk]

Baen has recently published some pretty nice books.
Urban fantasy with shapeshifters: Draw One in the Dark and Gentleman Takes a Chance by Sarah Hoyt.
Urban(?) fantasy with elves and parallel dimensions: Tinker (free!) and Wolf Who Rules by Wen Spencer.

[Surfergirl]

Originally Posted by Dopedangel

... both these authors are not releasing the next book in the series for one reason or another

Scott Lynch - gentleman bastards
Patrick Rothfuss - Kingkiller Chronicle

Well, Amazon is showing that the next Scott Lynch 'Gentlemen Bastards' novel is due for release in mid-July, so hopefully the ebook will follow shortly afterwards.

[hnoto]

J.R.Ward's Brotherhood series started out more para-romance but have moved toward the darker side of urban. IDK what is "too much" for you. I know many of her readers have turned off from these as they aren't "romance-y" enough. Otherwise, I have to agree w/Lilith Saintcrow. I didn't see Lackey as being so urban as mostly straight fantasy/YA--but I didn't read her Serrated Edge series, so maybe that is the one that was mentioned.

[emellaich]

I haven't actually read this series, but there is a good price on a series that I referred to here:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=49694

$9.99 for five plus books. There is a short online for free so you can see if it is to your taste. The description doesn't mention the erotica angle and its a male lead -- I actually enjoy the female leads, but a lot of the soft-porn is written by romance writers who write female POV.

[Renaldo]

Great thread. I've always equated Urban Fantasy/Dark Fantasy with Vampire romance, but from a lot I've seen here it looks like there's more and it goes deeper than that. Quite a few suggestions here are ones I'll be checking out. Thanks everyone!

[melanti]

Originally Posted by hnoto

I didn't see Lackey as being so urban as mostly straight fantasy/YA--but I didn't read her Serrated Edge series, so maybe that is the one that was mentioned.

Yes, the books in Serrated Edge universe (which also includes the Bedlam's Bard and Diana Tregarde series) are the urban fantasies. The Diana Tregarde series leans towards the paranormal romance subset.

I'll third the recommendation for Charles de Lint. I love his work. For those who like the darker side of things, the books he originally published under his pen name (Samuel Key) are much darker. Out of those books, I particularly enjoyed Mulengro.

[rjfarrell]

Tried "The Alchemyst" or "The Magician"?

http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/d...385733571.html

At first, I thought it might be for a younger crowd than I. As it evolved in "The Alchemyst" and then "The Magician" I am quite enjoying this set of books.

I got the Alchemyst when it was one of the free books. Paid for the Magician.

[Flashingblade]

Originally Posted by emellaich

The description doesn't mention the erotica angle

This is one of the few things that can make a book unreadable for me. I don't mind a bit of erotica as a one off, but if the book becomes all "heaving bosom" & "throbbing members" every 30 pages or so at the expense of the story then my interest goes out of the window.

[Idoine]

Just discovered Betsy Taylor series, by MaryJanice Davidson (1rst one, "Undead and Unwed").
Betsy is newly "undead", and the 1rst thing that bugs her is that, for her funeral, her stepmother has dressed her with "crappy" dressing, and stolen all her branded shoes ! That, and the fact she doesn't have success in her several tentatives in finishing killing herself !

[Renaldo]

Originally Posted by Flashingblade

This is one of the few things that can make a book unreadable for me. I don't mind a bit of erotica as a one off, but if the book becomes all "heaving bosom" & "throbbing members" every 30 pages or so at the expense of the story then my interest goes out of the window.

Me too. I welcome heaving bosoms into every aspect of my life except reading. Nothing will turn me off from a book quicker, even if the book is really good otherwise.

[basschick]

tell me about it. it's hard to skip through the sex scenes when there are too many of them. it's like all those laurell k. books later in the anita series... BOring!

Originally Posted by Flashingblade

This is one of the few things that can make a book unreadable for me. I don't mind a bit of erotica as a one off, but if the book becomes all "heaving bosom" & "throbbing members" every 30 pages or so at the expense of the story then my interest goes out of the window.

this is exactly the kind of cutesy stuff i try to avoid. it's not dark fantasy at all because... well, it's not dark

Originally Posted by Idoine

Just discovered Betsy Taylor series, by MaryJanice Davidson (1rst one, "Undead and Unwed").
Betsy is newly "undead", and the 1rst thing that bugs her is that, for her funeral, her stepmother has dressed her with "crappy" dressing, and stolen all her branded shoes ! That, and the fact she doesn't have success in her several tentatives in finishing killing herself !

[WillAdams]

Agree w/ PhishStyx and Wayspooled on Charles de Lint --- esp. look at the Ace Fairy Tales books. _Briar Rose_ is an amazingly good book which makes the world a better place.

Susan Cooper's _The Dark is Rising_ pentalogy is another such book.

Aaron Allston's _Doc Sidhe_ is a lot of fun and an interesting twist on urban fantasy.

Ryk E. Spoor's _Digital Knight_ is also a lot of fun (though I wish he weren't so expansive in the backstory which I find set implausibly far back in time)

--- these latter two are available for free on-line in Baen's Free Library if memory serves.

William

[cearbhallain]

I just discovered Patricia Briggs, they run a little romancy but the story telling and the writing style make them "better than that".

I also recently read a very promising first novel in the urban paranormal genre:
_Child of Fire_ by Harry Connolly. I liked it much more than the Dresden Files (to be fair, I don't like the Dresden Files books, loved the skiffy show though) but found it to be not so polished as the Briggs books I've read so far. Cant read Laurel Hamilton *at all*, got about half way through the first one and threw it at the wall.

[jabberwock_11]

The Connor Grey series by Mark Del Franco is a good bunch of books in this genre. Unshapely Things, Unquiet Dreams, Unfallen Dead, and Unperfect Souls are the books in the series.

[FatDog]

See if you can dig up "The war for the oaks" by Emma Bull.

Simon R. Green has a series called "Secret Histories" which is pretty dark.

Julie Kenner has a series about a Demon hunting soccer mom (Kind of a grown up Buffy without Wheadonisms).