Get Inspired! Essential Reading For Your Games – Urban Fantasy
December 17, 2015 by dracs
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Excellent recommendations all, sadly one really important one was missed.
Mike Carey is 5 books into the Felix Castor series, somewhere between the world’s of hellblazer and the Dresden files Felix Castor is a livipudlean (sp? i .e. From Liverpool) exorcist living,working and surviving in London.
Full of North / south divide humor the books are well written and have taken off so well that Mike Carey better start work on the 6th book as soon as comic book companies stop distracting him with big piles of cash to write stuff for them.
Very good indeed ! 🙂
Incidentally, Mike Carey was a writer for Hellblazer… and he went on to do his own take on Constantine in this novelized form, where he could have more freedom than in a limited run for a set comic book character.
Thoroughly recommend the Ben Aaronovitch books for anyone who loves dry Briitsh humour. Think I feel in love with them after the example of modern magical policing was to drop white phosphorous grenades into a cellar of vampires. Simple and very effective.
Other options include the Kim Harrison ‘The Hollows (Rachel Morgan)’ series (13 books – though I might have a few America imprints – different titles), though the world in that is somewhat changed due to a genetic plague, Benedict Jacka’s ‘Alex Verus’ series (6 books, and counting) and the Kate Griffin ‘Midnight Major (Mathew Swift)’ (4 books) and ‘Magicals Anonymous’ (2 books)
And I agree about the Felix Caster 5 book set, excellent read.
As for a 6th Felix Caster book, I think he finished the series at 5, as he has written several books after this (The Girl with All the Gifts being the one that immediately springs to mind).
Nope, there is a 6th and final book in the Felix Castor series. He won’t write it until he has written 2 more books as M.J Carey (as in the Girl with all the Gifts) As revealed int he interview
http://bigglasgowcomic.com/interview-mike-carey/
He couldn’t leave the Felix Castor series as it was, we are only just finding out about the Grand experiment and the origin of the Demons etc.
Had forgotten about Tim Powers and Charles Stross, both very good recommendations.
Aw… No one mentioned the Laundry Files by Charles Stross ?
Beat me to it!
I can speak highly of the Dresden Files, both the book series and the RPG!
Jonathon Stroud did a series on magic based around London The Bartimaeus Trilogy. A bit alt history as some land marks survive into present day.
I really enjoyed the Bartimaeus series in high school. However, they are alternate history and don’t fit with this list.
Simon R Greens “Secret Histories” and “Nightside” books. Somewhat interconnected, the Secret Histories books are especially fun as they add a dash of Bond & The Avengers (Steed & Peel, not Stark & Rogers…) to the usual formula.
Monster Hunter International series by Larry Correia
http://www.amazon.com/International-Monster-Hunter-Larry-Correia/dp/1439132852
very entertaining
Five days after Owen Zastava Pitt pushed his insufferable boss out of a fourteenth story window, he woke up in the hospital with a scarred face, an unbelievable memory, and a job offer. It turns out that monsters are real. All the things from myth, legend, and B-movies are out there, waiting in the shadows. Officially secret, some of them are evil, and some are just hungry. On the other side are the people who kill monsters for a living. Monster Hunter International is the premier eradication company in the business. And now Owen is their newest recruit. It’s actually… Read more »
Last Call by Tim Powers
Strange how we have an article about “Urban Fantasy” and not a single mention of the FLOOD of female-targeted Urban Fantasies that are far outselling most other fantasy, horror or science fiction these days. Any of you subscribe to Amazon US newletters for “new fantasy and science fiction?” usually more than half of what is presented and promoted there have the “Chippendales models showing sixpacks in a Fantasy setting” styled covers. And this segment basically spans everything from the Young adult market (“Twilight”) to more adult stuff (such as The Sookie Stackhouse novels televised as True Blood), and “Anita Blake,… Read more »
Personally Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere is a real personal favourite and American Gods is really good too, especially for anyone with a passing interest in the Norse mythology.
Gaiman! Oh how could I have forgotten those! I’m even reading Anansi Boys at the moment.
really enjoyed Anansi boys too 😉
The Iron Druid Series by Kevin Hearne would be my recommendation after Dresden.
The ‘His Dark Materials’ trilogy by Philip Pullman is excellent. Coming out around the same time as Harry Potter it was often compared to it, but it’s really completely different.
It weaves religious history and mythology into a consistent, interesting and believable fantasy world that our ‘real’ world forms a part of.
It has great characters, great story lines, great settings and is really thought-provoking. Basically, it’s excellent.
Hmm. What History Books would I recommend? Depends on the period of history I suppose. If you’re looking at the Ancient World I’d look at Conn Iggulden’s Emperor series and possibly David Gemmel’s Troy series. David Gemmel also wrote two books about Philip and Alexander (off of Macedon) but there was a certain amount of “myth and magic” to them. For medieval fiction try Robyn Young’s Brethren trilogy, set during the crusades, or the Insurrection trilogy set in the Scottish Wars of Independence. Also, Conn Iggulden’s The Conqueror series about Ghengis Khan (because history happened all over the world, even… Read more »
Bernard Cornwell has also written books set in the Hundred Years War with his Grail Quest books (Harlequin, Vagabond, Heretic and 1356) and also a later novel unrelated to the Grail Quest set at Azincourt (and called, unsurprisingly, Azincourt). He also wrote a series of books set in the American Civil War but the story kind of petered out a bit and he stopped writing them. He’s always said he’d like to re-visit them but it’s been over 20 years since the last book. I have to say, without any question Bernard Cornwell is my favourite author because, aside from… Read more »
Have to say I enjoyed Cornwell’s take on the Arthur legend, and many others from him, (never really got into Sharp though) but from the first Uhtred to the last those books are my favourite of his and of the favourite series of books I have read. Do much so it inspired me to go back and look at the actual period in more depth from a historic perspective and learn more about it. Also encouraged me to look at other historical fiction, not something I had been that interested in before and has led me to read a number… Read more »