[Books] Looking for Urban Fantasy with male protagonists.

[Kreuzritter]

see, i was thinking the original novel, given the dealing with an ancient horror stalking the london streets

[Sundancer]

Originally Posted by Belor

Charles Stross The Atrocity Archives and Jennifer Morgue. Basically Delta Green meets the British civil service.

I've heard a lot about them, they seem to fit.

Originally Posted by Adrian Werner

Harry Potter

Originally Posted by Kreuzritter

dracula

Originally Posted by DrFaust

John Crowley's Little, Big has a couple male protagonists -- also his Aegypt books, but I haven't figured out yet just how fantastical they are.

One of these days I will learn how to clearly express what I'm looking for in my first post...but on the other hand I don't want to look overly nitpick-y.

I probably should have mentioned that I'm not looking for child/juvenile protagonists, so that kicks Potter and anything similar, Spiderwick Chronicles, and so on.

Also I'd strongly prefer books written in the current century, or from the late 90s, so that disqualifies Dracula, which isn't even from the last century....

The description of Crowley's books plainly doesn't appeal to me.

Originally Posted by Wise One

Tech-Noir? Although that's more a film thing.

On the urban fantasy thing, try Jeff VanDerMeer, City of Saints and Madmen.

And what about Sergei Lukyanenko's Nighwatch Series?

The Nightwatch series comes closest to what I'm looking for, similar to the Dresden books, but everytime I read the reviews something keeps me back.
They seem to be popular, though.

Originally Posted by Coyote's Own

...many cyberpunk novel use tropes for Hardboiled novels.
Altered Carbon is certianly a cyberpunk novel while DADoES is what could be proto-cyber-punk (similarly to many other PKD works).

Wikipedia calls Altered Carbon simply a harboiled science-fiction novel.
I guess my definition of cyberpunk really was too narrow then.

Originally Posted by Brad Ellison

Fred Saberhagen's Dracula novels...

This sounds like lots of pulpy fun.
I liked Saberhagen's Book of Swords series and have heard good things about his Empire of the East books.

[Coyote's Own]

Originally Posted by Sundancer

Wikipedia calls Altered Carbon simply a harboiled science-fiction novel.
I guess my definition of cyberpunk really was too narrow then.

Thinking about it, have read When Gravity Fails. It a cyberpunk thriller with a certain hardboiled vibe.

[Jade Bells Ringing]

well, basically, The Shadow of the Torturer, by Glen Cook. The first of a series, this book ends with Severian exiting the city of his birth. If you like it enough, read the rest of the books, large parts of which are spent traveling.

[Gloombunny]

Originally Posted by Jade Bells Ringing

well, basically, The Shadow of the Torturer, by Glen Cook. The first of a series, this book ends with Severian exiting the city of his birth. If you like it enough, read the rest of the books, large parts of which are spent traveling.

I liked the New Sun books a lot, but seriously, they aren't urban fantasy. He doesn't even spend that much time in the city itself before leaving it. (I don't think the torturers' guildhouse and the rest of the citadel count.)


I'd suggest Last Call by Tim Powers - while it doesn't take place exclusively within a city, it is to a large extent about a city (specifically, Las Vegas), and is just really good in general. Its quasi-sequels Expiration Date and Earthquake Weather aren't bad either.

[Menteroso]

F. Paul Wilson's Repairman Jack series (Starting with The Tomb) is modern/urban fantasy. A little on the techno-thriller/lone badass side, but dark fantasy nonetheless.

[Sundancer]

Originally Posted by Brad Ellison

Fred Saberhagen's Dracula novels...

I have finished reading The Dracula Tape, the first book of Saberhagen's Dracula Sequence. Maybe it's because it was an alternative view on Stoker's story and as such most of the structure was familiar/unsurprising, but I found it rather tedious. Do the other books get better/faster paced/more interesting ?

Originally Posted by Coyote's Own

Thinking about it, have read When Gravity Fails. It a cyberpunk thriller with a certain hardboiled vibe.

When Gravity Fails failed (hehe) to bring me around, but if you liked it, the Arabesk books by Jon Courtenay Grimwood have a similar feel to them.

Originally Posted by Menteroso

F. Paul Wilson's Repairman Jack series...

I know the first four books of the Repairman Jack series, but most sources I know list them under horror instead of urban fantasy.

This brings up the following question: what is the dividing point between horror with clearly supernatural elements and urban fantasy ?
Is there a meaningful distinction, or is it just semantics since urban fantasy isn't really clearly defined ?

I'd posit that in most books categorised as urban fantasy, the protagonists are on the "in"-side, either they know about stuff, or they have powers/gadgets of their own.
Repairman Jack for example is "just" a book-competent guy who gets drawn into shit (at least as far as I know, that might change in later novels), while Dresden and CO. have spiffy powers and mostly know what they are doing/getting into.

[HDimagination]

It doesn't really conform completely to the urban fantasy genre, but the Fourlands books by Steph Swainston display allot of the same issues such as violence, drugs etc... and I'd just plain recomend them to anyone.

they are:

The year of our war
No Present like time
The Modern world (although, I think this may have a different title in america).

I would say that the books are uban fantasy characters (especially Jant) in an epic fantasy setting.

Check them out.

[rrr]

As always in these threads I will pimp Sergei Lukyanenko, and the Nightwatch series....

Originally Posted by Sundancer

The Nightwatch series comes closest to what I'm looking for, similar to the Dresden books, but everytime I read the reviews something keeps me back.
They seem to be popular, though.

Out of curiosity, what reviews or which elements have put you off?

The Nightwatch series is, in my opinion, far far better than the superficially similar Dresden Files. And I say that as someone who actually really enjoys the Dresden Files books.

The four Nightwatch books are bloody brilliant. I can't recommend them enough. Just finished the fourth one, and now I want to start from the beginning again.

[James Weatherby]

Originally Posted by Jade Bells Ringing

well, basically, The Shadow of the Torturer, by Glen Cook.

Gene Wolfe, not Cook.