Angry Chicks in Leather

I was going to wait until tomorrow to post this, but it’s such a fascinated article that I wanted to post it tonight.  Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist has a great essay by Lilith Saintcrow where she discusses how some consider urban fantasy crap.

Urban fantasy, they tell me, is “hot” right now. Paranormal romance (vampire/werewolf/something girl meets vampire/werewolf/something guy, wackiness or danger ensues, happy ending happens) is just as hot, but the “romance” tag keeps it from being literature. The “fantasy” tag keeps urban fantasy from being classified as Serious Literature as well.

It reminds me of Tom’s Glossary of Book Publishing, where LITERATURE is “Designation applied to titles judged unsaleable”, and MAINSTREAM FICTION is “The pretense that there is a group of readers who can be reached through writing that is sufficiently unspecific as to exclude no one”. There’s just one thing lacking from this set of definitions–the fact that Literature and Mainstream Fiction are seen as highbrow.

We’ve come across this issue before and the naysayers have stepped up again, but I swear I’ve seen it or heard it before.  It’s almost as if they google for anything on UF just so they can go and trash it.  Honestly, I swear some of those comments are by people who have never read an article and never intend to.  Seriously, if you haven’t read it, then don’t critique it.  You obviously don’t know enough about it to hold any kind of intelligent conversation.

And in other news, check out the cover for the third Jill Kismet novel by Saintcrow.  I saw it over at SciFiGuy, but he says he found it over at Tez SaysRedemption Alley is due out August 2009.

About Jackie 3282 Articles
I am a 30-something SAHM with two adorable boys and a supportive husband who is very tolerant of my reading addiction. I love to read and easily go through about a dozen books a month – well I did before I had kids. Now, not so much. After my first son was born, I began to take my hobby of reviewing a little more serious and started Literary Escapism to help with my sanity. I love to discuss the fabulous novels I’ve read and meeting all the wonderful people in the book blogging community has been amazing.

3 Comments

  1. I thought the article was great as well and was/am completely furious with some of the comments. Not only for the mysogyny that permeates some of the comments but also how people dismiss not only UF but also PR (and all sorts of romance) as trashy. It does my head in.

  2. I hadn’t heard anything bad about urban fantasy but it doesn’t suprise me. Seems like people are always criticizing anything that has to do with the paranormal. Their loss in my opinion because there are some great books out there!

Comments are closed.