Talk:Urban fantasy

Skip to table of contents

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Urban fantasy article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: 1: 30 days

It is requested that an image or photograph be included in this article to improve its quality. Please replace this template with a more specific media request template where possible.
The Free Image Search Tool or Openverse Creative Commons Search may be able to locate suitable images on Flickr and other web sites.

Upload

Tip: Anchors are case-sensitive in most browsers.

This article links to one or more target anchors that no longer exist.

[[Speculative fiction#Author demographics|See full statistics]] The anchor (#Author demographics) is no longer available because it was deleted by a user before.

Please help fix the broken anchors. You can remove this template after fixing the problems. | Reporting errors

Novels: Fantasy Mid‑importance

	Novels portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Novels, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to novels, novellas, novelettes and short stories on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and contribute to the general Project discussion to talk over new ideas and suggestions.NovelsWikipedia:WikiProject NovelsTemplate:WikiProject Novelsnovel articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by Fantasy task force (assessed as High-importance).

Children's literature Mid‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Children's literature, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Children's literature on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Children's literatureWikipedia:WikiProject Children's literatureTemplate:WikiProject Children's literaturechildren and young adult literature articles

Mid

This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Tasks you can do:

Here are some open tasks for WikiProject Children's literature, an attempt to create and standardize articles related to children's literature. Feel free to help with any of the following tasks.

Add {{Portal|Children's literature}} to the See also section of related articles.
Tag the talk pages of related articles with {{WikiProject Children's literature}}
Join WikiProject Children's literature and list yourself as a Participant in the project.
Cleanup: A cleanup listing for this project is available. See also the list by category, the tool's wiki page and the index of WikiProjects.
Deletion discussions: listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Literature
Notability: Articles with notability concerns, listed at WikiProject Notability
Rate the Unassessed articles in the Children's literature WikiProject.
References: Add references to Unreferenced BLPs.
Requested articles: Create a requested article on literature
Stubs: Improve a stub-class article

edit

Core Definition[edit]

I've checked here a few times, and I think the core definition as stated ("magical rules or elements operating in an urban setting") is incorrect, and moreover doesn't match the linked references. Urban fantasy is more commonly accepted to be set in contemporary, real-world settings, and the "urban" bit is arguably a distraction (e.g. some would say a countryside setting is fine). It's difficult to reference this, though, but I'll try. TV Tropes and Goodreads both disagree with the definition here, for example. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lordjim13 (talk • contribs) 17:39, 16 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that the definition is not quite correct, but mainly because from what research I've read, there appears to be no consensus on what urban fantasy is. People have opinions every which way. There is an article in Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts ("Urban Fantasy: A Literature of the Unseen") that looks at several definitions and tries to find what they have in common. Maybe better to change to acknowledge that there is no definition accepted by everyone? --Glitterspont (talk) 11:36, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Series/book list[edit]

I came to this page wondering if there was a related list of urban fantasy series, perhaps organized (as I would like to see it anyway) by location/city in order to highlight the "urban" in urban fantasy. As someone noted above, the list of authors contain things that don't meet the definition as stated in the article (Charlaine Harris coming to mind as the most obvious example). I see that someone suggested having a List of urban fantasy authors. Do you think that a List of urban fantasy series would be considered notable enough for inclusion? It might solve some of the problem on this page as well, as a place for more information about the series themselves, and links to individual pages when appropriate. (I'm happy to do this myself, but wanted some opinions from the group on notability and need before going to the trouble.) Caseylf (talk) 19:33, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I like your idea, but think it might be best served by taking it off Wikipedia and put directly on a web page.

That would allow genre-specific cross-referencing, avoid WP issues (eg: notability, referencing, &c.) should sharing plot-information or other data be encouraged, perhaps encourage authors to post, or sharing of fan-written fiction, &c.

Some of the most successful of sites with the broadest scope and longest history include The Internet Speculative Fiction Database (https://www.isfdb.org/), the mystery site Stop You're Killing Me (http://www.stopyourekillingme.com/index.html), Historical Novels Info (http://www.historicalnovels.info/), and - of course - Fantastic Fiction (https://www.fantasticfiction.com/). There are others for romance, Westerns, and other more-specific genres.

Ethnic laundry (talk) 05:15, 31 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think the page would benefit from adding a more comprehensive list of media outside of books, such as movies, tv shows, graphic novels, and so on. This would likely help clarify the distinction of urban fantasy vs paranormal romance. MeganDees24 (talk) 09:45, 18 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified (January 2018)[edit]

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 5 external links on Urban fantasy. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 04:52, 22 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Blank and redirect from Contemporary fantasy[edit]

Per discussion on Talk:Contemporary fantasy, I have just blanked Contemporary fantasy and redirected it here. CohenTheBohemian (talk) 05:44, 6 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In the paragraph “21st Century”[edit]

What does the reference BFSA mean? Is it Black Faculty and Staff Assoc.? Please add a footnote. Mastrude (talk) 20:55, 29 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]