There are people who don't want Twilight clones ...

[ysengrin]

The Problem With Urban Fantasy: I Want The Ponder Stibbons Story, over at Uncertain Principles.

Comments

[silvermane3.livejournal.com]

But I like Patricia Briggs books, from the point of view of them as a seperate book and not an over view of the a whole genre. I do tend to agree the whole sub genre of werewolf/supernatural books (strangely a majority told by female leads having supernatural boyfriends) is getting rather dull to read. The whole coming out of the closet story line is never really done to realization, where's the consequences? Where are the religious nutters going in to destroy? The alienation from the rest of humanity as we discover holy shit there's things out in the night that can rip us to shreds and kill us? Where is the science angle? Why isn't there some mad warped scientist eager to plump the supernatural world for answers? All this is left behind as we get to read my boyfriend's a werewolf and so one blah. Does rather leave one with a lot of questions and a lot of frustration, of course the good of that is it does inspire you to write your own werewolf novel. :)

[ysengrin.livejournal.com]

"Supernatural romance" is a recognized (and popular) sub-genre of romance novels; mostly they're vampire-based, but werewolves are getting some love too.

The earlier Anita Blake novels were pretty good, though the later ones come perilously close to Mary Sue territory with Anita becoming some sort of uber-supernatural mix.

[silvermane3.livejournal.com]

Sadly I must say that yes it is a rather accepted and popular sub genre. Not that all the stories are bad mind you, I kind of like some of them but the premise behind of late seems to all be the same. That's probably my only gripe that and well Twilight.

Yeah I agree the earlier Anita Blake's were good, though the Mary Sue element has gotten way out of hand with her getting all the powers of vampirism and werewolves without any real disavantages. That and the over use of sex in the later books kind of turned me off while turning me on too *laughs*

[laughinghyena.livejournal.com]

"where's the consequences? Where are the religious nutters going in to destroy? The alienation from the rest of humanity as we discover holy shit there's things out in the night that can rip us to shreds and kill us? Where is the science angle? Why isn't there some mad warped scientist eager to plump the supernatural world for answers?"

The only werewolf novel that I know that deals with this somewhat is Brett Davis's 'Hair of the Dog'.
The group in there is probably equivalent to Cure Autism Now. Using people's good intentions of wanting to cure the outed werewolves, and the werewolves not wanting to be cured. To the point of the werewolves creating something like a deaf awareness/rights group.
And it doesn't help that the so-called 'cured' werewolves go in a vegetable state.

Like you, I would really like to see this concept explored a bit more in urban fantasy. Like the guy writing the article, this is why I love Terry Pratchett's work. Robert Asprin's work is kinda like this too (Sci-fi/Fantasy hybrid).
And why I hated a lot of the stories in 'Furry!' edited by Fred Patten, for the reverse of this. You know, instead of being universally accepted, the group is universally hated with no gray in between just to show that the writer hates humans.

[silvermane3.livejournal.com]

Oh my someone wrote a story about furries hating humans...wow...I am just trying to get my cranium around that one. :)

[bear-helms.livejournal.com]

Well, you have to admit that although it's LOGICAL that a werewolf coming out of the closet would get approached by science and zealots and nutters alike, just what entertainment value can you derive from this? Make it into a comedy farce? This usually makes for really sad cinema, as werewolf (or any) horror/comedy is some of the rankest film ever made. Exceptions e.g. (and this shows you how hard it is to get good at it) American Werewolf in London, The Howling I.

If my mind didn't wander off every 20 seconds, I might be able to write a story along those lines. Hard enough writing 2 paragraphs saying it'd be rough in the first place. I'm having trouble just making up what werewolf would actually want to call full attention to themselves in terms of press conference, here I am hear me growl kind of thing - probably even change on camera to seal the deal.