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This is why I need polls...
I totally would make a poll, but since I don't feel like shelling out the money to livejournal or letting them put ads up on my journal, that's shot.
But the f-list had some interesting links to debates about urban fantasy and what counts as urban fantasy (particularly, Harry Potter).
I would like to come down on the side of Harry Potter *not* counting as urban fantasy. Not because it doesn't have the right elements, but because it's playing in the YA field, not the urban fantasy field.
YA is it's own genre, with it's own rules, regulations, traditions, and environment. It operates on different principles than Urban Fantasy.
Harry Potter shares *some* characteristics with Urban Fantasy. It's pure YA.
I don't think genre is just a matter of scenery or certain elements. You can stick a vampire anywhere you like, it doesn't make what you write urban fantasy. Dracula is all about teh_vampyrez. It's not Urban Fantasy.
I think genre is a matter of tone and convention. It's about who your peers are, it's about who you see on the shelf when you look right and look left in a bookstore.
And on the shelf, you don't see Emma Bull or Charles de Lint or Laurell K. Hamilton when you look around Harry Potter. You see YA lit. You see Bridge to Terebithia and Artemis Fowl. You see The Golden Compass.
A lot of people who are nuts about Harry Potter wouldn't know Emma Bull from Emma Peel of the Avengers.
So, no. Harry Potter doesn't get to join the UF Club. Not for any lack of literary merit, but because you don't ask badminton players to go to Wimbledon. Two different sports, kapeesh?
But the f-list had some interesting links to debates about urban fantasy and what counts as urban fantasy (particularly, Harry Potter).
I would like to come down on the side of Harry Potter *not* counting as urban fantasy. Not because it doesn't have the right elements, but because it's playing in the YA field, not the urban fantasy field.
YA is it's own genre, with it's own rules, regulations, traditions, and environment. It operates on different principles than Urban Fantasy.
Harry Potter shares *some* characteristics with Urban Fantasy. It's pure YA.
I don't think genre is just a matter of scenery or certain elements. You can stick a vampire anywhere you like, it doesn't make what you write urban fantasy. Dracula is all about teh_vampyrez. It's not Urban Fantasy.
I think genre is a matter of tone and convention. It's about who your peers are, it's about who you see on the shelf when you look right and look left in a bookstore.
And on the shelf, you don't see Emma Bull or Charles de Lint or Laurell K. Hamilton when you look around Harry Potter. You see YA lit. You see Bridge to Terebithia and Artemis Fowl. You see The Golden Compass.
A lot of people who are nuts about Harry Potter wouldn't know Emma Bull from Emma Peel of the Avengers.
So, no. Harry Potter doesn't get to join the UF Club. Not for any lack of literary merit, but because you don't ask badminton players to go to Wimbledon. Two different sports, kapeesh?