I have been engaged in an interesting interview back-and-forth recently, gentle reader, wherein Soulless was accused of not being urban fantasy.
According to this person, and wikipedia, urban fantasy must have a contemporary setting, which means my work doesn’t qualify.
So I was left wondering,
If not urban fantasy – then what?
I always thought that since it has an urban setting (London) and a strong fantasy element (vampires, werewolves, ghosts) – it would be OK to call it urban fantasy.
I suppose one might refer to Soulless as a alternate history paranormal or, in old style literary terms, simply a Gothic novel. But then I would call most “urban fantasies” more accurately “modern Gothics” because often there is no urban setting (see Sookie in the rural south).
Locus recently had a very interesting issue tackling definitions of urban fantasy and paranormal romance from different author and editor perspectives. It does seem to be that everyone has a different conceptualization of the term.
Soulless is difficult to categorize because it has its fingers in so many sub-genre pies (steampunk, paranormal, alternate history, gothic, comedic) and as a result I suspect people talk about it as urban fantasy because that is the easiest trope to identify it with quickly.
I thought I might field this question to the readership, where would you place Soulless?
BOOK IN QUESTION:
Soulless: Parasol Protectorate Book 1
PICK YOUR VENDOR!
Alexia Tarabotti is laboring under a great many social tribulations.
- First, she has no soul.
- Second, she’s a spinster whose father is both Italian and dead.
- Third, she is being rudely attacked by a vampire to whom she has not been properly introduced!
Where to go from there?
From bad to worse apparently, for Alexia accidentally kills the vampire, and the appalling Lord Maccon (loud, messy, gorgeous, and werewolf) is sent by Queen Victoria to investigate.
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This is something I will be mentioning in my review of Soulless.
It's clearly a historical. And most definitely a paranormal. Some do find "Urban Fantasy" kinda touche because they do expect it to be in "today's" time frame.
I think it's safer w/ Historical Paranormal. Although, personally I would put it in the HOT NEW RELEASE section. 😉