Hi Liz, I have some questions and some opening points for discussion:
What is "urban" (modern) fantasy? and some examples please.
Can we consider Tolkien as the "father" of the fantasy genre? Or perhaps Lewis Carroll?
In Tolkien's "The Tale of the Children of Húrin" has anyone noticed definite Greek Tragedy characteristics (I did my final university paper on this, if anyone is interested).
Are we (who read fantasy) a bunch of losers who just want to escape from our own world?
Who is the greatest Wizard of all times? Gandalf gets my vote, with Rincewind a close second!
Hope this generates some discussion,
All the best, HWYL FAWR!

Ah now your going to enter a be hive there Hwyl Fawr. Is Tolkien the father of fantasy, well no, we have the viking sagas to fall back on, anglo saxon poetry, many epic tales, all tolkien did was really revitalise it for the modern audience although there are plenty of others who wrote "fantasy" before Tolkien in Victorian times.

Some would argue that certain books arent fantasy, such as King Solomons mines. Yet there they are. Its going to be interesting to see what Tolkiens son does with the Hurin novel. As to how the influences behind it, no real surprise considering his background and understanding of cultures.

Thanks
Gareth

I'd advise you read 'Wizard of the Pigeons' by Megan Lindholm. It's a Seattle-based fantasy, and I think you'd like it.

Ive read quite a bit of her stuff, although most know her as Robin Hobb.

The Lindholm books are in quite a different style.

Drosdelnoch - If we can consider mythology as falling into the fantasy genre then I guess you're right. Haven't heard of any Victorian fantasy writers apart from Lewis Carroll perhap. Not sure Haggard falls into fantasy - when is a novel considered "fantasy", for me it's wizards, elves, dwarves and magic!
By the way HWYL FAWR is the Welsh equivalent of the Irish(Have) "Great Craic!", it's not my name, ;)

Should have known better. I have the Welsh relatives berating me already. lol The thing is though is what else would you call mythology but a fantasy. They contain the elements of fantasy, for example Beowulf fighting the Dragon.

Kippling is another Victorian Fantasy Author. Whilst many cant stand his morality his tales are something else. There has been a book recently released that contain some of his fantasy stuff within its pages.

As to wanting Wizards, Dwarves, Elves and Magic, well what else is Merlin, part of the Arthurian tales, he's a Wizard.
A Strange Manuscript found in a Copper Cylinder, by James de Mille
Jules Verne, H.G. Wells (well he's more the father of modern Sci-Fi but its still a fantasy tale)
L Frank Baum (1900 so technically still victorian) The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
E Nesbit - The Story of the Treasure-Seekers (1899), The Wouldbegoods (1901), Five Children and It (1902), The Pheonix and the Carpet (1904), The New Treasurer-Seekers (1904), The Railway Children (1906) and The Enchanted Castle (1907)

All pre Tolkiens work.

Argh! I feel bad - all this conversation going on without me! Sorry chaps - you know, my secret shame is that I love Tolkien, having read TWO of his books. The Hobbit and Fellowship...then I got bored and didn't bother reading any of his other works. I love the mythology behind it though, so no, personally for me, he isn't the father of fantasy. It clearly was his life, creating these worlds, myths and characters but they existed, before his time, they were just told differently. In other languages.

Okay, as I am not a learned reader, just someone who reads vicariously and who enjoys words for their magic and power, I'll steer clear of the above debate completely.

Urban fantasy to me is encompassed by things written by Charles de Lint, Neil Gaiman, Rob Thurman, Lilith Saintcrow, Holly Black and the like and oh, don't forget Emma Bull and the imcomparable Ms. Yolen. Their works are so strongly flavoured with myths and legends, but they tend to be set in modern times, even futuristic times, but there is the hint of the Super Natural - where you can walk around the corner and came face to face with Puck dancing along the street in the guise of a street musician. You know, it just makes you hold your breath a little, because most people do not see the archetypes around them, at any given time, and for someone's writing to wake you up to that, to make you realise that there is still magic and mystery and awe in the world, that is what I think makes modern urban fantasy. To take an old myth and legend, turn it on its ear, but retain its sheer majesty and mystery.

Okay. Can you tell I am in a desperately "I want to write something fabulous mood" tonight?

One point though with Tolkien is that a lot of the stuff was drafted during his time in the trenches to a certain degree, perhaps it was his way to deal with the slaughter that went on around him.

Fantasy is quite an encompassing word though so it does allow a lot of freedoms that other more contemporary catagorisations wont allow. It allows the readers so much scope for things to enjoy that there is so much to explore and everyone finds something that they like within a number of tales.

Blast me for a wombat if I've not been humbled into the backwoods of Hobbiton then. Was all that Victorian stuff known as "Fantasy Fiction" as a recognised genre that we talk about nowadays? When I was researching for my paper there was no reference at all to "Fantasy" in any of the English Literature reference books (and I went through a lot!), though when I pick up my James P. Blaylock, Raymond E. Feist and other stuff it says "fantasy" on the back. All my copies of anything I have by Terry Pratchett just say "A discworld novel". Once during a drunken evening I randomly typed "F****** Weird Stuff" into the address bar of Mozilla Firefox (which takes you straight to the nearest sounding homepage rather than gives you a list of options like Google) and got a "Wizard of Oz page", now there's a wonder!
HWYL !

Nowhere these days, can you find a proper definition of the genre because it has become a strange one with crossover into literary fiction (Stolen Child, The Time Travellers Wife and The Traveller, for instance). Yet, because of the crossover potential, the standard sword n saucery (getit?) still get overlooked by publishers and the general public. They still see these types of books as books for young pimply teenage boys and girls with no hope in getting a date, ever, without some serious reconstructive surgery.

Bizarre, but true. And you can't deny it. Because you've seen it yourself. Witnessed it. In your local shops.

For instance, the wee man that runs the SF & F, graphic novel and horror section in the Waterstones where I go to sign over my paycheck each month, is very much a Gollum type creature, pale, emaciated, a weird phlegmy cough and he tends to hide in his section, balefully glaring at people from underneath an unwashed fringe. It makes me have the hibbie jibbies. I have watched the general public waft over to inspect the shelves, ask an author related question, or advice on a book, and when they get answers in grunts and pointed fingers at a general area on a bookshelf, they must think "what a weird guy!" and walk away, invariably.

No! No! The genre is exciting and sexy and interesting and challenging, don't go and buy the blank lit fiction that won some award. Who cares about that!? Try sumat new, sumat cool. And I find myself wanting to run after them, then realise I am acting a bit cooky. And I contain myself and take my book and walk away.

Weirdo that I am.

I just realised: this post MAKES NO sense, at all.

It's a Friday night and I'm a-quaffing a few Fine Brazilian Ales (i.e. weak gassy lager)and thus the thoughts and writing flow a little easier. I'd like to make a few points:
1. uhm, yup, Liz your last post didn't make too much sense, but I got the gist of what you were trying to say, it was exactly a point I was trying to make with my final paper, about fantasy not being taken as serious literature;
2. I've been out of the Land of My Fathers (and Mothers and brothers and sisters) for a while (more than 15 years in fact)and I'm not much up on the latest literary trends from Blighty. I've been reading a lot of Portuguese and Brazilian lit for my degree. Anyway, I had always been under the impression that "FANTASY" was an imagined world with absolutely NO technology; weird (dam'nblast that 'i' before 'e' except after 'c' crap!) creatures such as dwarves, elves, trolls, ents, hobbits, Welshmen etc., with master wizards, Gandalf, Rincewind and Pug; magic reigns and The Turtle Moves.
Seems I'm wrong and, Drosdelnoch, seems I did enter a bee-hive!
I'm off for a huff 'n' puff with a long meerschaum and a serious talk with my toadstools, they've been misbehaving lately.
HWYL FAWR!