Just here to kick ass and chew bubblegum: the shifting face of the urban fantasy heroine.

[seanan_mcguire]

In keeping with their great love for chart porn, Orbit (my/Mira's science fiction publisher) has posted a fabulous comparison chart of 2008's urban fantasy heroines vs. 2009's urban fantasy heroines. According to the sample set they have scientifically* assembled and presented for your viewing pleasure, stiletto heels and pouty lips are out, while sensible shoes and kicking your ass is in.

Check out the chart. Now check out this blog post by sandramcdonald, which includes a handy visual guide to many "classic" urban fantasy poses. What I find interesting is that the majority of these covers are classic-turned-cliche; they're not bad, they're just things that were very, very popular, and were consequentially overdone.

When I first sold the Toby books, a few people said to me, "You realize Toby's going to be a busty blonde with a tramp-stamp, right?" I acknowledged that I did, in fact, know this, but that I was okay with it if it would get the book out into the world. When my editor at DAW asked if I had any requests for the cover, I said I had two.

"I'd like her to have brown hair, and wear clothes."

Anything else? Nope. Just brown hair, and clothes. Toby is not the sort of girl who goes out in a miniskirt and a halter top—not unless she's under extreme duress—and she's never dyed her hair. I was incredibly lucky, and got what I asked for, along with a leather jacket, a petulant expression, and a gloomy, atmospheric backdrop. She didn't look much like an urban fantasy heroine (a few people even thought she was a boy), but she looked exactly like I wanted her to look. Now, a year later, she looks a lot like an urban fantasy heroine, because the rules have been changing. And it's wonderful!

Don't take this as "all urban fantasy covers used to be bad," because they weren't, and I really, really like a lot of them. All the elements currently in decline have their place in the genre. Toby doesn't have any tattoos...but Alice does (Alice is practically a biker gang all by herself), and so do pretty much all the lycanthropic teens in Clady's universe (since that way, your body can be identified even if you die when not in human form). Toby doesn't wear stiletto heels...but Verity does, and thanks to her specific combat style, she would be more than happy to kick your ass while she's wearing them. I just think it's fantastic that the genre has managed to expand to the point where it can include all these different types of heroine, all presented the way they should be presented, not according to some focus group-ideal that half of them don't live up to.

Evolution is awesome...and, apparently, wearing comfortable shoes.

(*In this case "scientifically" means "whatever the summer intern could get her hands on." It's a generous definition.)

Comments

[ladyqkat.livejournal.com]

Advertising and media (mostly American, but all media really) suffers from the teen girl syndrome of 'I want to be like all my friends so that everyone* knows we are different from everybody else*'.

As a consequence, all media and advertising hops on the latest 'This is how I am different' bandwagon and thus, for the time/era/genre it represents, everything begins to look alike.

I hope you continue to get the covers you prefer/like for your stories because that is the sort of thing I look for - something that reflects the story and not the ad director's impression of what will sell even if it has nothing to do with the story.

*Adults, mostly

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

So do I. :)

[mac-arthur-park.livejournal.com]

I want a heroine who kicks zombie ass while wearing SafeTrax mary janes while slogging her way home from her waitressing job.

Wait. I may have an idea here....

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Good luck!

[spectralbovine.livejournal.com]

Man, there sure are a lot of urban fantasy novels out there.*

sandramcdonald, although she's d-u-n with urban fantasy, likes Rachel Caine's Weather Warden series. I was looking at those at the Mysterious Galaxy booth because, well, there was a hot woman on the cover.** They sounded interesting, mostly because it was sort of an oddball concept that was different from your usual vampires and werewolves and whatever. Urban fantasy series require so much commitment, though! Who has time to read all the books? There are other books to read!*** I'm glad I have friends to point out the ones worth looking into.




*Understatement of the Decade.

**SURPRISE!

***My current To Be Read list is up to about 100 books. Not exaggerating. Especially because some of the slots are actually serieses.

[gorgeousgary]

***My current To Be Read list is up to about 100 books.

About the same here for my to-be-read bookcase, plus a couple dozen on my swipe-from-the_sheryl list.

The one saving grace is that some of them are graphic novels (hence, only ~100 pages each) and some are old SF (so ~200 pages each).

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

I'm a fan of the Weather Warden books, although I haven't read the latest (and last) one yet, so I don't know if she sticks the landing. My hopes are high.

[spectralbovine.livejournal.com]

Oh, it's ending? Let me know how that goes. Maybe if I feel like reading about weather and genies or whatever, I will give them a try.

[sarraceniaceae.livejournal.com]

Actually, come to think of it, that's probably why I only got into urban fantasy the last year or so, and one of the first ones I checked out was your Toby books, iirc. I want the main focus of a book with a female main character to be her badassness, not her sexiness, and it's only been fairly recently that I've started being able to easily find urban fantasy that did that. I mean, I'm sure it wasn't the focus of a lot of the ones with sexier covers, but I don't like paranormal romance enough to be willing to wade through it to find out. It's always nice when markets are evolving towards your preferences rather than away from them!

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

That makes a lot of sense.

[deire.livejournal.com]

:shamefaced look: A whole bunch of artists moving into digital discovered the warp tool. So, um, lots of tattoos and fabric designs because "NEW TOY! NEW TOY!" You should have seen the artist twitters and blogs when the new Liquid Pencil by Sharpie came out. And, um, I am totally not at all this way, nooooooo! :hides Blick catalogue, bag, and free T shirt:

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Heh.

I can totally see that.

[piratejenny.livejournal.com]

I remember when Debra first showed me the cover. I was soooo glad it wasn't a typical paranormal romance type cover (cause it's not a paranormal romance after all). I'm all for comfy shoes, so long as they're cute.

Tramp stamp. Sniff. When I got my tattoo (that's it, in my userpic), they weren't called that. And one of the reasons I got it there was because the wolf always has my back (is looking out for me--my imaginary friend when I was a kid was a big gray wolf). So I have a Celtic wolf. At least it's not random tribal art.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

It's a good place for a tattoo! We just got too many people combining them with really low-cut jeans and bad design sense.

[jenk]

The problem I have with "paranormal" being hot is that publishers see it as a genre and I see it as a setting. I consider Maryjanice Davidson's Queen Betsy to be chick lit and Toby and Harry Dresden to be hard-boiled detectives and Katherine Grayson as funny romances. But they end up all being pushed as "paranormal". Kay Hooper's category romances from the 80s, which were often published despite the paranormal elements, are ALSO being tagged as "paranormal" now. The mind boggles.

But then I consider Dorothy Sayers, Donna Andrews and Robert B Parker to be different enough that shelving them all in "Mystery" is kind of like shelving them all in "English". ;)

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

Harry Dresden would strike me as at best medium-boiled, fwiw. The closet I can think of to really hard-boiled in urban fantasy is Charlie Huston's Joe Pitt series, which are very much marketed as "crime that just happens to be about vampyres".

[jenk]

That could very well be. My intro to detectives was the Spenser books, and I've been shying away from the darker stuff the last few years - going for Larry Block's Bernie Rhodenbarr books, for example, but leaving his darker stuff on the shelf.

[dianthus.livejournal.com]

My latest impression is that Harry doesn't drink enough to be hard-boiled ;-)

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

I avoided reading Lois McMaster Bujold for years because they had been classified as "Military SF", which was a genre I didn't particularly enjoy. I'm so glad I was convinced to try them anyway.

[textileowl.livejournal.com]

Me too! Though mostly, I wasn't quite the age group for it while they were being published. I've really enjoyed the last couple of months while I read through the whole series.

I have read her other two series, which are fantasy and are also very good.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

I consider paranormal and urban fantasy to be different genres. Trouble is, then urban and epic get shelved together, and the confusion trundles on.

[tygerversionx.livejournal.com]

You realize, of course, now I really WANT to read the story where Toby DOES have to dress up as a blond with a tramp-stamp, and you'll have to explain HOW she got into such extreme duress as to require the get-up.

Halloween party at an ex-co-worker's place?

[kyrielle]

...really, really crappy joke by someone powerful enough to slap a glamour on her and make it stick? :D

[tygerversionx.livejournal.com]

The Super-Secret Revenge of Spike, the Rose Goblin!

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

I'll get right on that.

[aliciaaudrey.livejournal.com]

I never got the slutty covers.

If I was going to beat on somebody I most assuredly would not want to do so while dressed like a pole dancer.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Not unless you were one!

[aliciaaudrey.livejournal.com]

Well, that's true. I suppose if I was getting off work, was a supernatural creature AND a pole dancer, I might beat on somebody while dressed like a pole dancer.

Although the only pole dancer I ever actually knew tended to slump around in sweat pants and football jerseys when she wasn't at work. That's what I want to see on a cover. A pole dancer wearing sweat pants, crocks, and a football jersey.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

I'll get right on that.

[jacylrin.livejournal.com]

All hail comfortable shoes :-P

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Absolutely.