Category: ufdr

The main thing I noticed after the first book in the “Black Wings” series is the main character has no friends. Her gay BFF co-worker is quickly killed, and then it’s just her and 2 men fighting over her affections, a fiance forced on her, and 2 father figures fighting over who gets to control her. I feel like this is the genre “innocent country girl comes to the intrigue-filled court”. She’s even a virgin. Her main hobby is sharing junk food at home with her talking ca-, errr, mini-gargoyle.

Secret world premise #1 is her job, which is meeting people when they die and escorting them to the afterlife portal. It’s pretty easy — the office tells her who, when and where ahead of time. You just have to fly there using your free pair of black wings which also turn you invisible. You may recognize this from the 2003 TV show “Dead Like Me” (but no wings). I was excited — the TV show had funny deaths with life-lessons from the departed. But this has 2 routine deaths and then drops the idea. Drops it hard — everyone in the office is killed by the bad guy. Secret world premise #2 is “court intrigue with demons”. All of the fallen angels from millennia-ago have courts, and ancient feuds and complicated bloodlines. It’s revealed our heroine is 1/2 demon on 1 side, and the only living great-great-great offspring of the demon king on the other, so demon court is the big through-plot.

The baddie in this book is a mindless thug demon. We never find out much about his deal. Early on he dismembers her BFF to make a point. Dialogue is roughly: “his soul didn’t taste as good as your mother’s when I killed her 15 years ago, but better than the other souls of people I routinely kill”. So I guess her mom is dead. Not to be one-upped, we get to know her sometimes-friendly witch contact, who is then murdered by her long-lost demon father to make a different point.

Romance-wise, her boss is a total jerk to her, but we find out at the end it’s because he’s in love with her; and is also a wizard with a mysterious non-human parent. More important, a mysterious super-sexy stranger (OK, a half-angel/half-demon sent to protect her) rents the downstairs unit and flirts with her. She’s angry when she finds he enspelled her ca-, errr, mini-gargoyle, but only so she can forgive him later. Sadly, he’s so low-status in the demon world that their love is forbidden. Her demon father then assigns her a foppish arrogant husband, but clever thinking on her part puts off the marriage for a year. We also meet her new demon 1/2-brother, and her great-great … grandfather on her mother’s side. To sum up: 6 dudes are fighting over her.

The plot with the brutal demon seems disposable, like a romance plot. It kills scores of people – way too many for this genre. In a change-up near the end we get a lovely vision from her first demon ancestor, reminds me of Neil Gaiman’s “fun” prose. We learn the evil angel (not a demon — an evil angel) who killed that ancestor is now the lover of Crude Demon Bad Guy (this is the only sex scene in the book). In the final scene our heroine incinerates the bad guy with her magic (somewhere in there she’s learned: blue flame blast, white sunforce blast, and a third with unknown color). That’s followed by her monologueing, getting her heart ripped out as the bad guy comes back to life, using her regeneration power which works on everything but hearts, discovering she doesn’t need a heart after all, and killing the bad guy for real this time. While we puzzle over that, her 6 lovers/fathers/??’s walk in and say how much they all really want her now.

I saw the author “Tina” Henry at a SciFi convention. Seemed very nice. Said she was upset this series was dropped by the publisher, but was onto a new series with a different take on Alice in Wonderland. Here’s the weird part: as I bought “Black Wings” I got a free copy of another one of her books, “The Mermaid”. It was great! Not hot-romance-great or cool-monsters great either — it was legitimate-book-you-wouldn’t-be-embarrassed-to-let-people-know-you-read great. Who gets a cheesy series cancelled and says “well, I guess I’ll write a terrific book while I think of another silly series to start”?

Deadworld is another one that looks like an Urban Fantasy Detective Romance, but is clearly just a Romance, borrowing from the UFDR genre. I like it since it so clearly shows that however much you borrow, you have to decide whether you’re a Romance or not, and there’s a big difference.

The cover is a woman with leather pants and a halter top posing with a gun in an alley. No men, but I’m sure the next printing will add one. So that wasn’t a clue, but maybe the acknowledgement to the local RWA (Romance Writers of America) should have clued me in.

The borrowed elements are checked off pretty quickly: the main character works for the FBI with a semi-psychic partner on X-Files type cases. She has serious personal problems making her incapable of having a stable relationship wih a man. The secret supernatural stuff is, well:

The villian is a vampire, sort of. These vampires don’t have fangs – they get the blood out with mundane means. But they can teleport at will, and the mind-control is jacked-up to be instant and irresistable (but don’t worry – they forget to use it during the big fight scene.) They also have no weakness to sunlight, holy ground, stakes to the heart and so on. And they actually get more energy feeding on ghosts. But sure, they’re vampires and not the necromancers which they clearly are.

The male lead is a good vampire who only drinks artificial blood. Real blood is pretty easy to get, but whatever. He was also a sheriff in the old West. And a quirky private investigator with a sexy psychic assistant and bombshell vampire best friend. He’s also rich, owning the company that makes the fake blood. You’d think he sells it to all the other good vampires, but that would be overthinking things.

He also owns a 5-star Italian restaurant, and is an execellent cook himself. In case you were wondering, the book explicitly describes how hot this makes her. I just want to see him on an episode of Kitchen Nightmares. Chef Ramsay can ask him “do you feel employees are afraid to come to you with problems, you being a vampire?” and “answer honestly, how many customers have you mind-controlled into not bothering you about undercooked linguine?”

In case you haven’t put it together, the book does it for you. He’s referred to only as one of: cowboy vampire, sheriff, vampire PI or vampire cowboy sheriff. I was going to be impressed, except a quick search on “Vampire Cowboy” shows a book written a month later, May 2011, named “The Zillionare vampire cowboy’s secret werewolf babies.”

 

One way you can tell its a Romance is the sheer amount of pointless small talk. When she questions the leading man as her murder suspect, we learn what kind of coffee they all drink, who brings it, how good they thought it was and what types of pastry they all like. The millionare cowboy vampire likes “very strong” coffee. That sounds cooler than saying he likes French Press, which is how you’d actually order it. The FBI women like their coffee the same way they did in the previous two scenes. Later on, she accepts tea (from the FBI psychologist who warns she can’t outrun her personal demons, but allows her to stay on the case.)

After the questioning, we get more small talk with her partner about how hot the guy was, how hot his assistant was (the main character’s now lesbian assistant psychic partner gets to have sex once before being killed. No! You murdered my partner, just when she came out to me!!) But it’s fine, since dead psychics always come back as helpful ghosts. This sounds like the origin story of “FBI agent with ghost partner,” but I assume the author’s dog ate those pages.

It’s a pretty typical romance: lonely, incomplete heroine meets mysterious man; is suspicious at first, but slowly sees how studly he is and comes to rely on him. She’s tricked into spilling her deepest secrets (as he shows her how powerful vampire hynotism is,) but he accepts and appreciates her flaws. He has to put her to bed and fantasizes about taking advantage, but doesn’t. Then her love helps him overcome his greatest weakness (he doesn’t think he can beat the bad guy. Yes, her role in killing the bad guy is only to inspire her man. Evil vampire even dies off-camera, his purpose accomplished.)

My favorite part is when they meet the ghost of his dead wife. She gives him permission to move on to a new woman, and adds that she and the other ghosts approve of his new girlfriend, then disolves into spirit power.

Ah, let me explain. The final showdown is where the bad guy has trapped the ghosts of his victims, drinking them as needed for power (but he’s a vampire, not a necromancer, dammit.) I guess they could break a window to let the ghosts out, but whatever. The bad guy very, very slowly calls one ghost at a time to suck from (I guess mind-control works on dead people.) The good guys watch, since it’s just rude to attack people before they’re fully powered-up. Then the ghost best friend and the cowboy PI’s ghost best friend (who isn’t dead, but we’re long past asking questions like that) help him to accept the help of all the ghosts who believe in him, saving the day.

 

As far as an UFDR, this fails in a lot of ways. No one cares about the secret history of these vampires (in fact, the teaser for the next book involves an opiate-addicted cop possessed by some new type of vengeful ghost.) The book teases at “how would an ancient vampire survive in a modern world,” but then just drops it – evil vampire is apparently also rich, and has an evil chauffer, but that’s all we get. Ghosts can’t affect the physical world unless the plot requires it.

The heroine doesn’t drive the plot, doesn’t grow except to realize she can love the leading man, and there are no subplots involving consoling her best friend who got dumped that also affect the main plot. There’s no approaching problems the way a woman would, with empathy and sudden rage at being treated like a helpless chikita.

The plot just moves ahead, having them react to evil guy. Vampire PI has been locked in a recurring struggle with him for 100+ years, but just dribbles out things during a chase which he happened to remember. This is all fine for a Romance – the plot is supposed to be bland and generic enough so you can focus on their burgeoning desire. But it’s the opposite of a world-building, character-driven “finding her way” woman-led story.

The spine says “Kensington Urban Fantasy.” Wikipedia says Kensington also has a Romance line, but doesn’t mention the Urban Fantasy one, and Kensington’s web site doesn’t mention lines at all. Even so, someone is probably getting fired over this mix-up. I feel bad, but if an editor couldn’t tell this was a Romance, maybe they should change jobs.

This is book 7, “All Your Wishes”, in a series billed as “paranormal romance.” That’s code for “straight-up romance with a werewolf instead of a pirate” but the blurb made it sound like more than that. Besides being book 7, where a decent series might have gone bad, it’s by only one of the original two authors.

The overall backstory is that magic and science have coexisted for a long time. Stores sell real magical charms, there exist combo magi-tech items, police forces employ mages, anti-vampire fences are common, magic is taught at college, and so on. Fully integrated and has been that way forever, so that’s fun.

The main character is a 1/2-vampire, 1/2-siren (and 1/2-human?) detective, running her agency out of a former church. Her best friends and employees are a werewolf, a wizard and a ghost. Nothing special there. Going against tradition, she’s generally happy with her appearance — vampires are a sexy pale and siren’s are naturally beautiful. But at least she has personal problems: sirens magically bring out the catiness in other women. 1/2-vampires need to frequently eat gross baby food and smoothies, use lots of sunscreen, and they lisp horribly when their fangs pop out. She was turned into one by an attack and is not happy about it. She’s also cursed.

Her boyfriend is a sexy mage with strong hands from a family of powerful mages, and also mobsters. They start off with a big unspecified argument that sounds like it could be trouble — maybe about children. But he’s gone the entire book visiting his dying mother, then is out of the picture. We never find out what the argument was about. The extent of their romance is her calling him to ask if his mom is dead yet. In the 1-year-later epilogue she gets together with a cute, minor character with whom she previously had no sparks. I’m guessing the absent writing partner handled the romance parts.

The plot starts with a client being told to contact her by his oracle, then being told to take the case by her oracle. As everyone knows, you can’t ask oracles too many questions. That goes for readers, too — she just has to help the guy, OK? In case you’re wondering, she solves the case by doing something else her oracle told her to do.

The plot involves some super-evil wizards from a previous book, including an evil wizard ghost sworn to kill her (also from a previous book) led by a super-powerful demon. We never find out their plot, but they free a super-powerful genie for it, who, shocker, gets out of hand and possesses the main character’s body. It either wants to go home, or to free a bunch of other evil genies (in the book, it’s the first — it’s a genie serial-killer of other genies and wants to kill the judge who sentenced it; but the book jacket says it wants to free an evil genie army).

At the very end, she wins by realizing she has friends. Literally just realizing. She suddenly remembers she has siren telepathy, which she has been using through-out the book, and reaches out to all of her friends at once. That gives her the strength to shake off the genie control. Then she executes the plan she made with the only female genie-keeper and her young son (who hasn’t yet grown into a swaggering jerk of a man). The stupid male genie-keepers were all “you’re not an initiate and are the wrong sex. You can’t do anything”. That’s why diversity is important.

Various secondary events are crammed in:

• Her main evil ghost enemy dies after her heart stops in an unrelated matter (her death was it’s Unfinished Business.) After constantly being reminded of how lethal wizard ghosts are, this is the first time we see him. He just shows up, says “I was actually just hanging around waiting for someone else to kill you, and they did,” and poofs away. Just in case readers notice that she’s had her heart stopped several times before, her friends ask her “haven’t you had your heart stopped several times before?” and she explains this was extra-stoppy, so fooled the ghost in a way the previous heart-stops couldn’t.
• We very briefly meet a guy from a previous book, just so we can see him dead later.
• After she wins, it’s mentioned in passing that the main group of genie-keepers were all murdered elsewhere. Why? She already won, so it’s not part of the plot. Maybe it’s to avoid fan fiction using them?
• Also after winning, we go back in time (she’s literally taken back in time) to see her boyfriend get killed by the mob (remember the one she briefly talked to in chapter 1? That guy). I feel like she could have watched a video, or maybe since the story was over, done that at the start of the next book?
• Immediately after winning, a good genie, who had been calmly watching them fight the evil one, pops up and brings her werewolf friend back to life (he died one page ago, which inspired her to fight harder.) Those wacky genies and their rules.

The book respects the rule where we have to learn more about the world. We get professional magic-using hitmen. We learn demons can appear without being summoned if they time it exactly when a ghost dies, since that makes a tunnel from here to the otherworld. Genies are new to the series, and we learn genie-keeper powers come from being part genie. If you use mental telepathy in an airport, we learn the TSA has magic to spy on it. Then we get a nice teaser: her mom is not just a siren, but a siren queen, and she’s been summoned for important sea-princess business in book 8.

So here’s the plot of the one book in this series I read: the main character has a pregnancy scare, but it could be due to her magical powers, so she puts off taking a test. Afer the funeral of a murdered relative, she has to make all these excuses for why she can’t drink anymore, then more to her mom at home for why she isn’t guzzling coffee.

After beating up a guy trying to kidnap her, her boyfriend finally helps her take a test. It’s positive and he freaks out and runs. Then she stays with her mom after bad guys kill another relative and burn down her apartment, and there are all these cats from a third murdered relative.

Later she gets blood all over herself from killing a bad-guy, so the other man who might be the father of her baby takes her home and lets her wear his clothes. She tells him about the baby, and he’s excited about being a dad, and they bang.

But then she finds out her boyfriend only freaked because of a dark secret about his own mom. He asks to marry her, even after they find out she’s not really pregnant, and they almost have a courtroom marriage with their new bodyguards as witnesses (the first bodyguard was lost in another bad guy attack.)

Then they both get kidnapped by a different guy who’s kids are being held by the Mob, so they use their magical powers to rescue the kids and catch those badguys. Back at home, Mom has even more cats from murdered aunts. Then her boyfriend proves she can count on him, by helping capture the main bad guy. Finally, she and the other guy who wanted to marry her agree to stay friends. The End.

As you may have figured out, this is just a straight Romance novel. What should have given it away for me was the traditional romance cover: woman in front, two male models flanking, both a little too close to her. The publisher is TOR, which doesn’t have a specific romance division.

What’s interesting is how a Romance author decided to borrow from Urban Fantasy Detective. The secret world part is that some people can shape change, but only into people they’ve met. But, the ability to copy a particular person is an Aura, and you can show an Aura you know to another shape-changer. Even that tiny amount of detail is still more than Romances need. I think it’s touching.

The Harry Dresden series is a neat counter-example of why it’s the urban fantasy female detective romance genre. He starts out the same as the women: a broke wizard/detective who protects humans from monsters. Along with werewolves and necromancers we get three crazed sub-types of vampires (blood, sex, and, uh, torture?). The whole fairy world thing has plenty of detail, plus demons and so on.

Then onto the story. He’s a junior member of the Wizards’ Council and resents it. Hmmm…a female character would have fought for that bit of recognition and ability to contribute. The stories focus much more on the main baddie: Harry doesn’t visit his mom, check out his sister’s possibly seedy new boyfriend (he has no family), or find a clue while searching for a spaghetti recipe in an ill-fated attempt to cook for a new love interest. In fact, he doesn’t worry about maintaining his friendships and normal life since he has neither. He’s more of a traditional burnt-out gumshoe. Back to the friends, he doesn’t even get out much to talk to contacts for info. There’s a magic skull in his basement for that.

His main problem solving skill is blasting things with magic. He has both kinds — fire bolts and force bolts. That’s his defining character trait (Harry Dresden — as in the city that was famously firebombed at the end of WWII — and he’s a fire mage. Tasteless, but makes its point) Otherwise he rushes towards the most obvious clue and is easily distracted by anything shape-changed into a curvy body (of which there are lots). Like all true men, his magic is powered by rage. Sure, female detectives experience rage but it makes them do something unlady-like — not merely punch harder.

All-in-all it’s a huge difference. The Dresden series is about a stereotypical schluby male. It’s mostly an action series. Nothing wrong with that. The author sure goes all-out to develop the secret world and to follow up in future books. But it makes you realize how much the “real” UFDR genre is about how women can fight monsters as well as men while being true to 3rd wave feminism.

The backstory for the Agent of Hel series is that Niflheim, home of Helheim and the underworld ice-goddess Hel and her dog Fenrir, also popular in 1980’s Marvel comics, is now in Wisconsin. A big chunk of the North country is Hel’s territory as far as secret magical things go. Newly chosen to represent Hel is a sweet, charming 20-something woman who doesn’t really understand her job. She’s supposed to resolve disputes and in general make sure nothing supernatural bothers Hel. Despite this all being Norse myth, we get the usual hodge-podge of non-Norse monsters.

As you’d guess, she’s bad with boyfriends and extremely insecure, especially that she’s just faking her new adulthood. She doesn’t really have any powers except for her “Agent of Hel” badge, but is secretly a half-demon (Norse mythology doesn’t have demons, but whatever.) The town is pretty much Stars Hollow from Gilmore Girls. Lots of friendly people, many of whom know magic and are glad to help; or brew tea; or just talk since everyone knows everyone else.

We get a lovely minor plot involving a misunderstood “Monsters Inc” type creature which is supposed to be harmlessly frightening kids. We get another which takes lots of careful listening to witnesses, help from her friends, and having to trust a guy with whom her relationship may be going too fast. The main plot gets violent near the end — big rockets, mercenaries, and an exploding giant monster — but it’s really the result of an argument between the bad guy (the bad woman, it turns out) and her husband, which our heroine helps smooth out.

Something that snuck up on me: Hel has given her a unique magical relic dagger. She just tucks it away. Much later, she realizes it’s meant to be flashed like a badge. It never occurs to her that she could, you know, stab people with it, since violence never solved anything.

This is another steampunk mashup in a “League of Extraordinary Gentleman” vein. The heroine is a free-lance police investigator who sometimes changes into her alternate aggressive form because her father is “Dr.Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” and she inherited it. Changing shape instantly heals her, but her “Miss Hyde” form is extremely impulsive and constantly second-guesses herself.

Besides Dr. Jekyll, this swings for the fences in mash-ups. Jack the Ripper is in love with her; real-life computer pioneer Ada Lovelace is a robot who runs the secrete police along with an immortal Sir Isaac Newton. Her boyfriend is merely a werewolf secret policeman. Bad guy #1 is “A Picture of Dorian Grey”, while future bad guy#2 is an evil version of reclusive government mastermind Mycroft Holmes.

The plot follows the rules pretty well: lots of personal problems, some are clues; stupidly impulsive behavior which sometimes advances the plot; romance which also advances the plot; worries about money. She even gets to attempt to reconcile with her partly estranged father.

This one is a little too Romancey – two men are fighting over her the entire book – but otherwise it hits the bizarre secret world mash-up elements extra hard, including a SteamPunk setting.

The heroine is a female detective in Victorian London trying to make a name for herself, but insecure about being a commoner. And, of course, far too impulsive. She’s human but somehow immune to magic, and heals very quickly. Later it’s teased she may be part fairy creature. She can get advice from an all-powerful ghost wizard who haunts her, or have devices made by her (non-ghost) genius SteamPunk engineer friend.

Romance-wise, a powerful (also non-ghost) wizard is in love with her, along with her childhood friend who is now a police chief (in other words, her beaus are a rich noble and a brawny working man). She sleeps with the policeman to try to cure him of robotic were-wolfism (an old folk remedy?), but seems to prefer the sexy wizard.

The bad guy is a masterpiece of crazy mash-up: an (1)Ancient Evil banished by (2)Celtic shamen, who is trying to (3)impregnate women with demon babies using (4)robot (5)werewolfs recruited from a (6)secret nobility sex club. Take a moment to think how this begins. You’re correct if you said “she’s called in to investigate women being molested by robot werewolves”.

SteamPunk tends to handle female characters in 2 ways. One is having them smarter and stronger than any man. Yawn. The other is what this book does: she’s told what women can’t do at every turn, is treated like a fragile flower, but does all she can within those confines, including a few things a Victorian man couldn’t get away with. If you like clever oppressed women, this has got it.

I saw Seanan McGuire at a convention. She was in full “act like a fabulous author GoH” mode, and could not stop giggling about exploding hawiian rats and the tapeworm she ate on purpose. So, she doesn’t take herself all that seriously, which is the right attitude for her books.

The world starts as the standard “every mythical creature you’ve even heard of is real”. The twist is that the secret society keeping humans safe succeeded hundreds of years ago and are now killing harmless, even useful beasties (cyptids). Our heroine is from a break-away family devoted to the study and preservation of supernatural ecology, and hunted by the now-evil monster-killing group.

The rest of the twist is inventing crazy creatures – talking mice (that’s all they do) and dragon princesses which look human, breed asexually, live in groups and single-mindedly collect gold by working regular jobs, then buying the gold.

Personality-wise, our heroine fails to be insecure or mousy — rather the opposite — but she’s got money problems and has trouble meeting guys since she works so much: protecting the harmless monsters of New York; a waitress in a non-human topless club; and a contestant on “So you think you can dance.” That feels sufficiently weird to make up for her being 100% human with no special powers. But she’s trained in ninja skills since birth to where she spider-mans (parkours) everywhere over rooftops, and her famous renegade family name is like a magic spell to make monsters cooperate.

The plot is a fine sprawl of mostly personal problems mixed in with the adventure: she has to help her telepathic non-human sister; the guy from the evil monster hunters is in town, and he is smoking hot; and humans mutated into lizard-men are using monster blood to power a world-blasting magic spell. What really puts this over as an urban fantasy female detective book is the big baddie: he turns out to be friendly. The evil lizards were worshiping him, but also keeping him sedated. A little friendly conversation, which no man would have considered, solves the crisis.

The rest of the series gives us more books with this character, but then we get more family members. There’s her roller-derby younger sister, and then her brother. He’s a non-violent researcher, clumsy around women, with strong female role models — but he’s still written as a guy, blundering through his book as a big, dumb ape, occasionally listening to his girlfriend who’s the brains of the operation.