From: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org (stillpt-digest) To: stillpt-digest@smoe.org Subject: stillpt-digest V2 #65 Reply-To: stillpt@smoe.org Sender: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk stillpt-digest Tuesday, March 21 2000 Volume 02 : Number 065 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Urban fantasy/edifice ["Jennifer Stevenson" ] Re: Urban fantasy/edifice [meredith ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 07:10:40 -0600 From: "Jennifer Stevenson" Subject: Urban fantasy/edifice To Don's (well, John Clute's) (well, Mike Ashley's) point about the urban fantasy being about a city which has replaced the old castle in the gothic: Tappan King and (what'sisname's) novel Downtown and the (in-light-of-Downtown, highly derivative) Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman are both gothics; Emma Bull's War for the Oaks is not, nor is it particularly urban; Esther Friesner's New York by Knight series and Rosemary Edghill's Sword of Maiden's Tears are way urban and occasionally horrible.... But in light of those texts I have to argue that a city is =not= a house. Lin Carter is closer: it's the wilderness, the city-of-dreadful-night, the asphalt jungle. Buffy's high school is not a house or a castle; it's nobody's home; it's an institution where everybody and nobody lives, and as such is a mini-city. I'm afraid the mavens of Gothic at IAFA would say Gothic is most definitely horror, or at least very dark. Don't read it myself anymore. In another part of the woods: From the partial transcript Allen provided, I'm getting a distinct impression that Tara is a fairy-tale child. Her "mother" is a stepmother, maybe, and she's in a version of a classic story all her own that she's managed to hide from everybody. Jennifer jks@enteract.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 21:07:19 -0500 From: meredith Subject: Re: Urban fantasy/edifice Hi! Jennifer noted: >Tappan King and (what'sisname's) novel Downtown and the Ooh, one of my very very favorite books from my early teen years. (And the co-author is Viido Polikarpus (sp?).) >(in-light-of-Downtown, highly derivative) Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman are both >gothics; Hmmm... I hadn't really thought of that, but now that you mention it, _Neverwhere_ is rather derivative of _Downtown_. I was wondering what about _Neverwhere_ was so familiar. >Emma Bull's War for the Oaks is not, nor is it particularly urban; What makes it "not particularly urban"? It takes place in a city, doesn't it? Or am I thinking of things way too shallowly here? +==========================================================================+ | Meredith Tarr meth@smoe.org | | New Haven, CT USA http://www.smoe.org/~meth | +==========================================================================+ | "things are more beautiful when they're obscure" -- veda hille | | *** TRAJECTORY, the Veda Hille mailing list: *** | | *** http://www.smoe.org/meth/trajectory.html *** | +==========================================================================+ ------------------------------ End of stillpt-digest V2 #65 ****************************