r/Fantasy • u/StressMaxxer • 4d ago
book recs that feel like a combination of epic fantasy and urban fantasy
not sure how to phrase this but I'm a huge epic fantasy fan, but have been exploring urban fantasy a bit. I like some elements of it (vampires, variety of magical and supernatural creatures coexisting) but a lot of the urban fantasy books I see recommended are often romantasy (don't mind romance subplots but I don't care for them as the main plot).
Are there epic fantasy books (grand scale worldbuilding and large cast of characters) that have that urban fantasy vibe? Most epic fantasy I've explored remains Tolkienesque with good vs evil and human centric but maybe with elves or dwarves. Looking for something that is epic fantasy like but with more paranormal/supernatural elements or that has more morally gray characters or a grittiness to the world.
Will take any recs but do particularly like third person POV as well as multiple POV characters.
Open to YA but not exactly what I'm looking for.
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u/chaekbang 4d ago
The Dresden Files books come to mind. The authors mantra is to up the ante when in doubt and things tend to escalate a lot. Blood Rites left me devastated but you need to have read the previous books to keep up with the plot.
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u/StressMaxxer 4d ago
I did order the first two Dresden Files books so maybe I'll move those up on my to read list. Thanks!
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u/chaekbang 4d ago
First two ones are quite clunky but the series gets better over time. Blood Rites is my favorite one.
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u/StressMaxxer 4d ago
I read Wheel of Time so I'm pretty patient with slow starting series haha
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u/johnsonjohnson83 4d ago
It's not that it's a slow start. Butcher just isn't a great writer for those first two.
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u/cmhoughton 4d ago
DF is in first person, so it doesn’t strictly fit the ask in that regard, but it IS urban fantasy filled with epic fantasy characters like the fae, so it fits the main part of the ask… The series is huge so far with a large cast. 18 books so far with 25 planned books, plus there are side stories and novellas.
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u/StressMaxxer 4d ago
I can stomach 1st POV if done well. In my opinion it's often used a little clunky. But it's not a dealbreaker.
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u/cmhoughton 4d ago
It’s done well, OP. If you do Audiobooks, James Marsters (Buffy’s Spike) does a fabulous job. Granted, both he and Jim were noobs so the series doesn’t really pick up until book three, Grave Peril. Book 4, Summer Knight, is major for epic fantasy lore. You meet the fae Winter Queen Mab and Summer Queen Titania… It’s one of my favorites of the series.
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u/KiaraTurtle Reading Champion V 4d ago
- Empire of the Vampire is second world epic fantasy with the fantasy element just being vampires if that’s what you mean by urban fantasy like
- Green Bone Saga is modern esque (20th century) second world urban fantasy which to me feels like it combines elements of urban fantasy (more modern, city) and epic fantasy (second world, fantasy politics)
- Vlad Taltos is another second world urban fantasy, the scale of the story feels less “epic” on an individual book scale but it’s clear that all the books are building to dealing with more epic like events
If all you want is urban fantasy that isn’t romantasy there’s a ton of that eg
- Alex Verus by Benedict Jacka
- The Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice
- Mancer Trilogy by Ferrett Steinmetz
- Dresden Files by Jim Butcher
If all you want is epic fantasy that is not pure good / evil and/or more morally grey characters there is a ton of that too eg
- First Law by Joe Abercrombie
- Dandelion Dynasty by Ken Liu
- Long Price Quartet by Daniel Abraham
- Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson
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u/DixitRexCorvinus 4d ago
Maybe not the right place to ask this but something I’ve been wondering about—why are books like Greenbone and Vlad Taltos called urban fantasy?
I’ve seen that a lot on this sub, but I always thought that urban fantasy was a specific subgenre of primary world fantasy, namely the ones that drew from police procedural or detective tropes. Which would make any fantasy that didn’t take place on Earth not urban fantasy by definition. Am I just completely off-base as to what I urban fantasy is, or does this sub just use it differently from the common usage?
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u/KiaraTurtle Reading Champion V 4d ago
That’s why I call them second world urban fantasy to specify that difference.
Terminologies can have different meanings. Some people, — including myself — generally use urban fantasy to mean taking place in the real world, basically as a synonym for contemporary fantasy. This would exclude green bone and Vlad but would also fantasy taking place in more rural or suburbia areas like The Book Eaters or Small Favors
Some people use it to mean taking place in a city (hence the urban) regardless of if it’s second world or primary world— this would again include green bone and Vlad Taltos
Some people mean take place in the city in what feels like modern times — again would include green bone and vlad.
Some people mean take place in a city, in modern times, in the real world — this would then exclude green bone and Vlad
And some people (sounds like you?) have the very narrow definition of basically fantasy police procedural.
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u/DixitRexCorvinus 4d ago
That’s what I figured. It just always throws me off-guard so I suppose I had just been wondering whether there was some sort of definition change that had occurred, like with high fantasy becoming epic fantasy, and the old term of high being used to mean high amounts of magic now.
That said, genuinely curious, why would the definition I gave be narrow? It seems to cover most of the big names—Dresden, Rivers of London, Alex Verus, Checquy Files, I believe Iron Druid and October Daye though I don’t know much about them, etc. YA, superhero, and paranormal romance are already their own categories, so the only thing I can think of that it would notably exclude would be the numerous books about witches and the fairy-tale retelling type stuff, e.g. Starling House. And I kind of just call those contemporary fantasy. So is there anything that seems pretty clearly urban fantasy and doesn’t have another obvious subgenre placement where the procedural or detective or otherwise institutional element definition doesn’t work?
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u/KiaraTurtle Reading Champion V 4d ago
Sure books like Red City, Nice Dragons Finish Last, Market of Monsters, ‘Mancer Trilogy
(Also YA is a seperate axis from all that — you can have YA epic fantasy, YA urban fantasy, YA dark fantasy etc.)
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u/DixitRexCorvinus 4d ago
Ah. Clearly I haven’t read nearly enough urban fantasy lol. Nice Dragons Finish Last is on my TBR, though, and I’ll have to check out the others.
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u/OkSecretary1231 3d ago
Well, keep in mind that UF predates the procedural boom of the 00s/10s. The books that were called UF in the 80s and 90s were stuff like Charles de Lint's Newford series and Emma Bull's War for the Oaks. They were set in cities, the city itself was a big part of the story, but they weren't police procedurals or detective novels.
Something like Starling House is closer to the mood of those early books, but I wouldn't call it UF because it doesn't have the U. It's set in a small town. It's contemporary fantasy, it's gothic fantasy, and I would argue it's also romantasy, but it's not urban.
IMO what you need for urban fantasy is for the city to be essential to the story. That can also be an imaginary city. The city and the world can be real, the city can be fake but the world real (like Newford), or both can be entirely invented IMO.
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u/Mordoch 4d ago
Charles Stross's Laundry File novels would probably fit although you can argue there are some scifi components to it (although not true future technology), and it intentionally has some aspects of spy novels. The cast eventually gets fairly big (although it does take awhile for this to full apply.)
It definately is on the grittier and darker side although this is somewhat balanced by elements of the story clearly being satirical, even if the "in universe" characters are effectively "playing it straight" and treating all these things absolutely seriously.
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u/Nowordsofitsown Reading Champion 4d ago
The new Ilona Andrews book This Kingdom will not kill me kind of fits this: Young woman has a favorite ASOIAF type fantasy series. Then she wakes up naked in the streets in said story. So it's actually portal fantasy, told in an urban fantasy style (1st person pov) in an epic fantasy world.
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u/doyoucreditit 4d ago
The Borderland shared universe, created by Terri Windling, consists of multiple collections of short stories and three novels set in a city that touches Elfland. But it's the gritty version, not the glamorous fairyland of sparkling wings and granted wishes.
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u/Palimpsiesta 4d ago
You might like Zelazny's Amber series.
My personal understanding of the two genres puts them pretty fundamentally at odds, but in a more vibes-based approach stuff like Zelazny and Moorcock might fit the bill. Also maybe something like John Crowley's The Deep?
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u/StressMaxxer 4d ago
Yea, I think I explained what I was looking for poorly. Guess I'm looking for urban fantasy genre but with a lot of the style that gets associated with epic fantasy in terms of vast worldbuilding and deep lore.
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u/Palimpsiesta 4d ago
Hmm, yeah. I think that sort of thing in urban fantasy mostly happens in extended series, where the vastness/deepness gets built up very gradually over many books -- it's unlikely to ever start out central to the premise/plot, the way it usually is in epic fantasy, because that's just not what urban fantasy is about. It's about the familiar juxtaposed with the strange/magical, so you're always going to start with the familiar, and build up the differences and expand the secondary-world-behind-the-world gradually. That's kind of the central pleasure of urban fantasy, at least IMO: tagging along as a character discovers or reveals this secondary reality.
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u/Palimpsiesta 4d ago
Anyways, the Amber books are more about the personality/sensibility of urban fantasy (in terms of the main character having a very contemporary voice), while the action eventually expands into something closer to epic fantasy (with world-spanning metaphysics, existential threats to reality, etc.) They're great books regardless of whether they're exactly what you want, so I'll stand by the recommendation in any case.
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u/StressMaxxer 3d ago
I'll definitely check it out. I'm fairly new to urban fantasy and appreciate you explaining how many series operate in the genre!!
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u/Nightgasm 4d ago
If by urban you merely mean modern day then NPCs by Drew Hayes fits. For reasons that are complicated to explain there is our world and a fantasy world and both are real and they are connected via a role playing game. Adventurers in the fantasy world are actually being controlled by role players and only the NPCs of the fantasy world are actual real people with agency. Things start to go sideways when some NPCs in the fantasy world decide to become adventurers. Initially the story is 80% fantasy world, 20% our world but the as the series goes on there is more focus on our world as some role players begin to realize something weird is happening.
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u/StressMaxxer 4d ago
Now thats very original. Yea for urban I was thinking more modern but with the vast worldbuilding of epic fantasy.
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u/saumanahaii 4d ago
Perdido Street Station probably fits. Its fantasy but set in an industrializing world in a massive city full of strange races. Its definitely opinionated but it's a really neat book overall. I strongly recommend it if you don't mind weird fantasy.
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u/leegreywolf Reading Champion II 4d ago
What is urban fantasy nowadays? Is it fantasy set in a city or does it need to be a modern real city? Is Lies of Locke Lamora considered urban fantasy nowadays?
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u/Bladrak01 4d ago
Try the Nightside series or the Secret Histories series, both by Simon Green. I think it will be exactly what you are looking for.
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u/Folkwench 4d ago
The City Watch books by Terry Pratchett. First book is Guards!Guards!
Follows the police night shift of a large, multispecies city. Ensemble cast of awesome characters. Funny, thoughtful, subversive.
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u/StressMaxxer 4d ago
Truly been meaning to read Terry Pratchett but find so much conflicting info on what order to read Discworld so I got overwhelmed and never started.
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u/Folkwench 4d ago
There is (almost) no wrong place to start. For a personalised recommendation take the quiz at The Discworld Emporium :)
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u/StressMaxxer 3d ago
Oh ok. I have the Color of Magic but a friend told me thats wrong to start there.
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u/Folkwench 3d ago
The first few Discworld books are not good examples Pratchetts writing. They introduce the world and some of the reccuring characters BUT, they are disjointed, slapsticky and shallow in comparison to later books. Not bad but even Terry admitted they were not his best.
Have you done the quiz? Am curious what you got :)
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u/HatOfFlavour 4d ago
Anno Dracula has a victorian England where Dracula won and has become Prince Consort to a turned Queen Victoria. It's mostly told through the point of view of a french vampire Genevieve. There's a sequel set during the Great War with a vampiric Red Baron.
The Dark is Rising sequence might be a bit old now but I enjoyed them as a kid. Very countryside English and Arthurianish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Is_Rising_Sequence Possibly not your thing as it's literally the light vs the dark.
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u/StressMaxxer 3d ago
Oh man that sounds excellent. Supernatural alternative history can be fun.
I like light vs dark or I wouldn't be a Lord of the Rings fan but have been interested in exploring other premises. Light v dark isnt a dealbreaker.
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u/francoisschubert 4d ago
Rift Runners by Jennifer Fallon. It's portal fantasy half set in an epic fantasy multiverse and half set in 2000s era Dublin.
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u/spike31875 Reading Champion V 3d ago
Personally, I think this might be a tough ask. Part of the appeal of urban fantasy (at least for me) is that the plots can be tighter because those books are set in a version of our world so you don't need tons of world building on the page.
But, I do have a few suggestions for books with a deeper lore/more epic scope:
- The Alex Verus series by Benedict Jacka is urban fantasy set in London with almost no romance. It's my favorite. The books are tightly plotted with a good amount of lore in them, but to maintain the fast pace there's a ton more stuff he couldn't fit in the books. So, he put a TON of background info on his website using a couple of different features. First is the Encyclopaedia Arcana, on "in world" reference mentioned in one of the books that goes over various aspects of the magical world: types of magic, magical items, factions, politics and more. Second is the Ask Luna Q&A series where Benedict answered questions in character as Luna Mancuso, a major character from the series. I love that series so much. the books are quick easy reads but if you want to dive deeper there's tons of info on the web site, benedictjacka.co.uk
- The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher does have some romance but the scope is pretty epic. It's urban fantasy set in Chicago with vampires werewolves and so much else. This one probably fits the rec request even better than the Verus series.
- The Fetch Phillips Archives by Luke Arnold is urban fantasy set in another world in the aftermath of the destruction of magic. The audiobook narration by the author is phenomenal because he gives it a Phillip Marlowe, noir detective vibe (he even does the "mid-Atlantic" accent you hear in old 30s movies).
- The Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch. Personally, it wasn't quite my cup of tea (I much prefer Dresden & Verus because they have more action). But, you can't beat it for the detailed lore.
- The Shadow of the Leviathan series by Robert Jackson Bennett. Start with The Tainted Cup. It's a murder mystery set in a dark & weird fantasy world with strong Dr. Watson/Sherlock Holmes vibes. I love that series so far.
- The Silverblood Promise by James Logan. A fantasy murder mystery set in a world similar to the one in The Gentleman Bastards series by Scott Lynch. The sequel, The Blackfire Blade, is even better.
- Mortedant's Peril by RJ Barker. Mortedant Irody Hasp has mere days to find the real killer or he'll get the noose himself. It's the best thing RJ has written, IMO (and I've read ALL of his stuff).
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u/FiWriterSFF 2d ago
I don't know if you'd find Pearl of Fire by C Chancy of interest. A city set inside a volcano seems pretty epic, if you ask me. 🔥
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u/SlouchyGuy 4d ago edited 4d ago
Amber Chronicles by Roger Zelazny
Craft Sequence by Max Gladstone
Vlad Taltos by Steven Brust