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Demonization - two different ones
Velcro City Tourist Board — ... Now, from the other side, demonization in action - a critical ZING from M John Harrison on urban fantasy: ...

M. John Harrison on Urban Fantasy
OF Blog of the Fallen — I was browsing through MJH's blog just now when I saw an interesting entry from March 14: Urban fantasy: the domestication of a few images & behavioural tics which were barely unacceptable in the first place. It was a frisson obtained not so much by glamourising or romanticising the disordered (though it did both) as by denying or correcting the trait paradigms of some common dysfunctional behaviours. It cleaned up what it claimed to be representing & always drew its conclusions from a safe space outside dysfunctionality. A normative manouevre, ...

M. John Harrison's take on Urban Fantasy
Pat's Fantasy Hotlist — Thanks to Larry for pointing this out! Since I brought you guys Lilith Saintcrow and Carrie Vaughn's takes on the urban fantasy subgenre, here are M. John Harrison's thoughts on the subject. Taken from his blog: Urban fantasy: the domestication of a few images & behavioural tics which were barely unacceptable in the first place. It was a frisson obtained not so much by glamourising or romanticising the disordered (though it did both) as by denying or correcting the trait paradigms of some common dysfunctional behaviours. It cleaned up what it ...

M. John Harrison Is Wicked Smart, and Annoyed
When You Stop Believing in It, It Doesn't Go Away — I just wrote an article on urban fantasy, and wrestled with what I might say about the devolution of the term to encompass an entire range of books that don't have anything to do with the term's original meaning, or with the kind of torquing-the-tropes-of-the-fantastic aesthetic that many urban fantasy texts shared when the term still meant what it used to mean. Now comes MJH with this perspective: ...

A question of ethics, negative/positive reviews, and Mark Charan Newton's Nights of Villjamur
OF Blog of the Fallen — ... Mark Charan Newton is clearly a writer who is still finding his voice. This is a fairly mealy-mouthed criticism but Nights of Villjamur is a fairly mush-mouthed novel. After a small press debut, The Reef (2008), Newton now joins China Mieville, Hal Duncan and Alan Campbell at Pan Macmillan/Tor UK. It is fine company to be in, the vanguard of British fantasy: urban (although not "urban" fantasy), flavoured with science fiction, horror and the weird, not scared of the odd literary flourish. The comparison is not flattering though. Newton obviously ...