Genre Search: Urban Fantasy – Magic Bites by Ilona Andrews

Welcome to the first episode of What’s my genre?


In this series of blog posts, I will compare popular Urban Fantasy books to my own series of Urban Fantasy.

According to Wikipedia, Urban Fantasy is a subgenre of fantasy in which the narrative has magical rules or elements operating in an urban setting. Works of urban fantasy may be set in the real world and introduce aspects of fantasy, or in a fantasy world with operating rules recognizably similar to ours.

If I follow this definition, then my all my books and short stories fall into this category.

In particular, my Vampire Secret Agency Series, although a part of this genre, isn’t mainstream for its genre. In my books, vampires, werewolves, and witches exist in our modern world, but most people don’t know they exist and they are still people. I’ve found that most books in the genre aren’t at all like this.

I have never been a fan of conventional urban fantasy books, which is why I wrote my own. Unfortunately, it doesn’t fit in with the others.

REVIEWING AND COMPARING MAGIC BITES WITH THE NAVSA SERIES.

Magic Bites is the first book in Ilona Andrews’ Kate Daniels series. As far as I can tell, this is the most popular author in the genre. I chose to listen to this book first since I’ve heard so much about the author duo that makes Ilona Andrews.

Its magic system is a little unclear, as were many things about this book. The protagonist clearly has a lot of power within her that she never really gets to use. We get a few glimpses into her past, but not many. As I understand, the magic system works by using words of power.  Also, there are other magic wielders, but it’s never clear where it comes from or what powers they actually have.

Magic doesn’t really appear in my books until the second chapter, and it doesn’t require voices of power. While we don’t meet a lot of magic users in Magic Bites, being a magic user in my books is a little more common and witches have their own society. Magic is more about controlling the natural world around them, and it uses energy just like walking or running uses energy.

Something I definitely not enjoy about Magic Bites was the vampires. My favorite paranormal creature is the vampire. Vampires are the main characters in my books, the heroes. In Magic Bites, vampires are not only undead, but they are also creepy and scary and they are controlled by others. They are more like puppets, or robots. I had a real issue with this. The best thing about vampires, to me, should be that they are monsters, but they are human inside and they struggle between what’s right and wrong and, since they were once human, they try to act human… and deep inside, they still are. There are many stories where vampires are like this: Underworld, Lost Boys, Vampire Chronicles.. heck, even Twilight.

There are too many mystical creatures in Magic Bites, too. Too many characters that I couldn’t keep track of. Their origins or powers were never clear to me. Werewolves (or shapeshifters) are possibly the creatures that are described a little more, as well as the antagonist’s race. I personally don’t like too many characters that seem to appear out of nowhere. It was just too much for me. As I was listening to an audiobook, I didn’t have the ability to just go back a few pages to try to find where the new character, that clearly I should’ve known who it was, came from.

My book series starts a little slow, but I like spending time getting to know the players. It wouldn’t make sense otherwise. I get annoyed when authors just throw things at me and I’m supposed to just figure it out. I don’t like it. In my books, I like to set things up as the story goes. A little how it is with Harry Potter (and no, I don’t think I’m as wonderful as JK Rowling. Not at all). Also, I can’t have all these races just pop up with powers that will only be discovered when it’s convenient for the story. My characters’ abilities are predefined, and usually, they follow the rules of their race.

The one thing I loved about Magic Bites were the two main characters. Kate was strong and secretly powerful but didn’t seem to want to fit in. She’s young and a little inexperienced at first, and as she gets more into her first real mission, she begins to see how she can be a part of the game. Then there’s Corran, the “love interest” of sorts. I liked him, too. I like their banter from the beginning, it’s a good set-up in how they meet, and then meet again. It felt perfect.

In my books, I had always meant for Dylan and Rebecca to be a stable couple more than a cat and mouse couple. I wanted them to meet and like each other and just realize they were meant to be together, regardless of what they were. I never meant to write a romance, I have always wanted them There are four main characters in my series, Dylan and Rebecca appear on book one, the werewolf Will is introduced in book two, and Crystal the witch is introduced in book three. After that, they act a lot like a family together as they are trying to stop the main antagonist from destroying their world.

I give Magic Bites four solid stars only because at times there were so many characters that I was supposed to know, but didn’t, and because, since rules in the world weren’t completely explained, a lot of things happened where it was convenient for them to happen. No explanation. Otherwise, a good book with a good main character.

cheers!

               
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