Urban fantasy recommendations?

[iamgriffin]

I've enjoyed the Sandman Slim books so far and Butcherbird by Richard Kadrey. I'm looking for recommendations for similar dark urban fantasy stories. Thanks in advance!

[Chuk]

Harry Connolly's Twenty Palaces books are very good -- dark like the Kadrey stuff but the protagonist is not playing at that level (but he works for people who are). http://www.harryjconnolly.com/blog/?p=12
I also like Ben Aaronovitch's works, they are less dark, more of a London police procedural but with magic. The first one is called Midnight Riot in the US but Rivers of London in the UK: http://www.the-folly.com/books/midnight-riot-us/?ln=en
Kate Griffin's books about Matthew Swift are also good, I've only read the first two so far, they start with A Madness of Angels.
http://www.kategriffin.net/books/a-madness-of-angels/

And you should probably read the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher -- a wizard/PI type in Chicago. There are lots of them, it was even a TV series. Harry Dresden is much less of an anti-hero than Stark, though, he's definitely a good guy.
 

[DKT]

You may want to give Mike Carey's Felix Castor series a shot. I thought The Devil You Know was pretty good - very atmospheric, and very dark - but Vicious Circles (book 2) just plain kicked ass. His run on Hellblazer was generally pretty good too (if you like comics, and John Constantine is definitely in the same mold as a lot of urban fantasy anti-heroes).

The Twenty Palaces books Chuk mentioned might work for you - I read the first one, and it was dark and smooth, although I didn't love it.

Not sure Dresden is dark enough for what you want.

The Aaronovitch books are on my radar, and I've heard good things about them from other posters here.

If you don't mind a little different setting for your Urban Fantasy, there's Lauren Beukes' Zoo City, set in South Africa, and completely bloody and violent. The ending was maybe a little too much for me, but the rest of it I thought was solid.

[Scattercat]

The "Nightwatch" series by Sergei Lukyanenko is quite dark, at least by an American author yardstick.  (It's about par for Russian lit, I think.)

[Listener]

The "Nightwatch" series by Sergei Lukyanenko is quite dark, at least by an American author yardstick.  (It's about par for Russian lit, I think.)

I will say that the first book is NOT the best of them. I particularly enjoyed the second because it focuses on the Day Watch (the "bad guys").

[lowky]

I enjoyed both series by Lilith Saintcrow Dante Valentine and Jill Kismet

not great but fun reads.

[Devoted135]

I enjoyed the Night Angel trilogy by Brent Weeks, I think that qualifies.

[Kat_Rocha]

Since you liked Sandman, you might want to try out Criminal Macabre. It's a PI series and very Noir.
Also, I suggest Absalom: Ghosts of London.

I also highly recommend Let Me In (Let the Right One In) by John Ajvide Lindqvist. Probably one of the best things I have read in the last two years.

-Kat

[Nyxsis]

Dark Heart by Margaret Weis and David Baldwin.  It was part of a series that will never be finished since David (her son) died, but it is still one of my favorite urban fantasy books ever.

[Alasdair5000]

Another recommendation for Absalom. Also London Falling by Paul Cornell, Cabalistics Inc by Gordon Rennie and I've heard very good things about Angelmaker by Nick
Harkaway and The City's Son by Tom Pollock

[lowky]

Does Perdido street station get better?  I only have made it about Chapter 3 and switched books because I had to take my Dad to Radiation therapy and it was simulation and mask making etc.  so was there about 4 hours and didn't want a book I was finding tedious with that long stuck in a dr office.  I was finding it very verbose for one with almost too many adjectives.  Everyone seems to rave about China Mieville around Escape Artists. I have never been a huge fan of the short stories that have been podcast, so knew there was a chance I wouldn't like it.  I just felt maybe if I tried a full length as opposed to a short story maybe it would be different. 

[DKT]

Eh, if you don't like it three chapters in, I'd guess not.

Someone said somewhere that the Scar is a better book, and I generally agree. But it sounds like his writing style just might not be your thing?

The City & The City might actually be a better place to start if you're totally striking out on PSS, because it was a pretty big break in style from everything else he'd done. Then again, like I said - he just might not be your thing.

[lowky]

I am thinking that his writing is just not my thing.  Just trying to give a chance because so many rave about his writing.  People rave about Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, and out of every thing I read in the two russian lit classes I took in college, I couldn't stand any of their stuff.

Will see if I can get City and the City from the Library.   Thanks

[Scribblor]

I thought Kraken was better than The City & The City, personally. I found it more fun, and I thought that the ideas sustained a novel better. I thought that The City & The City had an interesting premise, but was a bit too long.

I struggled to get through The Scar, and very nearly didn't finish Iron Council. His politics are a bit too overt for my liking. I don't want to feel lectured to while I'm reading, and I think he quite often goes into thinly-veiled Marxist polemic. No-one else I've talked to about it agrees though...

But I'd agree with DKT that if you don't like the style of PSS, Mieville might not be your thing.

[Scattercat]

Perdido is definitely on the more rococo books, Mieville definitely trends toward the verbose, at best.

Kraken, The City & The City, and King Rat are probably my favorite of his, in that order.  Perdido was good, but I was so-so on The Scar and just could not bring myself to care about Iron Council.  mbunning, did you mean that no one else you've talked to has agreed that Mieville goes on Marxist (or at least anarcho-socialist) rants, or that they don't agree that Iron Council was boring?  Because if it's the former, I would have to wonder which China Mieville they've been reading.  He even talks in interviews about how much he pushes his politics into his writing and sneers at people who don't, for pity's sake.

[eytanz]

I think that there is a definite stylistic shift between early Mieville (PSS, the Scar, the Iron Council), and later Mieville (The City & The City, Kraken, Embassytown). I really loved The City & The City, and I thought Embassytown was a very good piece of SF. Kraken I have issues with, but it's a really fun read as long as you don't stop to think about it too much. His writing has become a lot more efficient.

As for early Mieville - I liked Perdido Street Station a lot, but it was one of those books where my attention drifted a bit, and if I remember correctly (it's been a few years) it took me a while to get into it. But by the middle of the book, I really enjoyed it. The Scar was also very good, though I felt it covered some of the same ground. I really disliked Iron Council, but that has more to do with the themes than the style.

I'd generally recommend that regardless of whether you liked PSS, you'd give The City & The City a chance, but if you don't like that either, it's likely he's just not for you.

[DKT]

I liked Kraken - didn't love it, but could tell Mieville had a hell of a good time writing it, and I was happy to be along the ride.

I liked The City & The City quite a bit when I first read it. Then, after discussing it with some people (I'm pretty sure it was Eytanz and Peter Wood), certain things about its fantastical elements were brought into question and illuminated, and that ambiguity made me want to revisit it. I listened to it the second time around - it went by a lot faster, and it became one of my favorite things he's done.

Nobody's mentioned his books for young adults - Un Lun Dun and Railsea. I haven't read the latter (yet), but I thought Un Lun Dun was pretty fun, and not quite as political as some of his other work. Instead, it critiqued fantasy tropes like prophecies, quests, and chosen ones, etc. If you liked Gaiman's Neverwhere, this might appeal to you as well.

I don't know why several of his books aren't available in audio. I'd pay to revisit Un Lun Dun, Iron Council, and especially The Scar (Uther Doul and the probable sword is still maybe one of my favorite fantastical inventions ever). SIGH.

[eytanz]

Oh, Railsea - I forgot that one, probably because I didn't like it much. I quit it about 30% through, I just thought it was a bit dull. Un Lun Dun was a lot of fun, though.

[lowky]

Nobody's mentioned his books for young adults - Un Lun Dun and Railsea. I haven't read the latter (yet), but I thought Un Lun Dun was pretty fun, and not quite as political as some of his other work. Instead, it critiqued fantasy tropes like prophecies, quests, and chosen ones, etc. If you liked Gaiman's Neverwhere, this might appeal to you as well.

I am a huge fan of Neverwhere.  I watched the BBC series first, which if memory serves was what came first, and then he did the novelization.  I can but give these a try.  I don't know why Mievlle's verbosity  bothers me.  I like Lovecraft, who can at times be verbose in dancing around humans not being able to truly see/accept the Horrors of the Universe. 

[Scribblor]

mbunning, did you mean that no one else you've talked to has agreed that Mieville goes on Marxist (or at least anarcho-socialist) rants, or that they don't agree that Iron Council was boring?  Because if it's the former, I would have to wonder which China Mieville they've been reading.  He even talks in interviews about how much he pushes his politics into his writing and sneers at people who don't, for pity's sake.

Well, both, now that I think about it. But mainly the former. I've been very surprised that they haven't picked up on it, but it's happened so often that it made me wonder if I've misremembered parts of his writing. I mean, in The Scar, one of the characters is literally a vampire, sucking the blood out of the working class. I'd have assumed you can't get much more blatant than that, but the people I've talked to about it haven't considered that aspect of it.

In that respect I find him a bit like Le Guin, where I enjoy the stories, but often feel like I'm being beaten over the head by the message. I read The Dispossessed on the recommendation of a friend who raved about how 'transparent' her writing was. Frankly, what I got from her writing was that she considered her readers too slow to pick up on what was good and bad about the society she portrays, so she felt the need to tell them every couple of sentences. Again, I did enjoy the plot, but it was despite the writing.