Home

Previous Entry | Next Entry

impromptu and unscientific focus group for books

  • Jan. 20th, 2009 at 4:03 PM
books
Somewhere in reading the large number of comments (all of which I certainly did not get through) on the various query-related posts several days back on different agent blogs, the idea of focus groups for consumer marketing came up, and it was suggested that publishers don't use them (though I know that some have). It was also suggested that editors and agents are out of touch with what book consumers really want (thought it could be argued that editors and agents may be one of the largest groups of those consumers, or at least, I know I am).

So, here's your chance to be part of an impromptu, and probably very unscientific, focus group (which will also not cost the mega-thousands that researching a new cereal would). Tell me in comments what kinds of novels I, as an ever-so-progressive agent, should be looking for, or something you'd snap up in an instant if you found it in the bookstore. Conversely, feel free to mention things you are tired nigh unto death of seeing in the bookstore.

Keep in mind the following caveat: I'm not looking for people to pitch their own books, here, but for suggestions as readers, not writers (though you could also be a writer who reads).

Comments

( Read 163 comments — Leave a comment )
[info]fiction_theory wrote:
Jan. 20th, 2009 10:18 pm (UTC)
I'm another reader who's tired of BAD urban fantasy. I'm tired of the Anita Blake clones. I'm tired of reading the SAME book which meanders through a paper thin plot which isn't so much a plot as a weird ramble through fights and sex scenes. I'm tired of these plotless wonders being narrated by a "snarky" woman (who manages never once to be witty, profound, or even that likeable) with powers or something who somehow always manages to mention that she's wearing leather pants or thigh high boots even as she's running for her life or fighting some big nasty.

And just for reference, I think using Buffy as the object of frustration is wrong. Joss Whedon got Buffy, as a character and as a show, mostly right. It's those people who thought that adding a dose of chick-lit to the urban fantasy genre who are to blame. If they'd actually studied what made the show so successful and wonderful, we'd have a different discussion going on.

I'd like it if there were urban fantasy narrated or at least inhabited by heroines who are a bit more like me and other people I know. More heroines of color, heroines who are lesbian, bi, or even trans. Heroines who maybe are of size. Or aren't supermodel beautiful or always complaining about their looks.

It's not the vampires and werewolves that are my issue. After all the bad books, I'm still fascinated with them. It's the bad writing I'm tired of. I'm tired of agents and publishing houses who keep putting out the same old crap and then saying "well, that's what sells". It sells because it's all that's there sometimes.

I'd really love an urban fantasy novel narrated by a heroine with a voice that doesn't grate on my nerves. Most do, because they attempt to be very hip and colloquial and "snarky" without being at all amusing or interesting. I want a heroine that doesn't read like a Mary Sue. That actually tells a story instead of winding through related events all while giving irrelevant details as though every little thing about her life is important.

I'd love it if there were urban fantasy novels that understood consequences and weaknesses and real flaws, not just the made up ones.

I'd also love it if the surroundings in said novels were not there just because the author thought they'd look cool.

Honestly, I want to see someone do for Urban Fantasy what Watchmen by Alan Moore did for comics and the very tired trite superheroes tropes. I'd like to see someone really sink in and apply intelligent and thoughtfulness and humanity.

I'd like an urban fantasy with a heroine that reads like AN ACTUAL HUMAN BEING. Or at least written by an author who knows what the hell they're doing with the first person narration, because most really don't.

If I saw something with a really compelling, unique voice that did away with the "Well, there I was in my Gucci boots fighting this vampire who was really sexy" type stories, I'd buy it.

Also, I'd really love to see high/epic fantasy that isn't based around Saving The Kingdom With Mages and European Medieval Settings. I'd really love some fantasy based in other cultures, preferably written by people FROM those cultures. I think Liz William's Detective Inspector Chen series was really wonderful, but it's hard to find. I wish a big publisher or big name agent or something would find more books like that.

I'd love science fiction that I can enjoy as much as I do fantasy. I'd love character driven, uniquely plotted science fiction that I can feel like I really relate to. Even better, I'd love it if the covers of said science fiction novels didn't all look really laughable. I'd love science fiction that is written by authors of color and women. Because honestly? I started reading the speculative fiction genres when I was younger, but got tired of it almost always being written for, by, and about white men.
| Reply | Thread
[info]colomon wrote:
Jan. 20th, 2009 10:44 pm (UTC)
That's right about where I was just going to go. I'm not at all tired of urban fantasy (or paranormal romance, which is what most people using that term here seem to mean). Reason is I've read almost none of the current batch of it, because everything I've looked at looked like cookie-cutter trash. I'd love to see a paranormal romance that looked like it was written to the quality and originality level of Elizabeth Bear and Scott Lynch, with rich characters and real consequences.

On a different tangent, most of all I'd love to see more fantasy of manners, stuff in the vein of Stevermer and Kushner. I'd be thrilled if there were about five like authors of their quality writing a book a year.

(And now I have a sudden vision of combining this two fields, and getting something like the Jane Austen of vampire novels....)
| Reply | Parent | Thread
[info]archangelbeth wrote:
Jan. 20th, 2009 11:20 pm (UTC)
I would totally read Jane Austen vampire novels.
| Reply | Parent | Thread
[info]arcaedia wrote:
Jan. 20th, 2009 11:34 pm (UTC)
Well, there's Michael Thomas Ford's JANE BITES BACK, the humorous, sassy account of Jane Austen as a modern-day vampire (which sold to Del Rey last summer and probably will come out later this year).
| Reply | Parent | Thread
[info]archangelbeth wrote:
Jan. 21st, 2009 12:53 am (UTC)
If it's as good as the Jane Austen stuff I've read, I'll have to grab it! O:D
| Reply | Parent | Thread
[info]burger_eater wrote:
Jan. 21st, 2009 12:02 am (UTC)
I'm pretty sure [info]sartorias is writing one.
| Reply | Parent | Thread
[info]shadowsinfire wrote:
Jan. 21st, 2009 12:55 am (UTC)
Have you read Cobwebs by Karen Romano-Young? Because it seems to me very similar to what you say you want. It's urban fantasy, but the writing is meditative, it's set in New York, and it feels like New York to me, even thought I've only been there once. I don't think the word 'sexy' is ever mentioned. The supernatural elements are the spiders - but the main characters are the spiders, and they're just as human as anyone. But they weave, they heal, they have silk, they like heights or are afraid of open spaces, or they jump. The colours I associate with is are blue-grey, grey, terracotta, the dark green of ivy and the colour of rust ^^

Or The Shadow Speaker by Nnedi Okarafor-Mbachu. It's post-apocalyptic-ish fantasy set in sub-Saharan Africa. With other worlds and real consequences, as you put it.
| Reply | Parent | Thread
[info]cinnamon_sakaki wrote:
Jan. 21st, 2009 11:14 am (UTC)
Yes! This is exactly why I have ambivalent feelings about urban fantasy. I would also like to see more LGBT and non-white protagonists.

More generally, I would like to see vivid, unusual fantasy stories that stretch the imagination and really make your mind boggle. I'm thinking particularly of Hal Duncan, China Mieville and Sarah Monette here.
| Reply | Parent | Thread
[info]summers_place wrote:
Jan. 21st, 2009 03:14 pm (UTC)
What would you say to , oh, an urban fantasy (not a romance) with a middle-aged black male protagonist, set in a Midwestern city, involving no werewolves, no vampires per se, and not one single person in leather pants or high-heeled boots?

Honestly, I'd read that. Does everything have to be sexy, or a romance, or have a spunky, kickass heroine?

Edited at 2009-01-21 03:18 pm (UTC)
| Reply | Parent | Thread
[info]cinnamon_sakaki wrote:
Jan. 21st, 2009 03:29 pm (UTC)
Sounds shiny! :) I'm fine with sexy, and even spunky if it's done well, but Snappy Sue? Not so much.
| Reply | Parent | Thread
[info]amberdulen wrote:
Jan. 21st, 2009 10:02 pm (UTC)
What would you say to , oh, an urban fantasy (not a romance) with a middle-aged black male protagonist, set in a Midwestern city, involving no werewolves, no vampires per se, and not one single person in leather pants or high-heeled boots?

Depends. What is he doing?
| Reply | Parent | Thread
[info]summers_place wrote:
Jan. 26th, 2009 01:34 am (UTC)
Dealing with whatever comes along, probably solving a mystery in the process, and averting crises of which the general run of mortals surrounding him were largely unwaware. Hauntings by angry ghosts, invasion by supernatural entities, unrest among the unseen local population of fantasy beings, Strange Doings Downtown, who knows? As a bonus, perhaps he's doing it as a complete sideline to his regular job; for all I know, maybe he's a bus driver by trade. Or a waiter, or an emcee in a comedy club.

Hey, it'd be different.
| Reply | Parent | Thread
( Read 163 comments — Leave a comment )