Urban fantasy is a huge genre subset -- it can incorporate traditional elements of fantasy, but usually in a modern setting.

Often, it has a female protagonist. The Wikipedia definition is actually pretty good.

Urban Fantasy. It's one of my favorite genres when done well. If you're new to it, I'd suggest starting with Patricia Briggs' Moon Called or Kim Harrison's Dead Witch Walking.

Epic, yes, it ends in epic fashion (no pun intended) with the fifth book. I read them all in a row, so I didn't get frustrated, but I can see how you would be if you didn't have access to them. The first book was meh compared to the rest, IMO.

Maybe I'll give them another shot. I only read the first one, and was underwhelmed.

BTW, I took one for the team Wednesday, and read the last Auel book. Basically, it's 800 pages of anthropology and herb lore cut-and-pasted from earlier texts and then 200 pages of lukewarm plot.

Ayla and Jondalar only do the prehistoric mambo a couple of times, so there's that. Like Lana's parents are still DED, Jondalar's penis is still the size of New York.

OH NOES A SPOILER!!

If you are a completist, like me, read it, but don't worry about waiting for it in paperback or at the library. You won't laugh, you won't cry, but it will finally be DONE.

My sister was reading Jane Eyre for the first time, and she said that a bunch of the footnotes in the edition she had spoiled the ending, like by saying that some comment foreshadowed something that would happen later.

thank you both! I look forward to starting. I'm game to try something new.

Epic, yes, it ends in epic fashion (no pun intended) with the fifth book.

Good to know. I was debating picking it back up, guess now I will - when I finish the 2 library books I have out based off other mentions/recs in this thread - and try to finish it up (maybe with books 4&5 already in hand to ease the frustration).

I'll second the rec of Patricia Briggs, at least the first in that series (I waffle a bit because of something that a friend let slip about events in a later book).

One word of warning about Urban Fantasy, lazy writers seem to use it as an excuse to leave logic at the door. But going off of recs in here ought to be pretty safe.

BTW, I took one for the team Wednesday, and read the last Auel book. Basically, it's 800 pages of anthropology and herb lore cut-and-pasted from earlier texts and then 200 pages of lukewarm plot.

Wow, Erin, you are a giver. So the reading strategy (should I choose to accept it) will be the Auel-standard Flip the Page, Skim for Names or Dialogue, Flip the Page, etc.

Although as I'm currently reading Gabaldon's Outlander, my brain keeps telling me I should know more about medicinal herbs (y'know, in case I'm ever transported to the 18th century and need to make myself useful). Maybe I'll skim for names and plants...

You won't laugh, you won't cry, but it will finally be DONE.

The Completist inside is kind of a PITA sometimes, ain't it?

Ultimate princess dress, made of recycled or cast off Golden Books. So awesome, it's boggling. Scroll all the way down to see the whole process.

I actually really read the herb lore pretty intensively in the first...3 books, and feel like, with a plant guide in hand to id plants, I might be a decent jackleg pioneer doctor's-assistant in a time-travel pinch (I like to plan for all eventualities) but there's nothing NEW in the Auel, except a lot of verbal drawings of cave art.

Which, I'm afraid, isn't as interesting (to me) as herb lore.

As far as fictional healers go, I far prefer Claire to Ayla.

ETA: Epic, I went more like "Read two pages, flip 10, read two, flip ten...)

Hah! Thanks for taking that one, Erin! And I, too, feel like I should know herbs, in case I am transported through time. Or, as in many of my favorite books, the apocalypse comes.

The first thing I would do in an apocolypse is seek an gun store, a library and a pharmacy.