Contemporary and Urban Fantasy: A More Modern Kind of Escapism
/The modern world can be so boring sometimes. Jobs, taxes, capitalism, it’s frankly all depressing and mundane. Sure it can be tolerable to some people, but to many it’s soul sucking. The worlds of fantasy fiction are so much more vibrant and alive in comparison. Even if the fiction world is dreary, dark, and almost certainly a worst place to live; it is at least more interesting to many, and can provide a form of escape when reality is just too much.
What would happen then, if they were to be mixed together? To take this boring world of stresses and deadlines, and combine it with a world of fantasy?
You get what is called “Contemporary Fantasy”.
Art of Leviathan from ‘Worm’, A very popular superhero contemporary fantasy web serial. Art by sandara
The idea behind Contemporary fantasy is quite simple: the “present day” world, except with fantastical elements blended in. The resulting creation is something akin to our world, just slightly more to the left. Fantastical elements in modern day, within the confines of a modern world similar to ours. The contrast between them is stark and readily apparent, which perhaps is why they are a popular and beloved genre to many.
This is surprisingly not a modern idea, though the bulk of its popularity has been in the new 2000s. In fact, one of the earliest examples of Contemporary Fantasy was the short stories of Mary Poppins, the first of which was published in the 1930s. A surprising amount of fiction is considered to fall under the umbrella of ‘contemporary fiction’. The whole point of the genre is that it’s fantasy set in the ‘present day’ of the author. It’s just that as time goes on, things that were once considered “modern day” become more fantastical on their own, falling out of the genre over time until seen as nothing more than ‘fantasy’ to the present day 2022 reader.
And speaking of the present day reader, the subgenre of Contemporary fiction most enjoyed in modern times is what is known as “Urban Fantasy”. Urban fantasy by itself is what most people think of when they think of modern fantasy, and it's not exactly hard to see why.
An example of Urban Fantasy. Art by Ahmad Said
Urban fantasy itself has a large variance between exactly how fantastical its world gets, and how obvious said fantastical elements are. These worlds are often split between “High” and “Low” magical settings. Low magic is when the setting is nearly realistic, but fantastical elements manage to intrude and disrupt an otherwise normal world. They aren’t necessarily obvious at the start, hidden away from the reader before slowly creeping in as the narrative unfolds. High fantasy meanwhile is a world which is far more mythical than ours, and in which fantastical elements are intertwined rather than intruding on the world. They’re incredibly obvious, and are treated as perfectly normal by the narrative and the characters as just a fact of life.
However, while Contemporary fantasy and Urban fantasy may be similar on a surface level, and in truth have deep ties to each other, they are not exactly the same. Contemporary fantasy is set within the recognizable modern day world, with fantasy elements mixed in. Urban fantasy does that too, however the main difference between the two boils down to one main factor: location. Urban fantasy is almost always set in -you guessed it- an urban environment. Contemporary fantasy can be set basically anywhere in the modern day, rural or modern, it’s just more of an umbrella term for stories which are set in the time period of the writer. Almost all Urban Fantasy Stories can be considered Contemporary fantasy therefore, but the same isn’t true for the reverse, and that's what makes them distinct.
NOAH BRENTON - Clown by day, writer by night. I have no goddamn idea what it is I’m doing, but I’ve gotten this far so it must be at least partially right.
I love writing. It’s my hope that one day I’ll actually see a project to fruition instead of it sitting in purgatory with all the others.
You can sometimes see me on campus, but I’d really rather you didn’t. Your cooperation is appreciated.
