By Travis Luedke
There’s a line in “Three Amigos” where the infamous bandito El
Guapo says to his flunkie, after a string of pinatas is revealed for
his birthday party, “Would you say I have a plethora of pinatas?”
laugh at it every time.
In the world of Urban Fantasy, we seem to have tons of books
filled with every monster imaginable: witches, warlocks, wizards,
vamps, weres, fairies, and all the dark fantasy creatures you can
shake a stick at.
Do readers really want a book filled with every monster
conceivable? Is it too much? Overkill?
Would you say I have a plethora of monsters?
Speak up readers, would you prefer one or two types of
supernatural creatures, or do you want the whole gamut with
supporting cast?
My first comment was:
“I have read a gazillion different explanations for how
different races of creatures/monsters came to be.
Everything from evolution to aliens to versions of creation
and all things in-between.”
The explanations are fascinating when done properly.
But I do question the need to bring in a large cast of monsters
right out the gate in a novel. I think it might be more readily
accepted if it took several novels to build that world a piece at a
time.
Charlaine Harris is a good example of that. She built her world
over the course of many novels. It took easily 4-5 books before
we had a clear view of all the supernaturals slipping between the
cracks of normal society.
Later in the conversation, this was my thoughts:
Style has a lot to do with it. And subtlety. Even the legendary
Jim Butcher has 4-5 info dumps in order to acclimatize the
reader to his intricate world with all these various supernatural
people/things/magics going on.
I suspect Jim’s editors probably slim his material down to the
point that some subtlety is lost. Takes time to work in world
building step by step. If editors don’t want to give you that time
in exchange for maintaining pacing, then you end up with an
infodump scene to bring the readers up to speed.
The author who I respect most for bringing me into his worlds
full of infinitely w