Fantasy in Urban Fantasy?

My MC (this one is an epic not an urban though) has a collection of books set on Earth that he believes to be a fantasy series set on a made up world. His favourite is Sherlock Holmes.

Urban fantasy sort of relies on the cultural clash between our existing reality and a fantasy one, so I don't know that it could exist on a different planet. I think it would drop into either the fantasy or science fiction (depending on how advanced the science in the alien cities is...)

Although, that said, it would be a fun experiment to try.

What do you mean "without a masquerade"?

Interesting question! My first response would be that each world would be different, so yes, there could a fantasy genre in one, but not in another (if you know what I mean). Also, fantasy could include either the "non-magic" fantasy (which is a branch of Earth fantasy too, by the way!), or maybe a genre for all thos myths and legends and creatures that are fantastical for their world (ie: if that world has werewolves but not unicorns, a story about unicorns would still be a "fantasy", right?).

Religion0 said:

Perfectly meta question here, but assuming your urban fantasy was set in a world without a masquerade, would fantasy still be a genre? Would it still be fantasy?
Would it be that fantasy as a genre would actually refer to books set in worlds without magic?

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Great thought. Great concept. Along the same lines, people in China don't call it 'Chinese food'. They call it 'food'.

Religion0 said:

I haven't seen an awful lot of UF like this, though, so I can't even give you an example. Sorry. I'm sure there's some out there, though...

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Illona Andrews books fall under this idea. The Kate Daniels series everyone knows about vampires and shapeshifters, etc.