The Big Idea: Nicole Peter and Tempest Rising

[foxfirefey]

So, John Scalzi has a feature on his blog called "The Big Idea". It's a great way to get really tantalizing previews of books you might want to read--and is heavily skewed toward SF/F genre books, too, although it isn't exclusive. A whole site dedicated to the concept is in the works, too.

The latest Big Idea by Nicole Peter has a lot of interesting things to say about urban fantasy, to wit:

In a time of chaos and uncertainty, is it any wonder that urban fantasy, the genre of the contemporary fairy tale, is on the rise? After all, urban fantasy offers a vision of the world in which traditional evils...are often times merely misunderstood. Meanwhile, traditional heroes...are often revealed to be sanctimonious, narrow-minded, and murderous zealots. The binaries neatly dividing good and evil are blurred in this genre, and the underlying message in many urban fantasies seems to be that the individual must make his or her own choices: that we must rely on our own experiences and intellect in a world that wants to brand outsiders as evil, to force ideological dichotomies on reality, and to make soldiers of us all.

Are you an urban fantasy fan (disregarding urban fantasy that you don't like and mainly considering that which you do, if any)? If so, what draws you to the genre? If not, what repels you?