Why do I love urban fantasy?

The modern megalopolis is the chaos in its primeval self. Chaos is dangerous. It is carries a threat for people because it is incognizable and beyond the control. So people anciently defend from the chaos by giving it images and naming them. Genies, ghosts, demons, gods – all of them are the personalized manifestations of a global surrounding disorder. A huge city is like primeval jungle which is inhabited with the different dangers, both transport dangers and people dangers and also surfeit of various information. Too much information! Really a lot of people of dozens of nationalities around you, news, laws, rules, acts, bills, books, TV programs, social nets, thousands of sites in the Internet, millions of items of goods in the shops. And, of course, your family, friends, colleagues, teachers and students and an old lady in the street… too many people. People are a sort of information, you know. All of that is too much to be controlled so people aim to master the megalopolis chaos which means to subdue it by embodying the uncontrolled city dangers as a personalized menace. A citizen of a megalopolis externalizes an unforeknowable threat which emanates from abstract complexity, from chaos, into some known form   – in the form of anthropomorphic mythological characters. It is an unconscious way of defending and control because the known things and creatures are less scary than the unknown one. And of course the mankind has already produced the methods of controlling these creatures.  We know how to struggle against vampires – with garlic and an aspen stake – and against werewolves – with silver weapon etc. Authors of urban fantasy go much further and make vampires and werewolves, demons and witches more human than they were at the beginning. They make them more civilized and sometimes even more ethical than people.  The Cullen family in Twilight saga can be an example not only for the other vampires but for the people as well. Lots of authors try to pull mythological characters of a big city to the human side of force. It is safer. It is easier. And it is better not to start thinking what surprises are being prepared for us by the thicket of concrete jungle.