My favorite thing about UF

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Our vampire protagonist (let's call her Haley) has roused herself during the day via a herculean expenditure of willpower. All of the humans have been disabled. Her boyfriend, Jason, has been dusted. Only Haley can light the fuse that will detonate the make-shift bomb and close the portal to Hell that opened in the middle of Quinton's Hallmark at the local mall. One problem - she has no matches, Jason's lighter appears to have dusted with him, and none of the Zippos in Spencer's have any lighter fluid in them. How do we resolve the situation?

Vampire + Sunlight = Fire.

Haley shouts a few obscenities as she "makes fire" by holding her hand out the front door of the mall. If her writer is feeling particularly nasty, then her flaming hand goes out on the way back to the Hallmark store... twice.

Okay, so what was all that about?

It's an illustration of one of my favorite things about Urban Fantasy. A scene like that one (silly as it is) can work in the genre. But in almost any other genre, it would be rejected out of hand. Urban Fantasy allows the writer to take elements of the mundane and mix them with the supernatural while taking tropes from horror, mystery, action, romance, or even comedy and turning them on their head... Whether it's werewolves wielding holy symbols, zombies craving chocolate cake, or wizard private eyes named Harry... it works.

So that's my favorite thing about Urban Fantasy, now what's yours?

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