The good news is that my teen fantasy novel Shadow Walkers is finally released this week, and I’m pretty pleased with the result. Here’s the blurb:

Zach lives with his grandparents on a remote island in Puget Sound in Washington State. With only his little brother, Gilbert, to keep him company, Zach feels cut off from the world. But when Gilbert is kidnapped, Zach tries the only thing he can think of to find him: astral projection. Soon, his spirit is soaring through the strange and boundless astral realm—a shadow place. While searching for his brother, Zach meets a boy named Emory, another astral traveler who’s intriguing (and cute).

As Zach and Emory track the kidnappers from the astral realm, their bond grows, but each moment could be Gilbert’s last. Even worse, there’s a menacing, centuries-old creature in their midst that devours souls and possesses physical bodies. And it’s hungry for Zach.

Request it from your local library or buy it here.

The bad news? For the time being, we’re suspending publication of new content on TheTorchOnline.com.

Editing this site has been a labor of love — I love fantasy, and I obviously love sharing my (many) opinions. But it’s become a labor of love that has made it increasingly difficult to work on other projects — especially, ironically, as the site has grown bigger and ever-more-successful.

So we’re taking a break so that I and my co-Torchees can work on other things (including, in my case, more novels, and hopefully also some movie projects).

But I still believe in the concept of a website that is more than just content aggregation — more than just rewriting other people’s reporting. I’m proud that TheTorchOnline.com was devoted to original reporting and commentary, and I’m thrilled that we were able to do so many exclusive interviews (with Lucy Lawless, Dominic Monghan, Anna Torv, Morena Baccarin, Eddie McClintock, Lynda Carter, most of the cast of Legend of the Seeker, and many, many others), and I’m proud that we’ve been able to break many important stories (on Xena, Spartacus, Legend of the Seeker, Warehouse 13, Piers Anthony, and many other fantasy-themed topics).

I also think we helped, in our own small way, give the genre of fantasy some of the respect and credibility that it deserves (but still frequently doesn’t get. Did you notice that Spartacus didn’t even make EW’s recent list of the top ten shows on television? Ridiculous!).

With Heather Hogan’s hilarious “Facebook” recaps and my associate editor Tim O’Leary’s funny perspective on almost everything else, I also hope we sometimes made you laugh. (As much as I love fantasy, it’s possible that sometimes it takes itself a little too seriously…)

Will we ever be back?

We might be. As fantasy enthusiasts, we all know better than most how wonderfully unpredictable life can be. (Follow us on Facebook or Twitter for future announcements.)

In the meantime, thanks for reading and thanks for the support (one of my favorite parts of working on the site was the clever, insightful comments that often put my actual content to shame!).

Trust me, whether or not I’m editing this website, I’ll be carrying the torch for fantasy for many years to come.

Brent Hartinger, February 2, 2011

This article was originally published in December 2009.

Say what you will about the Twilight franchise — and there’s a lot you can say — one of the positives of the series is its prominent Native American characters, including a romantic lead.

And since you can’t turn on a television or computer without being bombarded by advertisements for New Moon, it got me thinking about the general lack of representation that exists for native people in mainstream entertainment, and fantasy doesn’t fare much better.

This isn’t to say that they don’t exist, however, and when I think back on all the various fantasy stories I’ve absorbed in my lifetime, there are actually some pretty fascinating characters…

7. Warpath

When the X-men recruited new members for the first time since their humble beginning, one of the new class was an Apache mutant named Thunderbird, who was very quickly killed off. Years later, his younger brother, also a mutant, took the name Warpath, and adopted a costume similar to his brother’s. Though he initially blamed the X-men for Thunderbird’s death, he later realized they were not at fault, and joined the heroic team X-Force.

6. Elisa Maza

In the 90s, Disney came out withGargoyles, a surprisingly dark and interesting cartoon series which featured a group of stone-by-day, flesh-by-night creatures who were connected to the human world by their best friend, a policewoman named Elisa Maza. What was impressive about her character was that she was a good person and a strong, intelligent cop, who just happened to be a woman, and half-African-American, half-Hopi to boot. This is the kind of diversity we need to see more of in children’s programming.

5. Danielle Moonstar

The second X-man on the list (which is a series that scores high points in diversity), Moonstar was a young girl of Cheyenne heritage when she was first brought into the X-men’s junior team, the New Mutants. Her main power was the ability to project images of people’s worst fears into their head, and she also had an empathic rapport with animals. Later on, she honed her psychic powers to be able to generate bursts of psionic force.

4. Little Bear

One of my absolute favorite books as a child was The Indian in the Cupboard, which is perhaps the story most responsible for imbuing me with a lifelong love of fantasy. For anyone who never read it, you’re truly missing out on a phenomenal tale of a young English boy named Omri who is gifted a magical cupboard that makes his toys come alive, and the relationship he forms with the proud Iroquois, Little Bear, who comes out of the cupboard standing six inches tall. Little Bear is actually a very real man who was transported from his own time by the magic of the cupboard, and he teaches Omri many things, among them how to respect those who are different from you. (There’s a movie version, but I don’t recommend it.)

3. Pocahontas

Though the fantastical Disney tale differs wildly from the actual history — talking trees aside, Pocahontas was a child when John Smith arrived, instead of a full-grown hottie with a figure Barbie would envy — Disney’s Pocahontas is a relatively decent entry in its animated musical repertoire. It tells the story from both sides’ points of view, and in Pocahontas we’re given yet another young, independent, headstrong female lead, as is the Disney staple. (It’s a shame the best song from the score, entitled “If I Never Knew You,” was cut from the final version of the film. You can, fortunately, find it on Youtube.)

2. Mani

An often overlooked gem, Brotherhood of the Wolf (Le Pacte des loupes) is a pretty cool film from our buddies in France, featuring a French taxidermist and his companion, an Iroquois warrior named Mani played by Mark Dacascos, who kicks a whole lot of ass throughout the film. What’s nice to see is that Mani, an outsider for not only not being a Frenchman but a Native American as well, is one of the most likable (and badass) characters in the film.

1. Jacob Black

All right, we knew this was inevitable. Love it or hate it, the Twilight series does boast not one but several Native American characters (belonging to the Quileute tribe), and the fact that Jacob Black is a romantic, heroic lead is nice to see in a genre picture such as this one. Now if only we could do something about those screaming tween girls.

So, as we can see, while there is some representation of Native American characters, the fact remains that across the media of television, film, and books, stories are still shamefully lacking. In fact, I think one would be hard-pressed to find many more examples of decent, 3-dimensional Native Americans in fiction in general, and that is, quite frankly, a travesty.

Maybe, in the end, that will be Twilight’s legacy: helping to bring Native American characters into the spotlight, and setting a trend for future writers to follow. One can only hope.

So I guess this means I’m on Team Jacob, huh?

This article was originally published in December, 2009.

Last week I pointed out the rather disgusting sexual appetites of certain fantasy heroines, namely Buffy Summers, Sookie Stackhouse, and Bella Swan.

But when you take a second look at these vampire/human couples, there’s another disturbing trend: an age gap.

Specifically, an age gap that in some cases spans several centuries.

And these are couples that in some cases involve a teenage girl. So why are we okay with this?

(Bill Compton of True Blood, you get a pass this week. Sure, you’re scandalously older than you’re girlfriend Sookie — you were in the Civil War, after all — but at least Sookie’s an adult.)

Let’s start with you, Edward Cullen, with your big dreamy eyes and your dirty, dirty hair. Sure, you may have that young, boy-next-door, Cedric Diggory-kind of appeal, but lurking behind that underdeveloped chest is the cold, dead heart of an old geezer. Does anyone else think it’s insanely creepy that an old man just keeps going back to high school?

It reminds me of that moment in Dazed and Confused when Matthew McConaughey says, “That’s what I love about these high school girls, man. I get older, they stay the same age.” That was unsettling to hear from him, and he was a hot dude in his 20s!

And then you not only go after this girl, you fill her head with nonsense about how all you want to do is kill her, but you’re such a gentleman that you’ll behave and let her live. And somehow you get her to love you for it!

Do they not have Megan’s Law in Forks, Washington?

But of course, that’s merely Twilight, which came well after the couple that started it all: Buffy and Angel. Before they got all freaky with each other, it was relatively unheard of for humans to sleep with vampires. What did you unleash, Joss Whedon?

He was 247. She was 16. He kept telling her how much he loved her, and waited, patiently, until finally having sex with her on the night of her 17th birthday. You got that? He slept with her the moment she became legal. That’s just as creepy as all of those websites counting down to the day the Olsen twins turned 17.

And sure, she was technically legal when she started having crazy house-shattering sex with the punky Spike, but he was still over the hundred year mark, while she was a mere 21. And furthermore, he had been in her life since she was 16 — albeit as a mortal enemy — so he had known her in the context of being a child. What’s the deal, William the Bloody?

Aside from the fact that these are beautiful girls, one has to wonder just what someone who’s been alive that long would really have to talk about with a 16-year-old girl. Here’s a sample conversation:

Vampire: Hey, you.

Girl: Hey, you. You know what I was just thinking about? The ’90s. Man, the ’90s were kick-ass.

Vampire: The ’90s? Oh, please. They had nothing on the Roaring ’20s. Man, those days were the tops.

Girl: The top of what?

Vampire: No, the tops. The cat’s meow.

Girl: You have a cat? Aw, I love cats!

Vampire: Why don’t you listen to your i-Plod?

Girl: iPod.

Vampire: I miss speakeasies.

Yeah, not a lot in common. And yet in story after emo story, we see girls getting suckered in by these debonair vamps (and interestingly, almost never do we see these stories with the genders reversed).

So let this be a cautionary tale to concerned parents out there: if you see your daughter hanging around a boy with pale skin, an anguished expression, and an unusually vast knowledge of antiquated colloquialisms, get those crucifixes and garlic ready pronto. You’ll thank me when you don’t have any unexpected grandchildren with fangs.

Looking to buy any of the projects mentioned in this article (or any other media)? Support TheTorchOnline.com by purchasing it through this link.

This article was originally published in November, 2009.

I’m a tolerant guy. I believe in the mantra “live and let live.” I don’t judge other people for what they do behind closed doors, provided no one is being hurt, everyone is an adult, and everything is consensual.

But I’m taking a stand: I think sex with a dead body is pretty effin’ nasty.

So why are all these fantasy heroines doing it?

Personally, I blame Buffy, that sexed up vampire slayer. The girl had a thang for corpses. Yes, corpses, plural, because she did the deed with not one but two vampires, and all the Buffy the Vampire Layer jokes that can ever be made have already been exhausted.

Psychic redneck Sookie Stackhouse from HBO’s True Blood didn’t just sleep with a vampire — she inhabits a world where many people, male and female, chase the excitement of sex with the undead, and are given the hilarious moniker “fangbangers.” Genius.

And Bella Swan from Twilight? Well … okay, I don’t really know because I’ve never read the books, but I read online that she and Emo King Edward Cullen do eventually make the beast with two backs, despite the entire story being some kind of weird allegory for teen chastity. (Because how else to encourage young girls to guard their virtue by inundating them with sexual images of guys like the one below?)

It’s funny, this new creature that is the sexually active vampire. Vampires have been sensual creatures ever since Bram Stoker penned Dracula, and Anne Rice reinvigorated the idea of erotically appealing vamps with Interview with the Vampire way back in 1973. But Dracula never actually sealed the deal with Mina Harker, and Anne Rice made it clear that these were dead bodies that just happened to be walking around.

Lest you think they work like living bodies, Rice specifies. Never one to shy away from descriptions of bodily functions, she explained that once a person becomes a vampire, their body evacuates itself, and they can never eat (food) again. Furthermore, all their … stuff … stops working, so no sex for Lestat, sexy as he may be.

But then along came Buffy and Angel, and their tragic romance — she was born to kill all vampires, and he got all fangy whenever he got excited. So naturally, who better to lose her virginity to? According to Angel, vampires don’t breathe, even though we see him panting and smoking cigarettes at times. What’s more, we’re informed that his heart isn’t beating. But if … well … doesn’t his heart have to beat, so blood can flow in order to … well, you see where I’m going with this.

In any case, ew.

All the rules of death were thrown at the window for True Blood, because those southern vampires have a lot of sex. With a lot of people. In every conceivable combination. They’re still dead, though, Sookie! Gross!

As for Bella, well, I can tell from the inescapable advertisements for New Moon that she’s involved in a love triangle between vampire Edward and werewolf Jacob, so I guess it’s a toss-up between necrophilia and bestiality.  (I say go with the werewolf — at least he’ll keep you warm at night.)

I get the forbidden love, Romeo and Juliet angle that a relationship between a vampire and a human offers.

But ew! Dead bodies!

Curious about the quiz’s other answers?

• Happy belated birthday to that lovable plumber, Mario! IGN takes a lengthy look at the most recognizable character in videogaming. (Sorry, Link.)

• I didn’t even know there was a True Blood comic, but io9 gives us the dirt on the latest issue, co-written by Alan Ball himself, as well as a bunch of other funny books.

• Ain’t it Cool News has a neat recurring column called Behind the Scenes Pic of the Day, where they show things like … this. Any Star Wars fan should instantly recognize this puppet.

• While we’re on the subject of Star Wars, someone with way too much time on their hands figured out it was actually a TIE fighter pilot (they were the bad guys) who saved the day at the end of A New Hope. This has to be seen to be believed.

• Planning your next vacay? Make sure to avoid the Most Dangerous Places in Comics!

• I’m a huge Mortal Kombat fan, and one word I would never think to use to describe the characters in that game is “cute.” Until now.

• Finally, here’s a hilarious book trailer (I love that that’s a thing now) for Night of the Living Trekkies, which from the trailer I gather is about a Star Trek convention as the setting for a battle against zombies. Engage!

There are many things I love in life. I love my parents. I love my friends. I love playing online Tetris for free. I love a tall, ice-cold pint of beer. I love that the space bar will pause Youtube, Hulu, and Netflix Instant viewing.

I love all of these things and never have to defend that. But one thing I occasionally do find myself defending is my love of fantasy.

In a way, I get it. Fantasy is, on its surface, a genre packed to the gills with elves, dragons, and wizards — not exactly grown-up fair. How can a story with magic spells and dashing princes compare to the very realistic plays of Tennessee Williams, the written works of Jack Kerouac, or the films of Gus Van Sant? What makes fantasy so great?

In a word: metaphor.

For those not too proud to explore a work of fantasy and not too dense to look beneath its surface, the fantasy genre is a rich addition to the literary, film, and television canon because it explores very real human problems and desires by creating allegories through which to explore them.

Name any fantasy work that has withstood the test of time, and you will find in it a fable full of lessons of all too real applicability.

Michael Ende’s landmark novel, The Neverending Story, which was turned into a decent movie in the ’80s, is about a young boy named Bastian Balthazar Bux, who is neglected by his father and bullied by his schoolmates. He finds a book that transports him into another world called Fantasia, a world that is the embodiment of all the dreams and fantasies of the real world, which is being destroyed by an enemy called the Nothing.

The story is moving and absorbing not due to its host of magical creatures, but because it taps in all of us that longing to be a child again, to be able to lose yourself in worlds of your own creation, before the dark, unimaginative specter of adulthood falls upon us.

This theme of the wonder of a child’s imagination is explored many times over in fantasy, from The Wizard of Oz to The Chronicles of Narnia to Labyrinth.

While passionate, romantic love is a theme explored in virtually every genre imaginable, has there ever been a better representation of the honest, pure love between friends as there was in The Lord of the Rings? The entire sprawling epic that is Tolkien’s masterpiece essentially hangs on a single conceit: that we as an audience accept that Sam will do anything for Frodo.

This is a hard sell for some, because the notion of the power and beauty of platonic love is not a prevalent idea in our culture. Their relationship isn’t romantic so there’s no promise of sex. Frodo is hardly royalty so there’s no allure of vast treasures. Sam is committed to Frodo, with no reward expected, because that’s just the kind of person he is, and who wouldn’t want a friend like Sam? Who wouldn’t want to be a friend like Sam?

Toss in the fact that it’s two lowly hobbits, humble and small in stature, who succeed in saving the world, and you have a classic for the ages. It takes a story about hobbits to make us see the wonder in our fellow man.

This past year, the high fantasy television show Legend of the Seeker came into its own when episodes began appearing that were not necessarily part of the larger plot, but instead focused on characters by throwing them into fantastical situations that mirrored real life problems.

Kahlan, a young woman who was torn between her sense of duty and her love for her companion, Richard, was in one episode magically split into two people, and through this spell we came to learn much about her and how difficult her burden really was.

Another episode featured Cara, a woman who was abducted and brainwashed and turned into a killer. As she attempted to regain her humanity, she was turned into a Baneling (basically a sentient zombie), thus making her metaphorical fight to be a regular person quite literal.

The point is that we could have simply watched biopics of Margaret Thatcher or Patty Hearst, and I’m sure some would be content to do just that, but those projects are limited to the real and mundane. By steeping a story in allegory, you have a much larger canvas on which to paint.

I suppose the fantasy genre will always be overlooked by those who wish to appear highbrow. After all, magic and flights of fancy are a hard sell to the academic.

But for those of us in the know, fantasy has a way of engaging our suspension of disbelief by accessing the emotional truths in stories about hobbits and goblins, and reflecting the realities of our world through a supernatural lens. Like opera and musical theater, which engage our emotions through music rather than realism, fantasy will forever be a step removed from reality, but never so far that we can’t recognize it. And it’s because of that very distance from reality that the genre is able to remark on it so keenly.

Four and a Half Torches (Out of Five)

Steampunk is the sub-genre of sci-fi set in a 19th century, Industrial Age, Jules Verne-type setting, and lately, the buzz around it is pretty much deafening.

One recent entry to the sub-genre is The Affinity Bridge by George Mann (Tor Books, $13.99).

It’s an enormously fun read.

How fun? The book has robots. And zombies. Doesn’t look like it from that cover, does it? It makes the book look old-fashioned, which it isn’t really.

If you’ve never read steampunk, the thing you need to know is that the setting isn’t supposed to be “real.” There was never a time in the 19th century when technology was anywhere near this advanced. It’s science fiction of the “future” … set in the past. The past’s vision of the future, if you will. Get it?

No matter. The story involves two investigators in Victorian London, Sir Maurice Newberry and his trusted, platonic associate Miss Veronica Hobbes. They’re investigating the mysterious crash of a zeppelin that was piloted by a robot. Did something go awry in the robot’s brain? The creator of these robots says that malfunction is impossible, but there are enough suspicious clues to make Newberry and Hobbes think there’s more to the story.

To make matters worse, a nasty virus, probably imported from India, is infecting the slums of London, turning poor people into brain-eating zombies.

George Mann might not win any awards for his prose itself — it’s very straightforward, sometimes even pedestrian. (The book isn’t written in a Victorian style.)

But the success of this book just goes to show that a “novel” isn’t just about words: it’s about storytelling. And in that respect — the most important respect of almost any novel — the author is enormously successful. The book is readable, the characters are appealing, and the plot is tight and very satisfying.

Pick this one up. And the even better news is that it seems to the first in a series,  A Newberry & Hobbes Investigation.

Looking to buy this book (or any other media)? Support TheTorchOnline.com by purchasing it through this link.

(Three and a Half Torches out of Five)

Just last week, this website was lamenting the seeming disappearance of old-fashioned, sprawling epic high fantasy. But the new book Shadow Prowler by Alexey Pehov (Tor Books, $24) proves it hasn’t disappeared completely.

Shadow Prowler, a translation of the first in a trilogy that is enormously popular in Russia, is the story of Harold, a thief in the medieval city of Avedoom who is way down on his luck. It doesn’t help that evil is clearly afoot in the land in the form demons on the loose and an eerie fog rolling in — the work of the evil Nameless One, no doubt.

Soon Harold is given a commission by the king he literally can’t refuse: steal a magical artifact called the Rainbow Horn, something that will help in the fight against the Nameless One.

Soon Harold, a classic reluctant hero, is drawn into joining a band of warriors setting off on a much greater quest.

The translation is certainly readable (although there is some occasional awkwardness, especially in its shifts between first and third person).

And — I don’t know if it’s the fact that the author is Russian 0r what — there is a certain irony-free innocence to both the characters and the prose. Sometimes the book reads like a kids’ book, or as if it is a tale spoken directly to the reader, and the effect can be quite charming.

Alas, the book is also a pretty good reminder of what made sprawling epic fantasies go out of fashion in the first place: we’ve heard all this before. Yes, there are a few details that are different from The Lord of the Rings — some elves have fangs, for example. But story-wise, there is nothing fresh here.

And — a major pet peeve of mine — the book simply doesn’t stand on its own: it’s just a set-up for the rest of the trilogy. I liked the opening half of the book, when Harold is a thief working on his own. But once he joined with a group of adventurers (the inspiration for the very misleading cover painting, apparently), I confess I got bored, mostly because so much of it seemed like padding.

I don’t think it’s asking too much that, if you’re going to write a trilogy, each book have its own individual story, with its own set-up and resolution — even if that “resolution” doesn’t resolve the overall story and just makes me desperate to read the next book. There story here, at least in the second half of the book, just seemed too slight for me.

Still, fans of epic fantasy trilogies could probably do much worse.

Looking to buy this book (or buy any other media)? Support TheTorchOnline.com by purchasing it through this link.

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Book Expo America, or BEA, is the largest trade book fair in North America, which means that pretty much every single publisher in the U.S. (plus many from overseas) converge on the universally loathed Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City for one brief, packed week of buzz about books.

Last week, I joined the thousands of footsore book enthusiasts making the long walk from 8th Avenue to the Javitz Center, in search of this fall’s big trends in fantasy literature. Here’s what I discovered:

1. Zombies: They Just Keep Coming Back

Zombies may be much less alluring than vampires (all that rotting flesh is kind of a turn-off), but this fall, they’re poised to take over the world.

In September, Ace Books’ leads off with Dust by Joan Frances Turner, written from the first person perspective of a girl who died nine years ago in a car crash and came back as a zombie. Most zombie novels are told from the perspective of humans fleeing the horde, so this book delivers a twist from the get-go: See what it really feels like to be undead.

Not to be outdone, Orbit launches a series called Living With the Dead by Jesse Petersen. Book 1, Married With Zombies (coming in September), follows a married couple on the verge of divorce whose marriage counselor turns out to be a zombie. The follow-up, Flip This Zombie, comes out in January 2011. According to the catalog copy, “the couple that slays together, stays together.” Cue laugh track.

Building on their success with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, tiny (and eccentric) publisher Quirk Books will publish Night of the Living Trekkies by Kevin Anderson and Sam Stall in September. The story follows a group of Trekkies, dressed as their favorite characters, at a Star Trek convention that is attacked by a horde of zombies. You know you want to read it.

The young adult market also has zombie fever. In September, look for Zombies Vs. Unicorns (Simon & Schuster) edited by Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier; it’s a collection of short stories about, you guessed it, zombies and unicorns. In October, Jonathan Maberry’s Rot and Ruin (Simon & Schuster) tells the story of a teenager growing up in a zombie-infested America.

2. Steampunk: When Victorian Machines Attack

Another trend in fantasy this fall is steampunk — a growing genre (and subculture) in which Victorian-era machines and technology (you know, steam-powered stuff) intersect with magic. Think Sherlock Holmes (the recent movie starring Robert Downey, Jr.), and add something paranormal: magicians, vampires, etc.

Cherie Priest’s Dreadnought (Tor), the follow-up to her Boneshaker (which featured zombies, by the way), comes out this September. In October, Felix Gilman’s The Half-Made World (Tor) reimagines the American West as a fantasy epic.

And in the YA category, two much-anticipated steampunk adventures await. Cassandra Clare’s The Clockwork Angel, the first in a companion series to her bestselling Mortal Instruments (Simon & Schuster), comes out in August. And Scott Westerfeld’s Behemoth, the sequel to Leviathan, comes out in October.

3. Young Adult: Teens Have All the Fun

As you may have noticed, YA is everywhere in fantasy this season. One of the most interesting things I noticed at BEA was the fact that all the big buzz books were YA — there was a distinct lack of buzz in the adult fantasy genre.

Within the YA category, the biggest fantasy releases are all about angels. I don’t mean sparkly, happy angels with white wings; no, I mean fallen angels. Who become your extremely sexy boyfriend. For example, there’s Torment by Lauren Kate (Random House, Sept. 2010), the sequel to Fallen (fallen angels in reform school). And there’s Crescendo by Becca Fitzpatrick (Simon & Schuster, Nov. 2010), the sequel to her bestelling Hush, Hush (fallen angels in the country). Alexandra Adornetto’s Halo (Feiwel & Friends, Aug. 2010) features a girl angel instead of a boy.

Not into angels? Firelight by Sophie Jordan (HarperTeen, Sept. 2010) is about a girl who can shapeshift into a dragon, and “her dangerous romance with the boy whose family hunts her” (according to the publisher). And then there’s Paranormalcy (HarperTeen, Oct. 2010), about an otherwise normal girl who works for the International Paranormal Containment Agency. Oh yeah; her ex-boyfriend is a fairy and she’s falling in love with a shapeshifter.

Most of the lead YA titles appear to be chasing the popularity of Twilight, but the jury is out on whether angels, even fallen ones, can defeat vampires.

4. High Fantasy: Kind of at a Low Point

Despite the fact that the penultimate novel of Robert Jordan’s monumental Wheel of Time series is coming out this fall — Towers of Midnight by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson (Tor, Oct. 2010) — there was mighty little buzz about traditional high fantasy at this year’s BEA. In fact, during my time on the show floor, I couldn’t even find representatives from two of the major genre publishers, Tor and Del Rey. (Admittedly, everyone agreed that this year BEA was much smaller than in the past, and limited to two days instead of three.)

That said, HBO’s upcoming adaptation of George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones may be poised to inject some buzz into the high fantasy genre. And even though publishers weren’t pushing big fantasy epics this fall, their catalogs still contain them — from Tad Williams‘ Shadowheart (Daw, Nov. 2010) to the Black Library’s Warhammer books, which continue to sell epic fantasy mayhem around the world.

5. The Bottom Line: Fantasy is Crossing Genres

For me, the biggest takeaway from BEA regarding fantasy is this: Buzz happens to books that cross genres. Fantasy + Horror = Zombies. Fantasy + History + Early Tech = Steampunk. Fantasy + Romance = Paranormal Romance.

It’s no wonder that YA tends to generate some of the biggest buzz, because YA crosses genres all the time. Like steampunk or paranormal romance, it gives readers who might not otherwise read “fantasy” a number of hooks to grab onto.

What fantasy novels are you looking forward to this year? And can anyone really stop the zombie apocalypse?

Malinda Lo is the author of the Lambda-nominated teen fantasy novel Ash. Visit her website.

Looking to pre-order any of these books (or buy any other media)? Support TheTorchOnline.com by purchasing it through this link.

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Four and a half Torches (Out of Five)

With Dragon Haven, the follow-up to Dragon Keeper, Robin Hobb is back in fine form!

Actually, I suppose she was always in fine form — Dragon Haven and Dragon Keeper were meant to be one book, but the manuscript got too unwieldy and the publisher decided to split it in half. Maybe it’s more accurate to say that the second half of the Rain Wilds Chronicles is the reason fantasy fans have been lining up to buy Robin Hobb’s books for the last 15 years.

Dragon Haven picks up from the abrupt ending of its predecessor: A band of ragamuffin hunters and keepers are trekking through the Wilds with a group of misfit dragons, hoping to lead them to the ancient city of Kelsingra.

While the first book in the Rain Wilds chronicles was laden with character development and a sense of moving the pieces into place, Dragon Haven is where the real journey begins. Does the mythical city of Kelsingra even exist? Will the dragons and their keepers ever heal from their physical and emotional limitations? Who is the mole within the core group? Will they keep the traditions of their old society intact or form new customs?

I mentioned this is my review of Dragon Keeper, but it’s always so striking that it’s worth noting again: Robin Hobb creates some of the most complex, conflicted, authentic characters in any fantasy universe. What I love about Hobb’s characters isn’t just that they’re layered, but that all of them — from the main players to the supporting cast to the dragons — grow and change over the course of her stories to meet the challenges they’re faced with.

If I had one complaint about Dragon Haven, it would be a lack of any kind of action (except a flood). The plot is tight and quick without any major battles or disasters, but Hobb writes them so well, and in a way that gives most of her stories a greater sense of urgency, that it seems like a shame not to have included any this volume. It would have been interesting to see this group handle external conflict as a team, to see how it could have changed their dynamic.

Aside from the fully-realized characters, there’s plenty of other Hobb trademarks in Dragon Haven. The setting is so lush and dense that it feels like the Rain Wilds are a character all their own. And, of course, there’s the prose. Hobb has such a refreshing way with words, with turns of phrase, even with dialogue. It’s why she can get away with writing less action in an action-thirsty genre. She is, at times, mesmerizing in Dragon Haven.

Dragon Keeper and Dragon Haven do not work as standalone volumes. They need to be read together to be appreciated, and, frankly, to be understood. It’s a hefty tome if you consider the books together, but it’s definitely worth the time.

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Three Torches (Out of Five)

Full disclosure: I’m not a huge fan of “novelizations” — usually quickly-done novels based on popular movies or TV shows.

That said, while they’ve never gotten much respect in critical or literary worlds, novelizations have their place in the greater world, especially among uber-fans of whatever show or movie is being novelized.

A new Supernatural novelization, Supernatural: The Unholy Cause, will probably satisfy these fans — but I can’t imagine it will get them too excited either.

The book is set at some point in Season 5 — Sam has released Lucifer from his prison, but the Apocalypse hasn’t yet officially started.

The boys visit a Civil War reenactment where the “reenacting” is frightening real: people are dying, in a way much like soldiers really did in a battle over a hundred years earlier. It turns out there are ancient artifacts at work here, and a group of demons who are up to no good. The brothers, of course, must put a stop to it all.

In a way, novelizations are a bit of a “cheat,” because the characterizations — which are among the most difficult part of any novel — are all firmly preestablished. But there’s a danger there too: the author of the novelization must effectively capture characters that fans love and know very, very well.

Here author Joe Schreiber does a fine job. Dean really sounds like Dean, Sam sounds like Sam, and Castiel is there for (sometimes very funny) comic relief. (Sam and Dean present themselves as “Agents Townes and Van Zandt.”)

But it must be said: we don’t really learn anything new about any of them. (Part of me suspects this must be required, that when authors sign novelization contracts, they must agree to follow a list of very specific conditions.)

And the story itself? It passable, and it does read like an episode of the series, although a pretty by-the-numbers one. I did like the appearance of one of the thirty pieces of silver paid to Judas, now, naturally, an evil artifact.

Bottom line? If you’re a die-hard Supernatural fan, desperate for a “forgotten” stand-alone episode of the show, you could probably do worse.

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