Mean Streets and Urban Fantasy

Continuing my quest to keep up with Jim Butcher's Dresden Files, I discovered Mean Streets in the library a couple of months ago. This collection introduced me to 3 other authors writing in the genre called variously "urban fantasy" or paranormal or occult fiction. Mean Streets was a fun but failed as an introduction to the genre because it lacked any text other than the 4 novellas themselves and the briefest of author bios. If publishers are going to issue collections like this, I wish they'd use the model of Steampunk (http://alms-jact.blogspot.com/2009/06/steampunk-sub-genre-i-didnt-know-had.html) . I want an explanation of the history of the genre, its literary antecedents, and some explanation of why these particular authors were included. As it is Mean Streets comes across as book produced because the publisher happened to have 4 items, too long to include in a short story compilation but not long enough to publish as standalones.

The book contains "The warrior" by Jim Butcher, "The difference a day makes" by Simon R. Green, "The third death of the little clay dog" by Kat Richardson and "Noah's orphans" by Thomas E. Sniegoski. I enjoyed the first 3 immensely but was left cold by "Noah's orphans." Twelve years of Catholic schooling gave me some grasp of the concept of angels so when they became hot some years back, I got turned off -- too anthropomorphical, rather silly and frilly-looking.

Since finishing Mean Streets, I've read 2 more novels by Green and continue to find Nightside a wonderful invention and the protagonist, John Taylor, a near-perfect noir P.I. I'd love to see this series used as the basis for a television program. Since Mr. Green lives in England, I figure there's always the possibility that the BBC or Granada or another British television producer will try to bring it to the screen. Kat Richardson's Greywalker series makes a solid contribution to the female P.I. tradition and I enjoyed the second novel in the series as well as her contribution to Mean Streets. Sadly the library doesn't have the first; perhaps one of these days I'll stumble across a copy at a bookstore. I did read the first book in the angel as P.I. series by Mr. Sniegoski, a prolific y.a. and fantasy writer, but it didn't convince me to change my mind about angels, even if it was set in Boston, a city I'm familiar with from visits growing up and time spent with friends attending college there.