I've just finished reading Glen Cook's latest Garrett novel, _Angry Lead Skies_, and I was wondering why I like his fantasy noir-LA-in-Weimar-Germany so much. I think part of the reason is that he cuts up the standard fantasy cliches of isolated races and blood purity so vigorously and ruthlessly. Sure, the elves and the dwarves and the trolls all full of traditional xenophobic anitpathy towards one another, but that doesn't stop them from having sex for more than the two or three seconds it takes to figure out the plumbing.

It's urban fantasy, in the sense that cosmopolitanism is a vital thematic element. City air breathes free, even when it's full of smog.