What foolishness makes an author leave his/her comfort zone and step into something different? Probably madness, especially, since in my case, I once contended that I did not have the imagination for urban fantasy! My current work-in-progress, Dragons, Demons & Demigods, moves from historical, and in my instance ancient history, into the realm of urban fantasy.
What is urban fantasy? There is a plethora of possible definitions, and some contend that urban fantasy has already been supplanted by contemporary fantasy or magical realism. In my view, it is a subgenre of fantasy, placing supernatural elements in a contemporary urban-affected setting. But what is “contemporary”? Dragons, Demons & Demigods is partly set in 1940s World War II Belfast, Northern Ireland, which is about eighty years in the past. Is that contemporary? I argue it is sufficiently in the past to be “historical” and hence I can justify why I dipped my toes in a tale based in my home city.
Dragons, Demons & Demigods is currently with my team of beta-readers, my cover designer has been briefed, and I am looking for an illustrator who can visualize the key races in the novel. A cartographer has already produced a map of the mythical Land of Immensity, which is revealed in this blog.
To give you a flavour of Dragons, Demons & Demigods. To the working-class neighbours around them in the streets of East Belfast, Northern Ireland, in the 1940s, Clío and Lazarus are granddaughter and grandpa. Yet both are millennia old. Lazarus is the former High King of a mythical race known as the Tuatha Dé. Clío does not know who or what she is, but her dreams are increasingly troubling.
Lazarus knows what she is and should have told her several millennia ago. He made a promise to Clío’s mother, Bráchthine, Queen of the Dragons, to protect Clío and educate her on her legacy. He failed on the latter and over-compensated on the former. Likely he would have continued to procrastinate but one thing intervened—puberty. Her early morning wail of, “I’ve got scales!” shattered any plans of more stalling. The promiscuous brat he had coddled for thousands of years had beome the most powerful creature in several worlds and heir to the Dragon Throne.
Dragons, Demons & Demigods—The Beginning of a New Series from Author David H. Millar
October 10, 2025
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