A capacity crowd applauded and laughed through the Men of Urban Fantasy (UF) panel, Fri 8:30PM, International Ballroom (W).  Fans took every chair, stood, or sat on the floor. In the hallway outside the panel, more fans discussed the popularity of the genre and the panelists’ books as they waited for space in the room to become available.

Kevin J. Anderson, Jim Butcher, John G. Hartness, D. B. Jackson, Jonathan Maberry, and S. M. Stirling answered fans’ questions and one-upped each other, chatting about their individualized brands of urban fantasy. Butcher’s Dresden Files attracted fan queries like juicy romance novels attract Bob the Skull. The panelists wooed fans with anecdotes ranging from embalming parlor make-over tales to true accounts of thieftakers who stole to recover fees for stolen, then returned, goods, to adventures of chain-smoking, gun-toting, whiskey-swilling priests, were-T-rexes, and giant were-spiders, to bubbas serving as monster-hunters for the Catholic Church. As shown by the verve at the head table, the authors thoroughly enjoyed the panel, too.