Noir... Hardboiled.

I love Noir. Deep, dark, nitty-gritty storyline. The ones that make you jump and the ones that make you seem like you know what is going on, only to find out that you don't. The whole thing is twisted around and you feel like this is the last shot that you have before something bigger happens.

Originally it was called Hardboiled, and it was known as a literary style, most commonly associated with detective stories. However, it was even more distinguished by the unsentimental portrayal of violence and sex, and do I mean a lot of violence and sex. Originally it was published in Pulp magazines. It was where the Maltese Falcon was published for the first time. Noir was a sub-genre where the protagonist is usually not a detective, but instead either a victim, a suspect, or a perpetrator. They were someone tied directly to the crime, not an outsider called to solve or fix the situation. Other common characteristics were the emphasis on sexual relationships and the use of sex to advance the plot and the self-destructive qualities of the lead characters.

However, Noir is a dying breed. Now I don't mean that in a bad way, nor in a good way. After all, Noir is probably what makes the current craze of Urban fiction so popular. Noir is the basis of the new Urban Fiction line of books. All those authors out there, from Jim Butcher (Dresden Files) and Laurell K. Hamilton (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Books) to Lilith Saintcrow (Jill Kistmit, Hunter Books) and even Sergei Lukyanenko (The Night Watch Series), all of these series involve the supernatural and the same kind of Noir type writing style. They are fantastic.

However, I must insist that someone else has also thought of this as well. I now point you to one of my favorite sites, io9, to an article that they too have on this very same matter and insist that you read it and familiarize yourself with their point of view as well as with the Manifesto that was written to this extent.

The Link is here...

Please read it and see what I also see in this and make some comments!