Half City
Half City
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Genre Context: Romantasy and the New Wave of Genre-Bending Fiction
Half City is a contemporary example of romantasy, a rapidly growing subgenre that merges the complex world-building of fantasy with the character-driven plot of a romance novel. Unlike traditional fantasy, where romance is often a subplot, romantasy places the romantic relationship at the narrative’s core, making its development as important as the external conflict. This genre has seen a massive surge in popularity, largely driven by TikTok’s BookTok community, where hashtags like #romantasy have accumulated billions of views and can launch books onto bestseller lists (SuperSummary. “A Reader's Guide to BookTok: Meaning, Impact, and More”).
The term romantasy gained widespread usage during the 2020s, though the genre draws on a much longer tradition of fantasy works that foreground romantic relationships. Authors such as Anne McCaffrey, whose Dragonriders of Pern series helped popularize character-driven fantasy with strong romantic elements, and Juliet Marillier, whose novel Daughter of the Forest blends Celtic fantasy with a central love story, helped establish a readership interested in stories that combine fantasy adventure with emotionally driven romantic plots. Publishing houses increasingly market romantasy as a distinct category, reflecting both consumer demand and the genre’s growing commercial influence (“The Rise of Romantasy: Why Fantasy Romance Is Dominating 2026” Hyphen Publishers, 20 Feb. 2026). The popularity of romantasy has also encouraged experimentation with hybrid forms that blend fantasy with mystery, horror, contemporary fiction, and other genres.
Many contemporary romantasy novels also borrow heavily from adjacent genres such as urban fantasy, paranormal romance, gothic fiction, and dark academia. These works often feature hidden magical societies, morally complex love interests, elite institutions, or supernatural threats embedded within recognizable social settings. As a result, modern romantasy frequently emphasizes atmosphere, interpersonal conflict, and character development alongside large-scale fantasy world-building.
Half City employs several key elements popular within this trend. Its setting, Harker Academy, taps into the magical school trope, while the antagonistic dynamic between Viv and the demon Reid utilizes the perennially popular enemies-to-lovers framework common in the genre. The novel also blends this structure with other popular subgenres. Its setting of a hidden magical world within a gritty, contemporary metropolis is a hallmark of urban fantasy, while the moody, academic atmosphere of Harker Academy incorporates the aesthetic of dark academia. This fusion of popular, social-media-friendly genres creates a text that is both timely and representative of current literary market trends.
Sociogeographical Context: The Divided City
The world of Half City is built around a stark physical and social divide: The Chasm, a massive crevasse that splits the city of Astera in two. This concept of a “divided city” is a real-world phenomenon in which urban spaces are segregated by physical, political, or socioeconomic barriers. Historically, the most prominent example is Berlin during the Cold War, which was physically and ideologically separated by the Berlin Wall from 1961 to 1989. This barrier created two distinct societies, isolating communities and turning West Berlin into what was described as “an island in a red sea of communism” (“Living in a Divided City: West-Berlin.” visitBerlin). In Half City, the Chasm functions similarly, creating a clear demarcation between the affluent, powerful residents “North of the Chasm” and the working-class, marginalized communities living “South of the Chasm.” This geographical split reinforces a rigid social hierarchy.
Contemporary cities also exhibit such divisions, often along socioeconomic lines. Urban geography researchers refer to this as “uneven development,” where wealth and resources concentrate in certain areas while others are neglected. A 2023 Stanford study published in Nature found that in America’s largest metropolitan areas, such as Los Angeles and Chicago, residents are significantly less likely to interact with people from different socioeconomic backgrounds (Nilforoshan, Hamed, et al. Human Mobility Networks Reveal Increased Segregation in Large Cities. Nature, 29 Nov. 2023). This reality is mirrored in Astera, where Viv notes that nobody from the wealthy northern districts travels to her southern neighborhood of Babylon, illustrating how the Chasm is more than a geological feature; it is a social barrier that institutionalizes inequality and shapes the lives and identities of its citizens.
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