Bordertown/Borderlands fantasy series to get another volume
Now here's some cool news: Holly Black and Ellen Kushner have sold another volume of stories in the venerable and beloved Bordertown series. This was a series of linked stories and novels about a world in which the Kingdom of the Fairy returns to Earth, connected by a mystical gateway, and about the goings-on in the Bordertown that sits in between the world of humans and the world of magic, a town where technology and sorcery only work intermittently and runaways, rejects, nutcases and heroes gather. It had an incredibly powerful impact on me as a young reader, sparking a lifelong love-affair with contemporary fantasy.
I've been invited to write a story, and I leapt at the chance. Other writers committed or "expressing interest" include Charles De Lint, Emma Bull, Will Shetterly, Neil Gaiman and Kelly Link. I don't have the faintest idea what I'm going to write, except that it will probably revolve around a group house or squat.
(Image ganked from "The Journal of Mythic Arts")
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Sweet! This was a great series to find in high school. Helped in no small part by the freaky motorcycle designs on the covers. I desperately wanted to understand how the front-wheel drive cycle worked. Yeah, I bought most of my books back then based on cover art alone.
HOLY COW!
I remember reading these books, but couldn't remember the title or author. I've occasionally tried to explain it to people: "It's on the border between the human and elf world, teenagers squatting, kind of a punk feel..." Always blank stares.
Thanks SO MUCH for posting.
Anyone who hasn't read these books, go do it. They're incredibly cool.
Guns dude, lots and lots of guns.
Neat to hear. Lots of familiar folks contributed to this in the past.
I will be looking forward to it.
this is SO COOL!
Maybe now they'll bring the other two back into print.
Right now, Amazon has Borderland, used, paperback, from $23.98
I, also, will be looking forward to the new one.
Awesome. The were great books, and I was always mystified that there weren't more of them.
Not only that but Gaiman and DeLint in the same book together... Must own.
Never heard of it, found the wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Borderland_Series but cannot find the books for sale anywhere. Any help?
I'm not making any kind of value judgement, but those two covers look a bit homoerotic, I wonder whether the series somehow carries that kind of subtext as well.
YES!
Now, if we can only get the other books in the series back in print, or POD, or something...
those two covers look a bit homoerotic
I thought it was gay porn when I first looked. Especially the one on the left.
Homoerotic? Each cover has 1 woman on the left and 1 man on the right. These were printed back in the 80's when punk girls usually were shown with short "boy" cuts. I guess if you like it to be homoerotic, be happy. Don't want to be the one to disappoint you.
Awesome series, waited a long time for more and finally gave up. Guess I didn't wait long enough!
Nice hearing that you're going to contribute Cory, looking forward to where you will take it.
Each cover has 1 woman on the left and 1 man on the right.
Well sting me like a gosh-darned bee. You must admit that the image on the left has a lot of lines running toward that guy's crotch.
Wow, this is awesome. I too read these when I was young and was very inspired by the setting. The whole motorcycles running on magic thing was so new and fresh. Great stuff. I think I have these stored somewhere...
Best would be a re-issue with the SAME COVERS! I cannot remember the artist, but they captured the gritty scope of the stories so well.
I've never heard of this series before. Guess I'll have to do a bit of investigating, because it sounds interesting :)
"Each cover has 1 woman on the left and 1 man on the right."
Bobbymike, that's one of the major reasons why the cover looks homoerotic: the women have been desexualized to the point of looking like either effeminate guys or butch dikes, the genders seem to have been merged into some kind of visual "bordertown", so to speak.
Also, as mentioned by Antinous, the crotch thing seems less than subtle.
Again, no need to get any specific emotion out of this, it's just something that sometimes happens despite the artist's intentions.
Thanks, Cory! We are thrilled to have you with us; can't wait to hang out at your squat. I'm thinking of doing some kind of private group site for all the writers, where we can check out each other's characters and make sure we've got the street names straight....Part of what made B'town so special for all of us was the collaborative nature - if we'd been able to do that back then, we would've!
Everyone: I think that the 4th & most recent antho, _The Essential Bordertown: A Traveller's Guide to the Edge of Faerie,_ ed. Terri Windling & Delia Sherman (Tor Books), is still in print. It's got some great stories in it, and was many people's favorite. It was also supposed to be a riff on the "Rough Guide" series, and contains lots of interstitial material in the form of hints on how to survive in B'town.
Also, I think Will Shetterly's 2 great B'town novels (Elsewhere & Nevernever) & Emma Bull's Finder are still pretty easy to find; they've been through many editions, incl. as recent YA reprints.
Sweeeet! I was just thinking about these books the other day. I loved this series as a youngster. The characters were really fleshed out. I would kill to write for this. So many divergent worlds. So much technology that could fail depending where you are. Elvin street gangs. Good stuff!
Why do they look 'de-sexualized' to you? Because the women don't have long hair and big boobs, and high-heeled boots or something? I see very feminine women dressed like this all the time- it's actually normal, you know, and not just on 'butch dikes' (ugh, really?!)? Seems like you have some issues with gender stereotyping... hmm. Sexist much?
Terri Windling's own "Bordertown" page has links to all the volumes (and if you buy them by going through her site, % of her money goes to a charity for kids at risk):
http://windling.typepad.com/editing/borderland.html
both of these books seem to have gone missing from my collection -- aaaargh!
loved the cover-art, too.
sheesh - never knew there were more than just these two. NICE!
That cover art is by Phil Hale...whose most recent claim to fame is his portrait of England's Tony Blair. More of Hale's work is here:
http://www.allenspiegelfinearts.com/hale.html
The Blair portrait controversy here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/bbc_parliament/7365582.stm
Excellent! I just found the first volume at a local used book shop. Looking forward to checking these out.
Excellent! It is a great shared universe with a lot of great writers. It is nice to see it return.
Be rather nice if they were all released in kindle format.
I've a kindle and these would be the first books I've actually bought for it. I usually just use it for old out of print/copyright stuff.
Ward
I can't think of this premise without automatically thinking of my introduction to the world of Borderlands "The Last Hot Time" by John Ford. The book was magnificent, and I read it multiple times. I'd strongly suggest it. The book flies by. http://www.nesfa.org/reviews/Olson/LastHotTime.html
For those hung up on sexuality, or cloth folds in the crotch, not only are the figures male and female, they are elven and human---
hsm