Book Nook: 'Welcome to Bordertown'

Title: Welcome to Bordertown

Author: Edited by Holly Black and Ellen Kushner

Genre: YA urban fantasy shared world anthology

The gist: Bordertown is like an urban fantasy that got caught in an '80s time-loop before getting hacked by modern youth. It has every style and every fashion from nature-y type elves to punk rock to iPhones and Internet, with lesbians and Indians and Hispanics and a wolf that uses sign language wrapped up in coffee and quests and rock concerts. It's messy and it's crazy and it's beautiful, and the tales all focus on runaways and misfits which populate the town and roll the stories together in a way that hints at One Thousand and One Arabian Nights.

Cover art: An ivy-covered magic motorcycle is a compelling image for a collection of urban fantasy stories.

Summary:

Bordertown is a city on the Border between the human world and the elfin realm. It is a place where neither magic nor technology can be counted on, where elf and human kids run away to find themselves. The Way from our world to the Border has been blocked for thirteen long years… Now the Way is open once again--and Bordertown welcomes a new set of seekers and dreamers, misfits and makers, to taste life on the Border.

Here are 13 interconnected stories, one graphic story and eight poems--all of which are new work by some of today’s best urban fantasy, fantasy and slipstream writers, including: Christopher Barzak, Holly Black, Steven Brust, Emma Bull, Cassandra Clare, Charles de Lint, Cory Doctorow, Amal El-Mohtar, Neil Gaiman, Nalo Hopkinson, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Annette Curtis Klause, Ellen Kushner, Patricia McKillip, Dylan Meconis, Tim Pratt, Sara Ryan, Delia Sherman, Will Shetterly, Janni Lee Simner, Catherynne M. Valente, Terri Windling and Jane Yolen.

The best part: It's like my favorite authors got together with their friends and wrote fan-fiction about the inside of my head. It's amazing and fits so perfectly in the urban fantasy shaped hole in my heart that I worry I might actually have hallucinated the entire book. Instant favorite.

The worst part: It doesn't quite capture the fluidity of story and narrative between the tales as well as I'd like, although it is better than most anthologies and I am difficult to please when it comes to short story collections.

Setting: All of the stories are connected by Bordertown, a New York City-type place that lies on the border between Faerie and our own mortal realm, where magic and technology never work quite right. The abandoned town is the perfect setting for runaway teens who don’t feel as if they belong. Teens in particular have a way of finding hidden places right out in the open. They find the unused, undesirable spaces and bring them to life again, and those places always have the fingerprint of wild magic on them.

Plot: Bordertown has been shut off from the real world for 13 days, except in the real world it’s actually been thirteen years and now that the border is open again, a new wave of kids come tumbling in with Internet, mobile phones, inexplicable styles and so much more. The gap in time gives authors an interesting way to look at technology because the Internet really opened a wedge between those who use and understand it and those who came before. Being on the cusp is nice and that is right where this book sits, practically begging for more urban fantasy that breaks down boundaries and smashes preconceived notions, all while checking Twitter on an iPhone. Some of the "older" writers’ characters are all "Waah, the Internet changed things overnight” and are a bit overshadowed by the characters who don't sound stuck in the '80s, but overall there is a nice balance.

Characters: The characters are misfits, runaways, street urchins and other kids who are unwanted or don’t fit into society. They are all unique in their own ways and written by different authors, but the streak that connects them is the same thing that disconnects them from the rest of society.  

Quotes:

"Maybe there's a shape that stories have when you look at them in more than three dimensions, a shape that's obviously right or wrong, the way a cube is a cube and if it has a short side or a side that's slanted, you can just look at it and say, 'That's not a cube.' Maybe the right kind of dramatic necessity makes an obvious straight line between two points." – Shannon’s Law

"And of course it [Bordertown] went away. Of course it did. I mean, that's like the job of magical places, to vanish. Atlantis. Avalon. Middle Earth." – A Voice Like a Hole

In which I babble: Bordertown is the kind of place that can be embraced by fans much in the same manner as Hogwarts. I would happily dress up and don Bordertown garb just as quickly as I reach for my Ravenclaw scarf.

Reminds me of: The Spoutwood Farm Fairie Festival is held annually on May Day and reminds me very distinctly of Bordertown.

Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers

Release date: May 24, 2011

Purchase the book here.