Welcome to Bordertown

Welcome to Bordertown (2011) — Anthology edited by Holly Black. Welcome to Bordertown is the fifth book in the Borderland series of shared-universe anthologies.

Genre and Sub-Genres[]

Urban Fantasy

Theme[]

The Way from our world to the Border is open once again after thirteen years—and Bordertown welcomes a new set of seekers and dreamers, misfits and makers.

Description[]

✤ Bordertown: a city on the border between our human world and the elfin realm. Runaway teens come from both sides of the border to find adventure, to find themselves. Elves play in rock bands and race down the street on spell-powered motorbikes. Human kids recreate themselves in the squats and clubs and artists' studios of Soho.

Terri Windling's original Bordertown series was the forerunner of today's urban fantasy, introducing authors that included Charles de Lint, Will Shetterly, Emma Bull, and Ellen Kushner. In this volume of all-new work (including a 15-page graphic story), the original writers are now joined by the generation that grew up dreaming of Bordertown, including acclaimed authors Holly Black, Cassandra Clare, Cory Doctorow, Neil Gaiman, Catherynne M. Valente, and many more. They all meet here on the streets of Bordertown in more than twenty new interconnected songs, poems, and stories. ~ Goodreads | Welcome to Bordertown

✤ Welcome to Bordertown: a brand new Bordertown anthology created and edited by Holly Black and Ellen Kushner (with Terri's blessing and aid), published by the YA division of Random House in May 2011. The anthology features new stories from the series' original writers (Charles, Emma, Will, Ellen, and Terri, missing only Midori, who helped out behind the scenes), alongside tales from a younger generation of writers who'd grown up with Bordertown, and contributions from long-time friends of the city.

"Welcome To Bordertown is the next generation of the series," Michael Jones explains, "while simultaneously acting as the direct continuation of what has gone before. How's that? Simple. The Gates and Ways between Bordertown and the World closed. On the World side, it was a full thirteen years, just like it was for the readers. But for Bordertown and its residents, it was a mere thirteen days. A generation (or so) in the blink of an eye. The coming and going of a decade. The rise of iPods, the Internet, LOLcats, smartphones. An entire segment of the populace for whom Bordertown was just a fading myth, one of those things that may or may not have happened.

"And then the Ways opened, and everything changed. With traffic once again flowing between the worlds, with a whole new crop of runaways and fortune-seekers and opportunists and lost souls flooding into Bordertown looking for adventure and answers, and all the old hands forced to cope with years' worth of progress. But you know what? On the Border, the more things change, the more they stay the same...."

Yes, the Way to the Border is open once again. Welcome, or welcome back. And watch your step. ~ the bordertown series

✤ More: An Introduction to Bordertown | Tor.com

✤ 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. ~ Book Nook

Editor and Authors[]

Editor: Holly Black (UF, YA), Ellen Kushner (Fant, Hor),

Contributors: Terri Windling (Early-UF, Fant, YA, Edit), Cory Doctorow (SciFi, Fant, YA), Patricia A. McKillip (Fant, YA), Catherynne M. Valente (SciFi, Fant, Stmpk, shorts, poetry), Amal El-Mohtar (Fant), Emma Bull (UF, Fant), Steven Brust (Sci-Fant, Scif, Fant), Alaya Dawn Johnson (UF, Fant), Will Shetterly (Fant, Scifi, UF), Jane Yolen (Child, Fant, YA, SciFi), Janni Lee Simner (Fant, SciFi, YA, Child), Sara Ryan (YA, Graph-Novs), Dylan Meconis (Hum-Hor, Graph-Novs), Tim Pratt (Fant, UF), Annette Curtis Klause (Fant, SciFi, YA, UF), Nalo Hopkinson (Fant, SciFi, Jamaican-Fant), Delia Sherman (Fant, YA, Shorts), Christopher Barzak (Fant), Cassandra Clare (UF, YA), Neil Gaiman (UF, Fant), Charles de Lint (UF, Fant)

World[]

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. ~ Book Nook

Settings[]

LIST: Soho, Mad River, Ho Street, Borderlands, Milltown, Café Cubana, Peya, Wall, Oberon House, Riverside, Baltimore, World, New Mexico, Hard Luck Café, Toronto, Carterhaugh, Fare-you-well Park ~ Shelfari

"The Realm": Elfland (Faerie)
"The World": Human world
"Borderland" & "Bordertown": exists between

Supernatural or Fantastic Elements[]

Elves, vampire, werewolves, fae magic, Chimera, Dragons, Faerie time warp, amnesiac Trueblood, magic charm, magic book, changelings, elfin child, elf boy, halfie girl, Green Men, faeries, magic star-wish, masked hero, magic motorcycle,

Truebloods: Elves—Silver-haired, long-lived race of people that humans call elves. They, on the other hand, refer to themselves as Truebloods, and to their homeland simply as the Realm.

List of Stories[]

Story Title	Author	Supe/Fant	Lead(s)
"Welcome to Bordertown"	Ellen Kushner & Terri Windling	Fae time warp	Trish, Jimbo
"Shannon’s Law"	Cory Doctorow	fae magic	Shannon Klod, his crew
"A Voice Like A Hole"	Cathreynne M. Valente	witch	Fig, Maria
"Stairs in Her Hair"	Amal El-Motar	±	song
"Incunabulum"	Emma Bull	Amnesiac Elf, witch
"Run Back Across the Border"	Steven Brust	±	song: warning of Bordertown
"A Prince of Thirteen Days"	Alaya Dawn Johnson	magic charm; sentient Statue w: a past	Peya, aunt Rabbit
"The Sages of Elsewhere"	Will Shetterly	Magic book, were, Elves	Wolfboy, Milo, Sparks
"Soulja Grrrl: A Long Line Rap"	Jane Yolen	modern short rap	Soulja Grrrl
"Crossings"	Janni Lee Simner	vampire, werewolf	Lankin, Miranda
“Fair Trade”	Sara Ryan (writer) & Dylan Meconis (illustrator)	lost mother	young woman
"Night Song for a Halfie"	Jane Yolen	elfin child, Halfie	lullaby
"Our Stars, Our Selves"	Tim Pratt	elf boy, magic star-wish, magic motorcycle	Allie Land,
"Elf Blood"	Annette Curtis Klause	vsmpires, elves, halfbloods	Lizzie, Sky, Sky's brother
Ours is the Prettiest"	Nalo Hopkinson	Mardi Gras,	Beti, Gladstone
"The Wall"	Delia Sherman	±	non-rhyming poem
"We Do Not Come in Peace"	Christopher Barzak	human–trueblood–halfblood tension	Marius, Alek
"The Rowan Gentleman"	Holly Black, Cassandra Clare	Trueblood, halfie girl, masked hero	Ashly, Alain
"The Song of the Song"	Neil Gaiman	±	rhymed poetic story
"A Tangle of Green Men"	Charles de Lint	Green Men, Faeries	Joey Green, Juliana

To expand the table, right-press on a row of the table or (Control-press on a Mac)—choose add row.

Synopsis by Story[]

✦ "Welcome to Bordertown" by Ellen Kushner & Terri Windling

This was a sweet story about a girl who left for Bordertown and thirteen days later for her – but 13 years later for the human world – her younger brother gets a postcard she sent home and starts on a journey to find her. It is a story not only of his journey to find his older sister but to also find his place in the world. ❖ Trish left home to seek her destiny on the Border. Now that Bordertown is back, her little brother Jimbo, all grown up, is ready to find out just what happened to his beloved sister, and bring her home at last. But for Trish, it’s only been a matter of weeks since she arrived. How does her story tie into that of a Harvard scholar who’s way too interested in the sex lives of the Trueblood? For these three individuals, their fates will be decided, and not everyone is going home. ❖

✦ "Shannon’s Law" by Cory Doctorow

This is the story of 13 years zooming past in mere days. This is the next journey for all Bordertown residents–how to incorporate this newfangled technology with good ol’ fae magic. About Shannon, his crew, the amazing mix of coffee and work ethic, Wikipedia in book form, and the crazy wonderful Jetfuel. ❖ Shannon Klod makes his way to Bordertown determined to bridge the worlds with his own kludged version of the Internet, built from science and magic and uniquely Border in nature. Because where there’s a will, there’s a way, and someone’s gotta do it. But then he sets his sights on penetrating the impossible information barrier between Bordertown and the Realm, intent on being the first to transmit information into and out of Faerie. ❖ following the life and times of a technophile who brought the Internet to Bordertown—and his obssession with finding a way to send a data packet across the Border to the Realm, and get confirmation back that it was received. Essentially, to connect directly with the Realm from the World via encoded data. The real point of the story is not Shannon’s quest to make that connection with the Realm. ❖

✦ "Cruel Sister" by Patricia A. McKillip

A poem about the differences of two sisters. ❖ A poem so rich you can smell loam when you breathe. She plays fascinatingly with mirror images, and the borders between family members that sometimes aren’t enough to make you cleave together but instead cleave you apart. ❖

✦ "A Voice Like A Hole" by Cathreynne M. Valente

Follows a shy girl named Fig as she found herself and her own voice. ❖ The tale of a fifteen-year-old runaway. This is less a Bordertown story, and more a tale of the journey-to-Bordertown. Sometimes, it’s not the destination which matters so much as what you experience along the way. (Chars: Fig and Maria) ❖ The best character is the secondary character of the “witch”. ❖ It’s both brutal and beautiful, and that’s before the runaway Fig even catches sight of the Borderlands. The horrifying events of loss and being lost took place in our world, a bleak infusion of realism for a kid on the streets, and how a stolen trainride to stay warm bled into Bordertown. Arrival in Bordertown did not immediately mend what was broken, but really just represented a chance. ❖ rather sad story about a girl named Fig with a voice people can’t ignore and a friend who needs her trying to run away to Bordertown and not making it until the very end. ❖

✦ "Stairs in Her Hair" by Amal El-Motar

A fun song. ❖ Through relatively spare verse, El-Mohtar opens a vein with surgical precision and spills coins and stones and keys into your lap. They echo with loneliness, vulnerability, boldness. ❖

✦ "Incunabulum" by Emma Bull

The life of a Trueblood as he enters Bordertown–the only problem is that he can’t remember a single thing about himself before the first word on the page. He is a blank slate–or rather a blank Page–that gets filled up as the story rambles along as he gathers bits and pieces of himself–or creates new pieces–along the way. ❖ The protagonist is an amnesiac Trueblood, cast adrift in the Borderlands without so much as a name for his troubles, and absolutely no concept of How Things Should Be. His awkward fumblings as he tries to make a new life for himself, set against the possibility that he won’t like who he used to be, make this an intriguing story of starting over, of redefining oneself, of finding an identity which fits. ❖ A very compelling “day in the life of a Bordertown immigrant” portrait, complete with cutting to the heart of who a person really is and what one decides to do with that knowledge. ❖ demonstrates that it’s not only kids from the human world who seek refuge on the Border. ❖

✦ "Run Back Across the Border" by Steven Brust

A fun little song that could easily get stuck in your head telling you the reasons why you should run back across the border and out of Bordertown.

If you do not like my song

Run back across the Border

It just proves you don’t belong

Run back across the Border. ❖

✦ "A Prince of Thirteen Days" by Alaya Dawn Johnson

A take on a ‘Sleeping Beauty’ type story where a young girl of Bordertown buys a cheap charm from a store and finds out that she can communicate with the dark and gorgeous statue in the park. Her first question: “Will you have sex with me?” Thus begins the thirteen days until she finds her true love. But could it possibly be a statue? Could that statue be made into real flesh? In under thirteen days? ❖ There’s a girl looking for love, a statue willing to give it, a prophecy that stands to fulfill itself in two weeks, and a graffiti artist of dubious talents. ❖ Peya decides to lose her virginity to a statue, if she can find a way to transmute him. The statue has asentient and tragic past, and does not want a future. Then there’s Peya’s relationship with a patch of pavement and the graffiti across it, which might just be a small portal to the World and the strangest method of becoming a penpal ever. ❖ After being told by her younger aunt Rabbit that she will lose her virginity and fall in love in 13 days Peya knows exactly who she wants the one to be. The only problem is he happens to be a statue in the park. As the story switches between the point of views of both Peya and her hoped for love interest the tale that emerges picks at our expectations around love and sex. Expectations are shaken and the dangers, consequences and yes even the joys of one-sided love are strongly drawn and Johnson gives us a nuanced glimpse at a familial history of love addicts. ~ Bordertown Outcasts ❖

✦ "The Sages of Elsewhere" by Will Shetterly — Borderland series: Elsewhere and Nevernever.

This story of Wolfboy starts with a magic book called The Secrets of Seven Sages that Milo sold to him for his bookstore. However, it is a very valuable book and one that many people want! ❖ About what happens when the lupine bookstore owner comes in possession of a magical tome that’s very much in demand: industrial espionage between bookstores, elf-vs-human racial tension, and all manner of complications leading to what might be a lifestyle change, or at least a change in vocation. ❖ really does feel like checking in with an old friend. The story immerses you in the trials and tribulations of bookstore ownership in Bordertown, the trouble with ensorcelled rare books, and what is really necessary in life to make a person happy. Wolfboy’s perspective is engaging. ❖ Wolfboy, human but the victim of a curse that makes him look like a werewolf. He’s running Elsewhere Books these days and he acquires a very valuable volume that originates in the Realm, and communicates by quoting Shakespeare, and which certain other dealers and collectors want very, very much. Should he make like a bookseller and sell the book? Maybe not. It depends on how much luck he needs. ❖

✦ "Soulja Grrrl: A Long Line Rap" by Jane Yolen

A very modern short rap that seems to take its roots from Tam Lin. ❖ "Tam Lin awesomeness squared!” In much fewer stanzas than most traditional Tam Lin ballads, Yolen manages to create a wholly memorable character and a wicked spoken word piece. ❖

✦ "Crossings" by Janni Lee Simner

Two best friends make their way into Bordertown – one intent on finding a true love vampire and the other keen on a werewolf boyfriend. After asking around they find out that their search starts with Lankin who is apparently a vampire – or is he? ❖ A pair of friends set out to the Border with every intention of finding their true loves. The problem: Analise wants a vampire lover, Miranda wants a werewolf, two things which are actually in short supply on the Border. What they do find will surprise them—and prove to be a turning point in more ways than one. It’s a testimony to the power of friendship, and a pointed look at the folly of seeking out impossible relationships. ❖ Pokes fun at a certain predominant trends in vampires and werewolves and makes for an amusing tale of friendship. ❖ Miranda is an immigrant who nearly died crossing from Mexico to the U.S. as an infant and has now been ordered to leave the only country she's ever known. Instead of obeying the court mandate as her parents intend to do she and her best friend have run to B-Town in search of romance and family. Inspired by a popular series about sparkling vampires, one dreams of marrying a vampire and the other a werewolf. The adventure that this wish for romance takes them on is by turns darkly humorous and horrifying. ❖

✦ “Fair Trade” by Sara Ryan (writer) & 'Dylan Meconis (illustrator)

The only comic of this book. ❖ Story of a young woman seeking her lost mother. ❖ The tale of a girl from the World seeking her mother in Bordertown. As one could guess from the title, the piece plays with the changeling concept and is rather straightforwardly told. ❖

✦ "Night Song for a Halfie" by Jane Yolen

A lullaby to sing to an elfin child with a warning at the end. Be careful and don’t piss off your mommy! ❖ Lullaby unfolds as a “hushabye” piece sung by a Trueblood mother to her offspring. ❖

✦ "Our Stars, Our Selves" by Tim Pratt

We follow a short span in the life of Allie Land, newly come to Bordertown. She gets lost, hit on by a ridiculously persistent elf boy (even though she tells him she doesn't swing that way), meets an astrologer/astronomer who brings her back home and shows her the stars, and finds out that she has her own star to wish on. But what would she wish for? And what does that have to do with that annoying elf? ❖ Allie Land’s determined to make it big as a rock star on the Border, before taking whatever cachet and fame it garners her back to the World, where she can be an even bigger star. The first thing she finds, however, is a Trueblood determined to make her fall in love with him. Allie, a diehard lesbian, is entirely uninterested in her would-be suitor, thus setting the stage for a hilariously frustrating one-sided pursuit that leads to unexpected revelations and consequences. Mixed up in all of this as well as an astronomer turned astrologist, who informs Allie that, due to being born under a certain star, she has a wish coming to her. ❖ The tale is of a lesbian entering Bordertown who gets stuck with an elf who just wants to glamour girls, and bewitch them into falling for him, as her guide. And also, magic motorcycle. I like how it’s a story of stars because the night sky is the thing that’s always a bit sad about cities, you can’t see the stars for the light pollution. Oh and he does WISHES. This is awesome because we all know how tricky those are. ❖rock and roll bravado tangled up with the lack of wisdom in most wishes and a subplot more playfully engaging than the main story of Allie Land’s quest to become a star. Allie’s moxie is honestly more than the story can contain. ❖

✦ "Elf Blood" by Annette Curtis Klause

Vampires in Bordertown. We follow a pale girl seen to be as a 'halfie' except that she's not. That paleness stems from some bad blood magic that she's been running away from and the taste of blood that she's acquired. She finds herself enthralled with a beautiful elf boy from a band called Lambton Wyrm at the Ferret. Much as she wants to meet beautiful Sky she ends up conversing with the brother instead, who is not nearly as sexy but someone who could be a friend. ❖ Focuses upon one of Bordertown’s many halfbloods, those who straddle the line between human and elf, not quite accepted by either race. The thing is, Lizzie’s got some secrets regarding her true origins and her true nature, and if you know Bordertown like you will after getting this far in the collection, you’ll see why she’s just a little … unusual. ❖ A young woman beleaguered by vampirism stumbles through life at arm’s reach, both shunned for being something she never claimed, and terrified of what she might have to do to survive. ❖ It’s about a Bordertown girl who looks (to newly-arrived humans) like a “halfie” but is actually a working vampire (thanks to an earlier misadventure), trying to find enough blood to keep going without actually killing anyone (except when necessary), while seeking a way to remove the curse. But maybe the elfin guitarist’s kid brother is just what she’s been looking for — one way or another. ❖

✦ "Ours is the Prettiest" by Nalo Hopkinson

Juju-weather is coming for true and the carnival atmosphere of Jou'vert, a daylong free-for-all Mardi Gras-style parade, is happening as we follow a brief glimpse into the life of Beti and Gladstone told by Gladstone's former lover and current friend. ❖ Tale of star-crossed relationships. ❖ Narrated by Calypso-from-Pirates of the Caribbean-kind of way. ❖ Encompassing a celebration of life and death spoken in a unique voice. Hopkinson infused Bordertown with carnival lavishness and multicultural transcendence, all festooned with fear and loss and love and hate and the thorns that pierce among friends. The back and forth of the flashbacks woven through the ebb and flow of the Jou’vert parade were perfectly balanced, leading the story inevitably toward a crash-and-burn of revelation, catharsis, and loss. ❖ Damiana is doing her best to keep Beti out of Gladstone's way out of fear of Gladstone's legendary temper when it comes to a perceived infidelity. As they wander the streets of B-Town, which are in a uproar for the festival of Jou'vert, always one step ahead of Gladstone the history of the incident comes slowly clear as does the more far-reaching and personal history of friendship between Damiana and Gladstone. ❖ Damiana and her best friend and halfling ex-lover, Gladstone, are happily taking part in Jou’vert Festival, along with Gladstone’s latest crush, Beti, who isn’t an elf but isn’t human, either. It’s a story of what people do to each other in the name of love. ❖

✦ "The Wall" by Delia Sherman

A small non-rhyming poem about how everyone views the Border and recorded down because 'Recording is what I do.' ❖ How the "Border Wall" looks different to everybody. ❖

✦ "We Do Not Come in Peace" by Christopher Barzak

Marius used to be a famous musician but little by little around the time the Way to Bordertown reopened he found himself losing that music. It fled. And Marius had to find a way to cope, a way to move on, and he did by opening a new store. He also picked up a noob named Alek and tried to teach him the ropes of Bordertown so that way at least Alek won't make the same mistakes that Marius did. But Alek is not Marius and his mistakes are of a different calibre as the reader finds out later on in the story. ❖ Explores the racial and social tension between humans and Truebloods and halfbloods in the Bordertown environment. Marius may have a store to run, and he may have found a friend in newcomer Alek, but they want very different things out of life, and Alek’s not content to let the status quo remain as such. Marius may just compromise his principles to get what he wants, and Alek may just start a social revolution because he won’t compromise his. ❖ Marius, a long time resident of B-Town, finds he can no longer really feel the music he plays. His lover, a newcomer to Bordertown, becomes obsessed with the inequalities that exist between the Truebloods and the other residents of B-town and is determined to do something about it. The conflict between someone who is used to the status quo and someone new to the environment who wants to disrupt the power structure caught in a relationship provides great tension and an emotional and odd insider/outsider point of view on a revolution. The fact that both the characters happen to be male has little to do with the core of the story at all. ❖

✦ "A Bordertown Jump-rope Rhyme" by Jane Yolen -

A little jumprope ditty. ❖ An unexpected and clever installment of Bordertown street music. The translator’s note situates the piece— the piece itself: a jump-rope rhyme which is spine-chillingly disturbing. ❖

✦ "The Rowan Gentleman" by Holly Black and Cassandra Clare

Ashly is an actor for The Magic Lantern where she learns parts for such movies as Thelma and Louise and Pulp Fiction and Pirates of the Carribbean in case the electricity fails the theatre and the actors have to step in and take over. Her boyfriend is the lazy Alain who is a Trueblood but a rather fatuous one at that. One night a halfie girl stumbles into the theatre and dies mysteriously after whispering, "Robert said to wait for the Rowan Gentleman, but I was too scared. I—" and was suddenly cut off in the throes of death. ❖ It seems that Bordertown has its own resident masked hero, a Scarlet Pimpernel or Zorro in nature, who works at stemming the tide of Bordertown’s darker impulses and excesses. A murder investigation, a magic movie theatre, a strange new drug, and some swashbuckling derring-do all come together in this start to a new legend. ❖ Utterly absorbing cloak-and-dagger piece. ❖ Partly, it’s about the Magic Lantern, the only movie theater in Bordertown, where the electrical power is so unreliable, a cast of live actors performs the movie in front of the screen so the audience can keep up with the story. And partly, it’s about a cloaked and masked hero—twenty of them, actually—who rescue kids in distress. Put it all together, and it’s quite a romp. ❖

✦ "The Song of the Song" by Neil Gaiman

A pretty rhymed poetic story about how life is not always fair and the world moves on without you. ❖ Crafted in a conversational tone culminating in a bone-shivering warning. The piece is a song sung by the song that no one sings anymore, and it understands a few things about the difference between what stories really are and the way they’re told. The song skirls along the borders of thought and existence and fantasy. ❖

✦ "A Tangle of Green Men" by Charles de Lint

It drops us into the life of Joey, a seventeen year-old reprobate who just got out of juvie and needs to make a new life of it before he ends up in jail. He gets sent to his uncle's and helps his uncle set up conventions when one convention and one particular girl garner his attention. She's working at a fae booth at a faery convention where her father is one of many Green Men. Joey finds himself coming back to her booth the next day as they get closer. ❖ It’s classic de Lint, which means the magic and the mundane interact in equal amounts of mystery, while the protagonist slowly comes to see the world through new eyes. It’s about life and love and loss and redemption and striving to be a better person. It’s a magical romance, and a great deal of the story is a slow-burning buildup that doesn’t even take place in Bordertown. ❖ Follows a young Native American and erstwhile screw-up by the name of Joey Green as he discovers how to live his life, how to fall in love, how to be happy—and how to continue in the face of profound loss. ❖ Joey Green, a Native American teen recently released from juvie detention, who finds work with his uncle in Baltimore, doing set-up for conventions. And then he meets a blind girl named Juliana, and his life changes utterly, and for the better. But Juliana doesn’t have long in this world. And when she goes, the devastated Joey feels compelled to follow.

~ Sources:

Cover Artist[]

Artist: Steve Stone — Source: isfdb — Cover: Welcome to Bordertown

Publishing Information[]

Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers; Bluefire (paperack)
Book Page: Teens@Random | Welcome to Bordertown
Author Page: Holly Black@Random and Ellen Kushner@Random
Book data: Hardcover, 544 pages, Pub: May 24th 2011—ISBN: 0375867058
Book data: Paperback, 516 pages, Pub: April 10th 2012—ISBN: 0375866353

Cover Blurb[]

Bordertown: a city on the border between our human world and the elfin realm. Runaway teens come from both sides of the border to find adventure, to find themselves. Elves play in rock bands and race down the street on spell-powered motorbikes. Human kids recreate themselves in the squats and clubs and artists' studios of Soho. Terri Windling's original Bordertown series was the forerunner of today's urban fantasy, introducing authors that included Charles de Lint, Will Shetterly, Emma Bull, and Ellen Kushner. In this volume of all-new work (including a 15-page graphic story), the original writers are now joined by the generation that grew up dreaming of Bordertown, including acclaimed authors Holly Black, Cassandra Clare, Cory Doctorow, Neil Gaiman, Catherynne M. Valente, and many more. They all meet here on the streets of Bordertown in more than twenty new interconnected songs, poems, and stories. ~ Goodreads

Read Alikes[]

Quotes[]

Goodreads | Welcome to Bordertown Quotes by Holly Black

That’s where art comes from, Jimmy, my friend. From our weirdnesses and our differences, from our manic fixations, our obsessions, our passions. From all those wild and wacky things that make each of us unique.”

"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 ~ Book Nook

"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 ~ Book Nook

Trivia[]

Lists:

External Links[]

Book:

the bordertown series ~ Books ~ Author's Borderland site
Welcome to Bordertown (Borderland, #5) ~ GR
Bibliography: Welcome to Bordertown ~ ISFdb
Welcome to Bordertown by Holly Black and Ellen Kushner ~ FF
Borderland series by Terri Windling ~ GR
Welcome to Bordertown (Bordertown) ~ Shelfari

Summaries:

An Introduction to Bordertown | Tor.com
Book Nook: 'Welcome to Bordertown' - Speak Out ~ plot, world, quotes, etc.

Introduction, TOC, Trailers:

Author Pages for Book:

Characters, World, etc:

the bordertown sereis ~ Characters
the bordertown series ~ About Bordertown, places, etc.
Welcome to Bordertown (Bordertown) ~ Shelfari
Book Nook: 'Welcome to Bordertown' - Speak Out ~ world, chars, settings, plot, quotes, etc.
Literature/Bordertown - Television Tropes & Idioms

About Bordertown Articles:

Interviews authors about Bordertown:

Articles:

Websites:

Artist:

Steve Stone - Summary Bibliography

Editors:

Reviews:

Story-by-Story reviews:

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