Borderland series

## Genre Information

Urban Fantasy
Early Works

High Fantasy

 (Series Content Ratings Click on Explicit Ratings for details.)

## About the Series

* **Genres:** Urban Fantasy / Early Urban Fantasy / Alternate reality / Young Adult
* **Theme:** Stories set at the Boarder between the Real World and Fairy (Elfland)
* **Narrative style**: Anthology series so each story has a different style and writer

## Series Description

On the border between the World and Elfland sits Bordertown, a place of half-lit neighborhoods of hidden magic, of flamboyant artists and pagan motorcycle gangs. Bordertown is a hothouse laboratory for the return of magic to the life of the World—and the return of life to magic. It's an attitude and a state of mind. It's where magic meets rock & roll.

*Bordertown is one of the most important places where Urban Fantasy began.* — Neil Gaiman.

A **shared-universe original anthology series** for teenagers, set in an imaginary city in which humans and magical creatures could meet and interact. Terri Windling was the creator and editor of this influential series - it helped launch, in the mid-1980s, the now popular Fantasy sub-genre **Urban Fantasy** - influencing both the authors writing for the series in the 1980s (Charles de Lint, Ellen Kushner, Emma Bull, Midori Snyder etc.), as well as upcoming authors who read them (Neil Gaiman, Holly Black, Cassandra Clare, etc.)

"a modern city at the edge of a mysterious, magical realm—a border city where runaway children gather to create new lives for themselves . . . sometimes successfully, sometimes disastrously." - Terri Windling

## Books in Series

1. Borderland (Borderland, Book 1) (1986)
2. Bordertown (Borderland, Book 2): A Chronicle of the Borderlands (1986)
3. Life on the Border (Borderland, Book 3) (1991)
4. Borderland: Where Magic Meets Rock & Roll (Borderland, Book 4) (1992)
5. The Essential Bordertown (Borderland, Book 5): A Traveller's Guide to the Edge of Faerie (1998)
6. Welcome to Bordertown (Borderland, Book 6) (2011) ~ Anthology

Also full length Novels:

* Elsewhere (1991) by Will Shetterly (Novel)
* Nevernever (1993) by Will Shetterly (Novel)
* Finder (1994) by Emma Bull (Novel)

## World Building

### Setting

* Fictional world of Bordertown
* Elfland

### Fantasy Elements:

Rock-n-roll elves, elf boy, vampires, Trueblood, faeries, Green Men,

### WORLD:

To sum up, Faerie/Arcadia/whathaveyou pops back into the real world. That doesn't work so well, so instead a magic Berlin Wall of sorts is put up, so ne'er will Earth and Faerie meet again. Except for Bordertown, which is basically stuck in the middle where humans and faeries, technology and magic, mix up, sometimes well, oftentimes not. ~

## History of Series

Terri Windling created the Bordertown Series over 25 years ago while working as a young fantasy editor in the New York City of the 1980s (a scruffier, edgier, punkier New York City than the one today). In 1985, she was approached by the New American Library publishing company and asked to create a shared-world anthology for teenagers. (A shared-world book is comparable to a television series: the editor/producer creates the setting, premise and initial characters, then writers are invited into the project to write stories set in this "shared" milieu.)

Terri said yes to this interesting commission, and the setting she proposed was Bordertown: a modern city at the edge of a mysterious, magical realm. She envisioned a frontier, border city where runaway kids, both human and elfin, gathered to create new lives for themselves-sometimes successfully, sometimes disastrously-reminiscent of real-life teen meccas such as Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s. The publisher approved the concept, and allowed her to bring her then-editorial-partner, Mark Alan Arnold, on board to help with the first two books. (It was Mark who proposed asking an up-and-coming young Boston artist named Phil Hale to create the now-iconic cover art for Borderland and Bordertown.)

Terri then opened the doors of the city to some of the best young writers in the fantasy: Ellen Kushner, Midori Snyder, Charles de Lint, Will Shetterly and Emma Bull. Together they brought life, myth, music, and magic to the streets of Bordertown-creating its clubs and cafes; its initial characters, human and fey; and defining the strange, fluctuating rules of magic along the Border. Another fine young writer, Steven R. Boyett, joined the project at the eleventh hour when another author had to drop out suddenly due to health problems, contributing a story that's just a little different than the others, set in place that is somewhere halfway between a dystopian Los Angeles and Bordertown... but then, things are always odd and unpredictable on the Border. (Perhaps it is Bordertown, viewed through the eyes of a Californian teen determined to make the Border more familiar.)

Those first two volumes, *Borderland* and *Bordertown*, turned into a series of books and developed a loyal cult following, spawning chat boards, bands, dance parties, raves, and all manner of role playing games. As the book series progressed, all the original writers returned for more adventures on the Border, and other enthusiastic writers joined them there, including Steven Brust, Kara Dalkey, Patricia A. McKillip, Delia Sherman, and Ellen Steiber. Graphic artists who have journeyed to the Border over the years include Rick Berry, Thomas Canty, Dennis Nolan, Iain McCaig and Brian Froud—a fine roster indeed.

The last book of the original series, The Essential Bordertown (edited by Terri Windling & Delia Sherman), was published by Tor Books in 1996. And then? Book reviewer Michael M. Jones describes what happened next:

"And then, like anything really awesome, it stopped. Poof. Finito. Turn out the lights, stack the chairs, lock the doors, Bordertown was gone. The band broke up and everyone went on to solo careers, leaving behind nothing but fond memories, trashed hotel rooms, and possibly a few illegitimate kids. That was that...Until now. Thirteen years later, a new kind of Bordertown has appeared, much like one of those illegitimate kids growing up and coming to find their mysterious rock star daddy for the first time. And these kids have inherited a whole mess of the awesome gene from their wayward parents.

## List of Bordertown Writers

* Christopher Barzak
* Holly Black
* Steven R. Boyett
* Steven Brust
* Emma Bull
* Cassandra Clare
* Kara Dalkey
* Charles de Lint
* Cory Doctorow
* Amal El-Mohtar
* Neil Gaiman
* Craig Shaw Gardner
* Nalo Hopkinson
* Alaya Dawn Johnson
* Annette Curtis Klause
* Michael Korolenko
* Elisabeth Kushner
* Ellen Kushner
* Patricia A. McKillip
* Tim Pratt
* Sara Ryan
* Felicity Savage
* Delia Sherman
* Will Shetterly
* Janni Lee Simner
* Midori Snyder
* Ellen Steiber
* Caroline Stevermer
* Donnard Sturgis (no link)
* Micole Sudberg
* Catherynne M. Valente
* Terri Windling
* Jane Yolen

## Awards

**Bordertown series**:

**Selection**:

* Great Buzz Pile, School Library Journal
* Summer 2011 Kids' Next List: For Teen Readers, Indiebound
* 2011 Recommended Reading List, Locus Magazine
* 2012 Rainbow List: GLBTQ Books for Children and Teens, American Library Association

**Nominee**:

* 2012 Teen Choice Book of the Year, TeenReads
* Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers 2012, YALSA
* 2012 Locus Award for Best Anthology