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Borderlands 2
The stories we tell are not limited to monsters and harsh otherworlds. Yet the fiction books in the Borealis imprint certainly belong to a world other than our own. This line encompasses our science fiction, fantasy and horror novels and anthologies.
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1991
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
October 8, 2016
This collection definitely inhabits a space in the New Weird where it overlaps with gore-spattered horror. It was weird enough to keep me picking at it for a long time, but it never quite sunk its hooks into my brain to keep me from setting it down for weeks or months after a story.
One major contributing factor is that I rather hate how this book feels. It is taller and narrower than the standard paperback. A stiff binding and the shape makes this uncomfortable to hold. That's not quite how I want to be disturbed.
“Apathetic Flesh” ran on Pseudopod. It’s deeply weird. “The Potato” continues the deep weirdness but now with the alien invasion stories of the Atomic Age rather than the slashers of the 70’s and 80’s. The Potato is seriously fucked up. Like if “The Colour Out of Space” was erotica.
A lot of the stories circled around relationships and sex, some of which were my favorites. “Foet” being about purses made from the skins of aborted fetuses was an interesting bit of social commentary. Joe Lansdale delivers the uncomfortable as usual with “Love Doll: A Fable”. This uncomfortably eyeballs objectification and the slow erosion of time and pressure that are applied to romantic relationships.
Setting the tone of “Churches of Desire” is “What the [decade] deserved was erotica, but we got porn.” It’s an interesting but disjointed perspective on the dehumanizing impact of porn. Androgyny was a seriously warped story. Not sure how to feel other than disturbed. “The Chrysalis” was a creepy take on handling grief; visually interesting but thematically unremarkable. “Breeding Ground” was a pretty pedestrian version of creatures growing inside your skin. Overall, I’d say the anthology is worth reading, but I’m not sure I would recommend hunting it down.
One major contributing factor is that I rather hate how this book feels. It is taller and narrower than the standard paperback. A stiff binding and the shape makes this uncomfortable to hold. That's not quite how I want to be disturbed.
“Apathetic Flesh” ran on Pseudopod. It’s deeply weird. “The Potato” continues the deep weirdness but now with the alien invasion stories of the Atomic Age rather than the slashers of the 70’s and 80’s. The Potato is seriously fucked up. Like if “The Colour Out of Space” was erotica.
A lot of the stories circled around relationships and sex, some of which were my favorites. “Foet” being about purses made from the skins of aborted fetuses was an interesting bit of social commentary. Joe Lansdale delivers the uncomfortable as usual with “Love Doll: A Fable”. This uncomfortably eyeballs objectification and the slow erosion of time and pressure that are applied to romantic relationships.
Setting the tone of “Churches of Desire” is “What the [decade] deserved was erotica, but we got porn.” It’s an interesting but disjointed perspective on the dehumanizing impact of porn. Androgyny was a seriously warped story. Not sure how to feel other than disturbed. “The Chrysalis” was a creepy take on handling grief; visually interesting but thematically unremarkable. “Breeding Ground” was a pretty pedestrian version of creatures growing inside your skin. Overall, I’d say the anthology is worth reading, but I’m not sure I would recommend hunting it down.
May 6, 2019
I was torn between giving this anthology two stars, as some of the stories are...well, stories that seem more like they got in on a type of grimy sex and violence splatterpunk edginess that was trendy in the early 90s than on any particular creative or literary merit...and giving it three, since there are a couple of really good stories in here, a couple of stories I found entertaining despite the fact that they weren't actually very good, and quite a few stories where I *can* respect the author's creativity and/or writing skill a great deal even though the stories themselves just weren't to my taste at all.
In the end, I went with three stars, but I'd be remiss if I didn't advise everyone with any interest in this collection to skip Rex Miller's "Dead Issue", which I can only assume made it in because its protracted, graphic description of an abusive relationship and the battered girlfriend's eventual murderous revenge seemed shocking in 1991. It's not shocking now; it's just depressing, tedious, and in poor taste. The writing is so-so, the characters are thin to the point of nonexistence even by short horror fiction standards, the pacing is terrible, and unlike the other splatterpunk-ish exercises in the collection, it doesn't even appear to be trying to make a point (apart from perhaps the rather obvious "being a cartoonishly evil abusive boyfriend is bad" ) or startle and unnerve readers into considering social and ethical questions. Also, I'm just not a fan of stories, especially stories written by men, that involve lengthy, detailed descriptions of men hurting women followed by hasty, much more blandly written conclusions in which the men Get Theirs. It's neither an original nor a profound observation, but these stories almost always come off as cheap ways to create misogynistic titillation for oneself and one's audience while hiding behind a half-assed pretense that what you're REALLY doing is CRITICIZING misogyny because look, see, the evil husband/boyfriend/etc. totally gets punished at the end!
Even aside from that story, a lot of the pieces in this collection feature gender and sexual politics that seem...uh...dated, at best, by 2019 standards. I found it easy to overlook, or at least not especially noxious, in most of them, though. In fact, I really liked "Androgyny", which is an earnest but clueless, fetishistic, and often inadvertently offensive attempt at exploring the struggles of trans people and the trans community. Did I like it in the way the author intended? Probably not. But I can't help loving its feverish, bug-eyed description of a horde of trans men and women advancing on the protagonist: "half-men, half-women, these walking techno-miracles of endocrines, scalpels, and silicon". Come on, that's incredible. Taking hormones: sooooooooooo cyberpunk.
As for what I really liked in an unironic, yeah-this-still-totally-holds-up-28-years-later way, Bentley Little's "The Potato" and Lois Tilton's "Chrysalis" both employ a striking, grotesque, original central image/metaphor in an otherwise more or less quiet and realistic story about aging, death, grief, and loneliness. Both have a touch of dark satire, too, and the conclusion of "The Potato" is even sweet and romantic in a twisted way. The purported theme of this anthology series is horror stories that truly Get To the reader, and that don't rely on genre tropes and cliches; these stories are my favorites among the tiny handful in BORDERLANDS 2 that meet both those standards today.
In the end, I went with three stars, but I'd be remiss if I didn't advise everyone with any interest in this collection to skip Rex Miller's "Dead Issue", which I can only assume made it in because its protracted, graphic description of an abusive relationship and the battered girlfriend's eventual murderous revenge seemed shocking in 1991. It's not shocking now; it's just depressing, tedious, and in poor taste. The writing is so-so, the characters are thin to the point of nonexistence even by short horror fiction standards, the pacing is terrible, and unlike the other splatterpunk-ish exercises in the collection, it doesn't even appear to be trying to make a point (apart from perhaps the rather obvious "being a cartoonishly evil abusive boyfriend is bad" ) or startle and unnerve readers into considering social and ethical questions. Also, I'm just not a fan of stories, especially stories written by men, that involve lengthy, detailed descriptions of men hurting women followed by hasty, much more blandly written conclusions in which the men Get Theirs. It's neither an original nor a profound observation, but these stories almost always come off as cheap ways to create misogynistic titillation for oneself and one's audience while hiding behind a half-assed pretense that what you're REALLY doing is CRITICIZING misogyny because look, see, the evil husband/boyfriend/etc. totally gets punished at the end!
Even aside from that story, a lot of the pieces in this collection feature gender and sexual politics that seem...uh...dated, at best, by 2019 standards. I found it easy to overlook, or at least not especially noxious, in most of them, though. In fact, I really liked "Androgyny", which is an earnest but clueless, fetishistic, and often inadvertently offensive attempt at exploring the struggles of trans people and the trans community. Did I like it in the way the author intended? Probably not. But I can't help loving its feverish, bug-eyed description of a horde of trans men and women advancing on the protagonist: "half-men, half-women, these walking techno-miracles of endocrines, scalpels, and silicon". Come on, that's incredible. Taking hormones: sooooooooooo cyberpunk.
As for what I really liked in an unironic, yeah-this-still-totally-holds-up-28-years-later way, Bentley Little's "The Potato" and Lois Tilton's "Chrysalis" both employ a striking, grotesque, original central image/metaphor in an otherwise more or less quiet and realistic story about aging, death, grief, and loneliness. Both have a touch of dark satire, too, and the conclusion of "The Potato" is even sweet and romantic in a twisted way. The purported theme of this anthology series is horror stories that truly Get To the reader, and that don't rely on genre tropes and cliches; these stories are my favorites among the tiny handful in BORDERLANDS 2 that meet both those standards today.
July 1, 2010
I was lucky enough to find this book in a little out of the way book store and boy am I happy that I found it.
The stories are not just the run of the mill horror stories with grue and violence.I would actually classify most of the stories as literary horror.It is obvious that the editors looked far and wide for the stories that were not only creepy and disturbing but also that has well fleshed out characters to boot.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to be scared and disturbed but not grossed out.
I have ordered the other books in the series except for the last one because it is just too expensive right now for my budget.
You really can't go wrong with purchasing this book.Look for the others in the series too for more wonderful writing.
The stories are not just the run of the mill horror stories with grue and violence.I would actually classify most of the stories as literary horror.It is obvious that the editors looked far and wide for the stories that were not only creepy and disturbing but also that has well fleshed out characters to boot.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to be scared and disturbed but not grossed out.
I have ordered the other books in the series except for the last one because it is just too expensive right now for my budget.
You really can't go wrong with purchasing this book.Look for the others in the series too for more wonderful writing.
September 15, 2011
Excellent selection of stories. As usual, some stronger than others, but on the whole, lives up to the hype.
November 23, 2014
A good solid collection, with particularly good stories by Sallee, Lansdale, and Olson. I didn't find a clinker in the bunch, although I liked some more than others.
May 23, 2025
2025 Book #15:
Borderlands 2 (1991), edited by Thomas F. Monteleone
Definitely not as consistently good nor inventive as the first Borderlands volume. In fact, there are some stories here that are downright terrible, featuring worn-out concepts, boring/pointless edgelord violence, and puerile writing. However, there’s a sufficient number of bizarre horror tales to keep your attention. The best story, David Silva’s “Slipping,” reads like a perverse riff on Farmer’s “Sketches Among the Ruins of My Mind” filtered through John Carpenter’s “Cigarette Burns.” The effect is unsettling and deeply melancholic. While none of these tales is a masterpiece, the best ones are deftly composed and sometimes even thought-provoking. Below is my star-rating for each story. I’d say the top eleven or twelve stories are worth reading:
**** David B. Silva, “Slipping”
**** Philip Nutman, “Churches of Desire”
**** Bentley Little, “The Potato”
**** Ian McDowell, “Saturn”
**** Paul F. Olson, “Down the Valley Wild”
**** Brian Hodge, “Androgyny”
**** Francis J. Matozzo, “Breeding Ground”
*** J. L. Comeau, “Taking Care of Michael”
*** Charles L. Grant, “Peacemaker”
*** Lois Tilton, “The Chrysalis”
*** Richard Rains, “The Atonement”
*** Kim Antieau, “Sarah, Unbound”
*** James S. Dorr, “Romance Unlimited”
*** Stanley Wiater, “Stress Test HR51, Case #041068”
*** Joe R. Lansdale, “Love Doll: A Fable”
*** Gary L. Raisor, “Stigmata”
** Wayne Allen Sallee, “For Their Wives Are Mute”
** Darren O. Godfrey, “Apathetic Flesh”
** F. Paul Wilson, “Foet”
* G. Wayne Miller, “Sweetie”
* Rex Miller, “Dead Issue”
Borderlands 2 (1991), edited by Thomas F. Monteleone
Definitely not as consistently good nor inventive as the first Borderlands volume. In fact, there are some stories here that are downright terrible, featuring worn-out concepts, boring/pointless edgelord violence, and puerile writing. However, there’s a sufficient number of bizarre horror tales to keep your attention. The best story, David Silva’s “Slipping,” reads like a perverse riff on Farmer’s “Sketches Among the Ruins of My Mind” filtered through John Carpenter’s “Cigarette Burns.” The effect is unsettling and deeply melancholic. While none of these tales is a masterpiece, the best ones are deftly composed and sometimes even thought-provoking. Below is my star-rating for each story. I’d say the top eleven or twelve stories are worth reading:
**** David B. Silva, “Slipping”
**** Philip Nutman, “Churches of Desire”
**** Bentley Little, “The Potato”
**** Ian McDowell, “Saturn”
**** Paul F. Olson, “Down the Valley Wild”
**** Brian Hodge, “Androgyny”
**** Francis J. Matozzo, “Breeding Ground”
*** J. L. Comeau, “Taking Care of Michael”
*** Charles L. Grant, “Peacemaker”
*** Lois Tilton, “The Chrysalis”
*** Richard Rains, “The Atonement”
*** Kim Antieau, “Sarah, Unbound”
*** James S. Dorr, “Romance Unlimited”
*** Stanley Wiater, “Stress Test HR51, Case #041068”
*** Joe R. Lansdale, “Love Doll: A Fable”
*** Gary L. Raisor, “Stigmata”
** Wayne Allen Sallee, “For Their Wives Are Mute”
** Darren O. Godfrey, “Apathetic Flesh”
** F. Paul Wilson, “Foet”
* G. Wayne Miller, “Sweetie”
* Rex Miller, “Dead Issue”
June 14, 2017
Of the three Borderlands I've read this probably ranks just under the first book, but its still head and shoulders above most horror anthologies, if only for the fact it isn't riddled with cliches, and the general quality throughout remains very high. These books should really be in print, somewhere, somehow. Recommended.
July 7, 2010
Love that I gave Lewis a copy of this book and found it, spine broken, in his computer room. The dark and twisty goodness of this is exactly what I needed right now. Can't wait to get my hands on the other two I have.
March 4, 2014
Not quite as shocking after being immersed in the previous volume, but several great stories here lots of good ones and no real stinkers. Of course, as is the case with the other books in the series, the great ones often reveal themselves long after you've read them. Definitely worth reading.
November 14, 2017
Volume 2 of the Borderlands anthology series is a step up from the first, but some of the stories still rely on being shocking and over-the-top. Despite how much the originality of the stories is hyped up in the introductions for both volumes, the promise doesn't ring quite true.
July 30, 2016
A top-notch collection of horror short stories, almost all of which stay with you long after the last paragraph. I can't recommend this book enough.
February 19, 2021
Editor must have found audience for he published second volume of “weird”, unclassified, horror. Eerie, but collection has not made my hair stand on end.
June 6, 2021
Almost every review of an anthology seems to come with a caveat, which is that the quality varies from tale to tale and writer to writer. Uniformly great compilations are very rare, though they do happen. Publications like "Weird Tales" have very high quality control, and Harlan Ellison's first two "Dangerous Visions" were great, though the third, unpublished volume eventually entered a kind of literary limbo from which it never emerged.
"Borderlands 2" is a curiously sequenced anthology of horror tales, in which all of the good stuff seems to be in the first half of the book, and then the quality seems to progressively dip and dip, into a final disappointing tale about a man in advertising slowly grappling with an unspecified malady, perhaps early onset Alzheimer's. It's body horror in the broadest, least Cronenbergian sense.
Early standouts come from better-known fictioneers like F. Paul Wilson and Joe R. Lansdale (though I already encountered Lansdale's contribution in a separate anthology). The theme for "Borderlands II" is no cliched monsters, trite boogeymen, or hackneyed slashers. A lot of the horror is visceral, some of it's psychological, and quite a bit of it is psychosexual. The best of these has to be the tale of a man who, when he spurns his lover after she reveals her transsexuality, is afflicted with a series of nipples that run up and down his torso, at which the denizens of the New Orleans demimonde line up to suckle. If that spoils your appetite, you might want to avoid this one for reasons having nothing to do with its very hit-or-miss quality. Still, because all the good stuff seems to come in the first hundred pages or so, it makes skipping the not-so-hot stuff easier.
That's just one reader's opinion, though.
"Borderlands 2" is a curiously sequenced anthology of horror tales, in which all of the good stuff seems to be in the first half of the book, and then the quality seems to progressively dip and dip, into a final disappointing tale about a man in advertising slowly grappling with an unspecified malady, perhaps early onset Alzheimer's. It's body horror in the broadest, least Cronenbergian sense.
Early standouts come from better-known fictioneers like F. Paul Wilson and Joe R. Lansdale (though I already encountered Lansdale's contribution in a separate anthology). The theme for "Borderlands II" is no cliched monsters, trite boogeymen, or hackneyed slashers. A lot of the horror is visceral, some of it's psychological, and quite a bit of it is psychosexual. The best of these has to be the tale of a man who, when he spurns his lover after she reveals her transsexuality, is afflicted with a series of nipples that run up and down his torso, at which the denizens of the New Orleans demimonde line up to suckle. If that spoils your appetite, you might want to avoid this one for reasons having nothing to do with its very hit-or-miss quality. Still, because all the good stuff seems to come in the first hundred pages or so, it makes skipping the not-so-hot stuff easier.
That's just one reader's opinion, though.
May 30, 2020
Been a big fan of horror/gore genres since childhood. I've read this book from quite some time ago and I'm now only writing a review for it as I recalled it while watching a horror movie. This book added flames for my desires for gore and horror and I got this from a really cheap book sale for the cheapest price. I really loved the time I was reading it and how now I'm depressed but still enjoy my horror reads and movies anyway.
November 4, 2025
I am obsessed with these anthologies!!! I love the whole point of the serious, to have stories that are uncommon and unique not your typical ghosts/monsters/things that go bump in the night stories. I was creeped out, disgusted, disturbed and delighted by these stories. Can't wait to start Borderlands 3!!
June 16, 2021
Liked it better than the first installment.
January 9, 2023
Some stories captivated me more than others
February 1, 2023
An incredible collection of weird horror. I'm so glad I bought this series back when I did.
Read
July 14, 2024"Apathetic Flesh" by Darren O. Godfrey - wc
"Down the Valley Wild" by Paul F. Olson - wc
"Slipping" by David B. Silva - wc
"Down the Valley Wild" by Paul F. Olson - wc
"Slipping" by David B. Silva - wc
Read
April 6, 2010Borderlands 2 is a weird, yet interesting book for one to read.
This book is a compilation of short stories. These stories consist of ideas that are hardly ever used and definitely hard to create stories out of them.
One story includes accessories made from aborted babies. Another story talks about what happened to a man who didn't truly appreciate women. There are many other stories in this book, each having a main idea that intrigues a person.
At first, I was expecting this to be a book full of terrifying stories. That's not what I got, yet I still really enjoyed the creativity put into these stories. The genres of these stories range from sci-fi to fantasy to even realistic fiction. I recommend this book to people that enjoy original stories with some freakishness in them.
This book is a compilation of short stories. These stories consist of ideas that are hardly ever used and definitely hard to create stories out of them.
One story includes accessories made from aborted babies. Another story talks about what happened to a man who didn't truly appreciate women. There are many other stories in this book, each having a main idea that intrigues a person.
At first, I was expecting this to be a book full of terrifying stories. That's not what I got, yet I still really enjoyed the creativity put into these stories. The genres of these stories range from sci-fi to fantasy to even realistic fiction. I recommend this book to people that enjoy original stories with some freakishness in them.
January 1, 2016
Pretty good weird horror anthology of short stories written by many up and coming as well as established authors. Stories range from vampire and werewolf fare to ghosts and ghouls. It's overall a quick read and the editor adds new writers as the series continues. Not bad at all if you again, need a dose of weirdness.
Danny
Danny
January 19, 2008
A collection of poorly-written short stories by various authors that claim to be horror stories, but are about as scary as face paint on a middle-aged father knocking on your door on Halloween. Totally proves that I have absolutely nothing in common with the tastes of one of my exes.
July 30, 2024
Phenomenal selection of stories. APATHETIC FLESH by Darren O. Godfrey is one of the most interesting horror tales I have ever read, and it feels as if no one has ever heard of it.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews