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Borderland #3
Life on the Border
All new stories by Emma Bull, Kara Dalkey, Charles de Lint, Craig Shaw Gardener, Michael Korolenko, Ellen Kushner, Will Shetterly, Midori Snyder, and Terri Windling (writing as Bellamy Bach); song lyrics by Emma Bull. Cover art by Rick Berry (Tor Books edition, 1991).
"Life on the Border turns the volume to 11, cranking up the energy and enthusiasm as the authors really hit their groove. It's like the song right before intermission, when the music's clearly gotten into the blood, and everyone's dancing....[T]his volume is one of the best in an outstanding series." — The Greenman Review.
NOTE: all the "Bellamy Bach" stories in the Borderland series were written by the editor/Borderland founder, Terri Windling.
"Life on the Border turns the volume to 11, cranking up the energy and enthusiasm as the authors really hit their groove. It's like the song right before intermission, when the music's clearly gotten into the blood, and everyone's dancing....[T]his volume is one of the best in an outstanding series." — The Greenman Review.
NOTE: all the "Bellamy Bach" stories in the Borderland series were written by the editor/Borderland founder, Terri Windling.
384 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published July 15, 1991
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665 people want to read
About the author
Terri Windling
120 books711 followersTerri Windling is an American editor, artist, essayist, and the author of books for both children and adults. Windling has won nine World Fantasy Awards, the Mythopoeic Award, the Bram Stoker Award, and her anthology The Armless Maiden, a fiction collection for adult survivors of child abuse, appeared on the shortlist for the James Tiptree, Jr. Award. She was also honored with SFWA's Soltice Award in 2010, a lifetime achievement award for "significant contributions to the speculative fiction field as a writer, editor, artist, educator, and mentor". Windling's work has been translated into French, German, Spanish, Italian, Czech, Lithuanian, Turkish, Russian, Japanese, and Korean.
In the American publishing field, Windling is one of the primary creative forces behind the mythic fiction resurgence that began in the early 1980s—first through her work as an innovative editor for the Ace and Tor Books fantasy lines; secondly as the creator of the Fairy Tales series of novels (featuring reinterpretations of classic fairy tale themes by Jane Yolen, Steven Brust, Pamela Dean, Patricia C. Wrede, Charles de Lint, and others); and thirdly as the editor of over thirty anthologies of magical fiction. She is also recognized as one of the founders of the urban fantasy genre, having published and promoted the first novels of Charles de Lint, Emma Bull, and other pioneers of the form.
With Ellen Datlow, Windling edited 16 volumes of The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror (1986–2003), an anthology series that reached beyond the boundaries of genre fantasy to incorporate magic realism, surrealism, poetry, and other forms of magical literature. Datlow and Windling also edited the Snow White, Blood Red series of literary fairy tales for adult readers, as well as many anthologies of myth & fairy tale inspired fiction for younger readers (such as The Green Man, The Faery Reel, and The Wolf at the Door). Windling also created and edited the Borderland series for teenage readers.
As an author, Windling's fiction includes The Wood Wife (winner of the Mythopoeic Award for Novel of the Year) and several children's books: The Raven Queen, The Changeling, A Midsummer Night's Faery Tale, The Winter Child, and The Faeries of Spring Cottage. Her essays on myth, folklore, magical literature and art have been widely published in newsstand magazines, academic journals, art books, and anthologies. She was a contributor to The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales, edited by Jack Zipes.
As an artist, Windling specializes in work inspired by myth, folklore, and fairy tales. Her art has been exhibited across the US, as well as in the UK and France.
Windling is the founder of the Endicott Studio, an organization dedicated to myth-inspired arts, and co-editor (with Midori Snyder) of The Journal of Mythic Arts. She also sits on the board of the Mythic Imagination Institute. A former New Yorker, Windling spend many years in Tucson, Arizona, and now lives in Devon, England. She is married to dramatist Howard Gayton, co-director of the Ophaboom Theatre Company.
In the American publishing field, Windling is one of the primary creative forces behind the mythic fiction resurgence that began in the early 1980s—first through her work as an innovative editor for the Ace and Tor Books fantasy lines; secondly as the creator of the Fairy Tales series of novels (featuring reinterpretations of classic fairy tale themes by Jane Yolen, Steven Brust, Pamela Dean, Patricia C. Wrede, Charles de Lint, and others); and thirdly as the editor of over thirty anthologies of magical fiction. She is also recognized as one of the founders of the urban fantasy genre, having published and promoted the first novels of Charles de Lint, Emma Bull, and other pioneers of the form.
With Ellen Datlow, Windling edited 16 volumes of The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror (1986–2003), an anthology series that reached beyond the boundaries of genre fantasy to incorporate magic realism, surrealism, poetry, and other forms of magical literature. Datlow and Windling also edited the Snow White, Blood Red series of literary fairy tales for adult readers, as well as many anthologies of myth & fairy tale inspired fiction for younger readers (such as The Green Man, The Faery Reel, and The Wolf at the Door). Windling also created and edited the Borderland series for teenage readers.
As an author, Windling's fiction includes The Wood Wife (winner of the Mythopoeic Award for Novel of the Year) and several children's books: The Raven Queen, The Changeling, A Midsummer Night's Faery Tale, The Winter Child, and The Faeries of Spring Cottage. Her essays on myth, folklore, magical literature and art have been widely published in newsstand magazines, academic journals, art books, and anthologies. She was a contributor to The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales, edited by Jack Zipes.
As an artist, Windling specializes in work inspired by myth, folklore, and fairy tales. Her art has been exhibited across the US, as well as in the UK and France.
Windling is the founder of the Endicott Studio, an organization dedicated to myth-inspired arts, and co-editor (with Midori Snyder) of The Journal of Mythic Arts. She also sits on the board of the Mythic Imagination Institute. A former New Yorker, Windling spend many years in Tucson, Arizona, and now lives in Devon, England. She is married to dramatist Howard Gayton, co-director of the Ophaboom Theatre Company.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
January 18, 2024
Lost in the mail 3⭐
Life on the border 3⭐
Nevernever 4⭐
Nightwail 4⭐
Alison Gross 4⭐
Berlin 3⭐
Reynardine 2⭐
Light and Shadow 1⭐
Rain and Thunder 4⭐
Life on the border 3⭐
Nevernever 4⭐
Nightwail 4⭐
Alison Gross 4⭐
Berlin 3⭐
Reynardine 2⭐
Light and Shadow 1⭐
Rain and Thunder 4⭐
July 17, 2015
LIFE ON THE BORDER is the third installment of the Borderland series created and edited by Terri Windling. Like the two volumes before it, is an anthology of short stories by multiple authors set in a shared universe where Elfland has returned to the human world, bringing with it trade, unreliable magic and technology, and the elves. This volume is larger than the previous two and features new authors as well as familiar ones. But Life on the Border felt different from BORDERLAND and BORDERTOWN to me in a couple of important ways, both of which, I think, made it a stronger collection.
First, LIFE ON THE BORDER does a really excellent job capitalizing on the fact that it’s the third book in the series. The authors here dig deeper into the stories of characters who have come before, picking up threads and answering questions the other two volumes left behind. Bellamy Bach’s “Rain and Thunder,” for instance, revisits Gray, a character first introduced in Borderland who we last saw leaving the human world in the form of a cat. Stick and Koga, also introduced in previous volumes of the series, get a strange and unexpected shared backstory in Charles De Lint’s “Berlin.” And Will Shetterly starts Life on the Border with a Wolfboy story. The intertextual connections don’t stop there—Farrel Din alludes to the plot of “Prodigy” in this volume’s “Light and Shadow.” Characters who appear in one story within this volume, such as the curiously magical skateboarder Deki, show up again later. Altogether, this serves to create a sense of a real, living neighborhood. By using the groundwork laid by Borderland and Bordertown, this volume makes the reader feel more like they are coming home than venturing into some unknown place. Three volumes in and Bordertown has become a place where you know everyone’s name.
The other real strength of this volume is that it feels like it’s grown up with the reader. BORDERLAND was published in 1986, and LIFE ON THE BORDER was published 5 years later in 1991. Where BORDERLAND felt distinctively (and I believe intentionally) Young Adult in tone and content, LIFE ON THE BORDER feels much more adult. The first two volumes felt like the runaway’s honeymoon period; this volume feels like when the runaway really learns what town is like. The elves, for instance, have been flighty and tricky in previous volumes, but the elves in this volume especially are dark, mean creatures. Wolfboy runs into a particularly brutal batch of elves in the Nevernever who clearly see him as less than a person. Bordertown is plagued by an elvin monster in “Reynardine,” and it seems implied at the end of “Alison Gross” that Alison herself is an elvin witch since she’s banished across the border in Elfland. There is, again, the punishment meted out to Gray when the elves across the border find out she’s human. The protagonist of Ellen Kushner’s “Lost in the Mail” finds out the hard way that the theft of humans’ individuality is an elvin hobby when she lands in Oberon House—it’s a chilling, vampiric view of the elves that has stuck with me since I first read this volume years ago.
All in all, LIFE ON THE BORDER is more cohesive than its two predecessors. Standouts for me in particular were “Nightwail” by Kara Dalkey, “Rain and Thunder” by Bellamy Bach and “Nevernever” by Will Shetterly. On the whole, I think the strengths of this book are lost if you haven’t read and loved the previous two volumes in the series, so I wouldn’t say it’s a stand-alone book or a particularly great introduction to the Borderland series, but it is an excellent extension of that series. I would have liked to see more insight into elvin culture—as I said, I appreciate the darkness of the elves here, but the book’s unrelenting focus on human stories could have been better balanced. It felt, a bit, like the book was written by the Pack—Bordertown’s staunchly human-only gang.
First, LIFE ON THE BORDER does a really excellent job capitalizing on the fact that it’s the third book in the series. The authors here dig deeper into the stories of characters who have come before, picking up threads and answering questions the other two volumes left behind. Bellamy Bach’s “Rain and Thunder,” for instance, revisits Gray, a character first introduced in Borderland who we last saw leaving the human world in the form of a cat. Stick and Koga, also introduced in previous volumes of the series, get a strange and unexpected shared backstory in Charles De Lint’s “Berlin.” And Will Shetterly starts Life on the Border with a Wolfboy story. The intertextual connections don’t stop there—Farrel Din alludes to the plot of “Prodigy” in this volume’s “Light and Shadow.” Characters who appear in one story within this volume, such as the curiously magical skateboarder Deki, show up again later. Altogether, this serves to create a sense of a real, living neighborhood. By using the groundwork laid by Borderland and Bordertown, this volume makes the reader feel more like they are coming home than venturing into some unknown place. Three volumes in and Bordertown has become a place where you know everyone’s name.
The other real strength of this volume is that it feels like it’s grown up with the reader. BORDERLAND was published in 1986, and LIFE ON THE BORDER was published 5 years later in 1991. Where BORDERLAND felt distinctively (and I believe intentionally) Young Adult in tone and content, LIFE ON THE BORDER feels much more adult. The first two volumes felt like the runaway’s honeymoon period; this volume feels like when the runaway really learns what town is like. The elves, for instance, have been flighty and tricky in previous volumes, but the elves in this volume especially are dark, mean creatures. Wolfboy runs into a particularly brutal batch of elves in the Nevernever who clearly see him as less than a person. Bordertown is plagued by an elvin monster in “Reynardine,” and it seems implied at the end of “Alison Gross” that Alison herself is an elvin witch since she’s banished across the border in Elfland. There is, again, the punishment meted out to Gray when the elves across the border find out she’s human. The protagonist of Ellen Kushner’s “Lost in the Mail” finds out the hard way that the theft of humans’ individuality is an elvin hobby when she lands in Oberon House—it’s a chilling, vampiric view of the elves that has stuck with me since I first read this volume years ago.
All in all, LIFE ON THE BORDER is more cohesive than its two predecessors. Standouts for me in particular were “Nightwail” by Kara Dalkey, “Rain and Thunder” by Bellamy Bach and “Nevernever” by Will Shetterly. On the whole, I think the strengths of this book are lost if you haven’t read and loved the previous two volumes in the series, so I wouldn’t say it’s a stand-alone book or a particularly great introduction to the Borderland series, but it is an excellent extension of that series. I would have liked to see more insight into elvin culture—as I said, I appreciate the darkness of the elves here, but the book’s unrelenting focus on human stories could have been better balanced. It felt, a bit, like the book was written by the Pack—Bordertown’s staunchly human-only gang.
July 21, 2019
Like any anthology, I liked some stories more than others. They're strongly tied together l, featuring a very short epistolary story at the start, end, and periodically between the others, which overlap in the way of events and characters, as well as setting.
A little grim, exploring the darker side of mixing humans, elves, and magic together. People, regardless of species, are flawed. They fall in love, make mistakes, hurt each other... an up and down adventure.
A little grim, exploring the darker side of mixing humans, elves, and magic together. People, regardless of species, are flawed. They fall in love, make mistakes, hurt each other... an up and down adventure.
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September 24, 2009So far, I think Bordertown remains my favorite of these books, with "Danceland" and "Demon" among my favorite stories in any of them.
September 15, 2020
A friend loaned me this book a few weeks before I moved from Ann Arbor, MI, to Falls Church, VA, in late 1991. It came with me. (Sorry, Janet.)
Borderland #3 was my introduction to urban fantasy. My favorite was the Kara Dalkey story, "Nightwail," about an aspiring singer, haunted by a banshee. The sense of melancholy, and a feeling of being alone, even in a crowd of alleged friends, built up from the first paragraph and hit a crescendo at the end.
Other stories ranged from good to excellent.
I'm currently writing an urban fantasy novel, and this book opened my eyes to the genre's possibilities.
Borderland #3 was my introduction to urban fantasy. My favorite was the Kara Dalkey story, "Nightwail," about an aspiring singer, haunted by a banshee. The sense of melancholy, and a feeling of being alone, even in a crowd of alleged friends, built up from the first paragraph and hit a crescendo at the end.
Other stories ranged from good to excellent.
I'm currently writing an urban fantasy novel, and this book opened my eyes to the genre's possibilities.
March 10, 2020
I love this series.
What a great anthology! The third in the series of Urban Fantasy short stories beginning in 1984. Each story is poignant and well thought out. Although, I thought that one in particular didn't resonate within the world in the same way as the others, this having not been written by one of the veteran writers though it might make sense.
I'm looking forward to continuing on with it.
What a great anthology! The third in the series of Urban Fantasy short stories beginning in 1984. Each story is poignant and well thought out. Although, I thought that one in particular didn't resonate within the world in the same way as the others, this having not been written by one of the veteran writers though it might make sense.
I'm looking forward to continuing on with it.
July 5, 2025
Best shared world series ever
November 20, 2010
The Gardener story was weak; out of place as the only homage story with too much amusement on the readers part expected to carry it.
April 1, 2011
My very favorite shared universe, about a city on the blurred edge of earth and faerie, and the people who find their way there. One of many anthologies and stand-alone novels.
March 19, 2016
Bordertown book - what more is there to say?
July 19, 2016
An eternal enthusiast of the Bordertown books, this was just as lovely and varied as the previous anthologies.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews