Book Review: Welcome to Bordertown

From Goodreads:

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.

Yes, yes, this is my second anthology review in as many weeks. Shut up, I've been finding some really good ones.

I'm not quite sure why I didn't pick up Welcome to Bordertown when it first came out, other than A) I was busy with finals and I forgot about it, and B) I'm occasionally really stupid and doubt the awesomeness of authors. Thankfully, Cassandra Yorgey saw that I was blind and showed me the light. Namely, she did this by scoring me a pass to FaerieCon East where I got to meet AND HAVE TEA with Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman (Guys! Ellen Kushner bought me tea!) so that I would understand their awesomeness, and then she lent me her ARC to read. Now I keep this book next to my bed, beside my Ultimate Hitchhikers Guide, in case of emergencies.

The Good:

Beautiful writing by a ton of authors, many of whom I know and others I am looking forward to reading more from. Welcome to Bordertown really explores and makes use of the best aspects of writing in an anthology. There is a world - Bordertown - that has established rules, geography, history, which must be obeyed by everyone. But working within those rules, writers can do whatever they want. And that leads to a collection of stories as varied as the dwellers of Bordertown themselves. Characters of every ethnicity, gender, species, age, sexual orientation, etc can find a place and a voice in the stories of Welcome to Bordertown - which, by the way, is a great way to make readers feel welcome.

The stories progress in a sort of chaotic order. In the first few stories, we're introduced to this hopeful new world, where the misfits and unorthodox have a place and anything is possible. More stories expose us to everyday life in Bordertown and the risks it poses to its' occupants, both old and new, stripping away some of the promise of Bordertown and turning into a place like any other. Full of dangers. Full of opportunities. Just like everywhere else. Finally, as we near the end, we see the darker side of Bordertown, with its injustices and the people willing fight against them. It's a beautiful storytelling arch, showing us that even with magic and faeries, you can't run away from your problems forever. Happily ever afters must be fought for constantly.

The Bad:

There's not so much Bad in this anthology as there are personal requests. More comics. Fewer poems. More poems. No comics at all. Why is there a motorcycle on the cover?

The Rest:

My standard warning for anthologies applies here: Not all stories are created equal. It is more than likely that readers are not going to like every story in here. But you're going to like an awful lot of them, I promise.

Final Thoughts:

Beyond being great YA, this is just a great book period. I would recommend it to anyone interested in fantasy, and frequently do. I sincerely hope it won't be another 13 years before the next Bordertown book comes out.

My Rating: 5/5 Mushrooms.

Banned Book Poetry

September 26-October 2 is Banned Book Week and the fabulous Jo Knowles is having a banned book haiku contest. Which, of course, I entered.

"In honor of Banned Books Week, I challenge you to write a haiku about your feelings on censorship/banned books. I will post these all week and choose a winner on Friday. The winner will get a signed first edition of Lessons From A Dead Girl."

Freedom in my hands
Stolen by those who say I'm
Too young to take it

Go enter her contest at http://jbknowles.livejournal.com/

-Maria D.

Inkdeath. I haz it.

On the table sits a new book.
It’s one I’ve waited for for months.
Beside it is a half-empty mug of day-old coffee
which I keep forgetting to put in the sink.
The world outside the living room window is a depressing gray
and I hope to find a brighter world waiting at the end of 663 pages.

The story begins with a rustle of pages
and I’m pleased by the sound as the spine cracks in the book.
Before me is a world written in black and white, never gray.
Just as in real life, time has passed for the characters in long, weary months
since the last book; a few pages and into the story I’ve begun to sink.
I still haven’t dumped the old coffee.

I don’t know if there’s any coffee
in this story; it never comes up on any of the pages.
Wait, I think one chapter has Darius pouring some down the sink.
Or am I thinking of the previous book?
It’s been a while since I read that one, probably months
have passed, and memories fade and blur in my matter that is gray.

Outside the sky is a darker gray,
gray as the day-old coffee,
as we slip into the winter months.
I slip further into enticing pages
or try to before I’m distracted from my book
by a crash coming from the kitchen sink.

I FINALLY dump the old coffee in the sink
and chase away the cat whose fur is gray
and caused the crash which drew me from my book.
Suddenly I want fresh coffee
and settle in the kitchen as I find my lost pages;
the chapters are swallowing the days, weeks, and months.

Time speeds up as chapters cover hours instead of months.
The climax draws near and hope begins to sink
as our hero is forced to write his death on pages
of the whitest white while his heart is filled with gray –
I pause to take a sip of coffee –
and I’m anxious as he seals his fate with a book.

Turning from the pages, the sky is a pale ice gray
of a winter dawn - frozen months - and the cold stars sink
as I sip my coffee and finish the book.

Hurray English homework!!! I keep forgetting that I LIKE to write poetry. Of course I've spent the last 3 or 4 years focusing on writing prose, so I'll forgive myself this time. I just finished reading Inkdeath by Cornelia Funke and I loved it. So there.

This is a sestina. A sestina is a poetry form with six sestets and a concluding tercet, thus a sestina has 39 lines. The six words which end each line of a sestet are un-rhymed and are repeated in different orders throughout the remaining stanzas. In the closing tercet, all six words are used with two per line. Sestinas originated in France in the twelfth century, in the poetry of the troubadours, and is one of several forms in the complex, elaborate, and difficult closed style called trobar clus.

The More You Know...