Reading Challenge 2012: Bordertown
Why the hell didn't I find this book in 1986?!
Well, that's pretty easy. In 1986 when I wasn't working or, erm, sleeping, I had a wrench in my hand or the wind in my hair. I did very little reading outside of the stripped paperbacks I collected from one of my three jobs -- the books nobody wanted to buy (mostly Louis L'Amour & Zane Gray). But still, I should've been reading the whole Bordertown series. Aside from being in the World, I would've seen myself in these characters - the runaways, thugs & cursed folk who just wanted to leave a mark on their world. *sigh* They did it from atop motorcycles & in dance cubs & abandoned buildings, with hangovers & ink-stained fingers. Terri Windling is who I could've been had I been a little braver -- or had run off to San Francisco or NY instead of Oakland. She invented a new world & invited her friends to play there & the result is a few old books & one new one.
Bordertown is an anthology that reads to me almost like a novel. Even though it tells the story of an artsy community like Windling found in NY in the 80s I enjoyed visiting & will definitely be looking for the rest of the books. I'm glad I read the intro to the new anthology first, or I wouldn't have known whose nom de plume was Bellamy Bach. It makes me feel all squishy inside to know that someone as awesome as Terri Windling felt odd about being a writer and an editor on the same project. Not sure why, but there it is.
Rec? Yes, with one caveat: the writing style, though timeless in its way, is also a product of its time as are the characters, and anyone not fond of the non-yuppie side of the 80s may not be as enamored as I. Personally, I think the 80s get a bad rap due to the spandex-&-shoulder-pad-wearing norms whose deepest desire was to have bigger hair or to own more crap than their neighbors. The 80s were a lot more than that & this collection peeks behind that curtain.
These stories made me want to write and write and write.
This entry was originally posted at http://www.dreamwidth.org/12345.html. Please comment either here or there.
Well, that's pretty easy. In 1986 when I wasn't working or, erm, sleeping, I had a wrench in my hand or the wind in my hair. I did very little reading outside of the stripped paperbacks I collected from one of my three jobs -- the books nobody wanted to buy (mostly Louis L'Amour & Zane Gray). But still, I should've been reading the whole Bordertown series. Aside from being in the World, I would've seen myself in these characters - the runaways, thugs & cursed folk who just wanted to leave a mark on their world. *sigh* They did it from atop motorcycles & in dance cubs & abandoned buildings, with hangovers & ink-stained fingers. Terri Windling is who I could've been had I been a little braver -- or had run off to San Francisco or NY instead of Oakland. She invented a new world & invited her friends to play there & the result is a few old books & one new one.
Bordertown is an anthology that reads to me almost like a novel. Even though it tells the story of an artsy community like Windling found in NY in the 80s I enjoyed visiting & will definitely be looking for the rest of the books. I'm glad I read the intro to the new anthology first, or I wouldn't have known whose nom de plume was Bellamy Bach. It makes me feel all squishy inside to know that someone as awesome as Terri Windling felt odd about being a writer and an editor on the same project. Not sure why, but there it is.
Rec? Yes, with one caveat: the writing style, though timeless in its way, is also a product of its time as are the characters, and anyone not fond of the non-yuppie side of the 80s may not be as enamored as I. Personally, I think the 80s get a bad rap due to the spandex-&-shoulder-pad-wearing norms whose deepest desire was to have bigger hair or to own more crap than their neighbors. The 80s were a lot more than that & this collection peeks behind that curtain.
These stories made me want to write and write and write.
This entry was originally posted at http://www.dreamwidth.org/12345.html. Please comment either here or there.