Books Borderland, Bordertown, Life on the Border | ||
Bordertown is a series of urban fantasy novels and stories created for teenage readers by Terri Windling. The series is set in Bordertown, a dystopian metropolis that lies along the border between "the Elflands" and "The World". The series consists of five anthologies and three novels to date. The series has spawned fan groups, gaming groups, costumed events (such as the Borderzone parties in Los Angeles), and was discussed in The Fence and the River: Culture and Politics at the US-Mexico Border by Claire F. Fox.
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Bordertown is the name of the shared universe created by Terri Windling, and a fictional place within that universe. The premise of the Borderland books is, at some point in the near future, the "Elflands" - the realm of magic populated by post-Tolkien elves - will "return" to "The World", and its place in juxtaposition with "The World".
The region of this juxtaposition (which seems at times to be New York City and at other times to be geographically underspecified) is called the "Borderland" or "Borderlands". The dystopian metropolis that lies along the Border, which combines urban fantasy of various forms with a vaguely post-apocalyptic atmosphere, is "Bordertown" or "B-Town". In the liminal environment of Bordertown and its environs, neither magic nor technology functions "normally", and unpredictable combinations of the two may emerge.
The Borderlands series, created for teenage readers, focuses primarily but not exclusively on the disenfranchised youth culture of Bordertown, as manifest in gang violence, race relations, and miscegenation, impromptu forms of social organization, class conflict, generation gaps, and literary criticism. The music of the 1980s is a significant influence.
In 2011 Terri Windling and Endicott Studio released a new Bordertown anthology titled Welcome to Bordertown.