For the past several months, the world has been conspiring to lead me to Bordertown. It started with me seeing references to Emma Bull’s book, War for the Oaks. When I saw that it was the May selection for The Women of Fantasy Reading Challenge, I took it as a sign that I was meant to both do the challenge and read the book. But that meant I waited until this month to read the book. On one hand, I appreciate that I got to read it for the first time now, because it was a fantastic book that I had never read before and got to savor. But on the other hand, how did I not know about this book before now? It’s everything I love about urban fantasy from its early days. I discovered Charles de Lint in early high school and rapidly devoured all of his stuff that I could get my hands on through the library at the time, so how did I miss Bull? Maybe the library didn’t have War for the Oaks? Maybe someone else read it and couldn’t bear to give the copy back? I’m not sure. But I’m glad I found it now, because it’s like finding a piece of magic all over again.
The story will seem familiar to anyone who reads urban fantasy. Eddi McCandry 
is a musician (rock guitarist and vocalist, in her case) who gets chosen by the Seelie Court as their mortal representative for the latest battle in the ongoing war between the Faerie Courts. She’d never thought the faerie world actually existed before this, but now she finds herself saddled with a phouka bodyguard 24/7 and power over the lives of all the mortal and immortal beings in Minneapolis in her hands.
This isn’t exactly a comfortable amount of responsibility for a person who didn’t even know faerie was real the day before, but Eddi’s difficulties in coming to grips with this new version of reality were neither too short to be believable or too drawn out so as to reach the point of slap-worthiness, problems I’ve run into in other books. I cared about Eddi and her life beyond just her newly appointed Hero (or should that be Target?) status, and in many ways the formation of her new band and the developments of her friendships and romantic relationships are more important to the story than the faerie Court battle plans. Certainly all the different threads of the story become completely intertwined, and not always in the most expected ways. Eddi and her band became my friends.*
And so, of course, I had to look at what else Bull had written, which is where the pull toward the Bordertown comes in. There is no sequel to War for the Oaks, but Bull was one of the original writers in Terri Windling’s shared urban fantasy universe project, Bordertown, as was de Lint. Frustratingly, most of these early books are now out of print, and I was so annoyed because they sound like exactly the kind of books I would love forever and wish I had read before. But! My interest is well-timed! Because there is a new Bordertown anthology coming out, Welcome to Bordertown. The way to Bordertown has been reopened! So in preparation for the journey, I’ve been reading up on The Tough Guide to Bordertown, catching up on the stories that have been posted there online, and looking into all the other books I can find. I can’t wait. Like War for the Oaks, I think this is a world I’ll want to visit again and again.
*I’ve been trying to think why War for the Oaks seems so “early urban fantasy” to me now, especially since I’ve been reading so much modern urban fantasy lately. My impression is that it seems a little… softer? Less dark? I’m not sure. Certainly classic urban fantasy did emphasize a connection with the grittier side of the human world, of runaways and abuse and people with problems in their pasts, but for some reason the more recent stuff has seemed even harder. Maybe less willing to also show the shinier side of faerie that would have attracted these outcasts of human society? I definitely still like it all, but I think there’s been a shift overall toward the darker side of the subgenre. That’s not a bad thing, just a different thing. Interesting to think about, anyway.
ETA: Having now thought about this for the last half hour or so, I think one of the major differences between old school and new school urban fantasy is that the old school stuff has such an emphasis on the connection with the arts. An inordinate number of the characters featured are musicians, visual artists, writers, and dancers. Could the artistic, somewhat alienated teenager I was identify with these liberal artistic observers on the fringes of society (both fae and human)? Hell yes. So while I do truly adore reading about magic-wielding detectives and their awesome exploits to save the day, I do not harbor in the back of my mind the secret thought that I could be one of them, and maybe that’s where I’m feeling this kind of nebulous shift.
The connection between urban fantasy and the arts could well be a result of much of the early works in the subgenre being edited by Terri Windling.
An interesting thought. I don’t object to his influence, if that is the case!
(Here by way of the Bordertown blog.)
I think one of the major differences between old school and new school urban fantasy is that the old school stuff has such an emphasis on the connection with the arts … while I do truly adore reading about magic-wielding detectives and their awesome exploits to save the day, I do not harbor in the back of my mind the secret thought that I could be one of them …
A shift from artists to detectives … It seems so obvious once put that way, but I’d not quite framed it that directly before, though of course I’d seen more and more mystery-genre influence.
This now has me wondering not only about getting more of the the arts back into urban and contemporary fantasy, but also about who we might all still be overlooking, sideways of artists and detectives both, in urban fantasy tales.
I didn’t occur to me when I wrote that that it was such a distinct split, but looking back at all the more recent urban fantasy I’ve read in the past year, the only book I can see that doesn’t fall into one of those two categories is Thersa Matsuura’s short story collection Robe of Feathers. Fortunately, “mystery” can encompass such a wide variety of things, I never really feel like I’m reading about the same detectives doing the same stuff over and over. But now I’m wondering if we’re overlooking some largeish subset of urban fantasy, or if there really is no middle ground between artsy punks and detective heroes.
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[...] about solving mysteries (which I also love, don’t get me wrong.) I wrote about this more here. I remain frustrated that I haven’t yet been able to get copies of the earlier anthologies, [...]