I can see why the book won the F&SF category in the Minnesota Book Awards. I can see even more strongly why it was a finalist in the Children's Literature section of the Mythopoeic Awards. The book is well written, but even more importantly, it explores a very different reality. Magic works, sometimes and unexpectedly. All sorts of beings exist, but there is the same type of racist (speciesist?) reality as exists in this world. And there is a young man trying to learn about life, his brother, and himself. I am certainly going to read the sequel.

Recommended for fans of fantasy who enjoy the stranger entering the fantastic reality. ( )

Exploring the roots of YA/urban fantasy with the Borderlands series. Remarkable. ( )

Even though the language and structure of this book could have used some polishing, the story of how a boy went to Bordertown to find his runaway brother is a compelling one. Our protagonist, just Ron, seems to stumble from one contentious situation to another as he finds his way through the random adventure that is living in Bordertown. In any other setting I would find this plot structure to be quite contrived, but considering how complicated Bordertown is in terms of its population groups, settings, and politics, I absolutely expect it - especially from a character like Ron who has a tendency to run off at the mouth and talk himself into trouble. Most of Ron’s random adventuring through Bordertown is actually a clever mask for his real intentions behind running away from home, as well. Clearly he is young and prone to rash decisions, but when the author reveals that the prompt for Ron’s journey to Bordertown was his brother’s suicide (and a search for the magic that will bring ghosts back to the real world rather than an actual search for a living person) it adds much depth to the story. Ron’s acceptance of this reality, and the limits of magic in regards to his transformation into Wolfboy, speak to the nature of Bordertown’s influence on its residents and how it acts as a catalyst for positive change even through hardship, which gives what would otherwise be a rather typical coming of age story a much more complex set of themes. Thank you again, urban fantasy genre, for delivering something that no other type of fiction really can! ( )

What I learned -- that if I love the book first, I can weather the author behaving badly in public better. Still, it might have been a five, once. ( )

I’d actually read this before and forgotten. It’s a Bordertown novel, complete with punks, drugs, and unreliable magic. I didn’t like the main character at all, but I remember liking him in sequels.
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