I felt that this book started out much stronger than it ended. It was a very neat idea; a guidebook to the Bordertown between the human world and the elven world, interspersed with short stories about various aspects of life in this mythical town. The concept itself is fascinating and there is some pretty impressive world building, just because there were so many authors involved. The stories started off very well, and I sped through most of the book in a day. The last few stories stopped holding my attention as much and I had to struggle to finish the book. It took me about three days just to read the last three stories and the interspersed guidebook parts. It was still a decent read overall and a very nice departure from traditional urban fantasy. ( )

What is it about Bordertown that is so familiar to me? Sometimes, I feel as though Terri Windling and I had many similar experiences, or at least the same fashion sense. ( )

First read back in 2008.

Lucky me - I got this one on the remainder shelf and it turns out that the squiggly overlapping circle dated '05 is the autograph of contributor Charles de Lint. The big black mark on the bottom edge doesn't bother me, and the autograph doesn't really add to the book's value for me - I absolutely love reading and re-reading these evocative stories because they set me to wondering about the otherwhere I can only glimpse for a moment if my karma is right.

http://tamaranth.blogspot.com/1999/01/essential-bordertown-travellers-guide.html ( )