Author Topic: PC Spotlight 2: Welcome To Bordertown  (Read 3583 times)

Ocicat

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on: July 19, 2011, 01:05:26 AM
Dave and Anna go to Bordertown with guests Ellen Kushner, Holly Black, Amal El-Mohtar, and Tim Pratt! So grab a beer at the Dancing Ferret (it’s on us), and enjoy the tour!





“Stairs In Her Hair” art by Rima Staines (watercolour and pencil). You can grab a print of it Etsy. And the “Stairs in Her Hair” music video is at youtube.

Check out the Bordertown Website and the Bordertown Music Page! And be sure and check out Welcome to Bordertown and the other B-town books!

There’s plenty of other backdoor guides to Bordertown - so check out the following links!

Shannon’s Law,” by Cory Doctorow, is over at Escape Pod.

Ellen Kushner talks at the Geeks Guide to the Galaxy.

Tor.com (and Tim Pratt) goes to Bordertown.

A Prince of Thirteen Days,” by Alaya Dawn Johnson, at Fantasy Magazine.

Enjoy the trip!



Devoted135

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Reply #1 on: July 19, 2011, 01:54:01 PM
LOVED. Loved loved LOVED the song. :D Also, hearing from so many of the authors was way cool. :P



eytanz

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Reply #2 on: July 19, 2011, 02:31:30 PM
At first I was a bit taken by the different tone this one took - the first was more along the lines of an informal review and recommendation, while this one was far more clearly a promotional piece. But I really did enjoy it, and the song was really, really great - the El Mohtars are one talented family.

On a more personal note, though, I have a bit of a strained history with Bordertown - I was first exposed to it when I was 14 or so, and it struck a pretty wrong chord for me. It's been more than 20 years, and I don't remember the details, but I remember feeling, well, it was supposedly about young misfits, but really it was about people who adhere to a pretty persective notion of what a young misfit should do. As a young teen, I was into books and computers and D&D, not music and motorcycles, and the people who were into music and motorcycles were just as unappealing to me as the so-called mainstream was (I quite enjoy music now, including a lot of the music I rejected both days, but I still hate motorcycles with a passion).

Of course, in the interveing years, I've come to enjoy Urban Fantasy a lot. And a lot of the authors on the list here are ones I count as my top favourites (Patricia McKillip!). So I have a conflict between an old bias and my current tastes, but I think I'm going to end up buying this one.
« Last Edit: July 19, 2011, 02:33:48 PM by eytanz »



DKT

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Reply #3 on: July 19, 2011, 04:01:30 PM
At first I was a bit taken by the different tone this one took - the first was more along the lines of an informal review and recommendation, while this one was far more clearly a promotional piece. But I really did enjoy it, and the song was really, really great - the El Mohtars are one talented family.

Generally, future Spotlights will be more like the previous one. It was slightly harder to discuss this one because there's so many different stories, and we really thought it'd be special to have all these authors swing by instead.(Also, we didn't want it to be any longer than it already was.) 

On a more personal note, though, I have a bit of a strained history with Bordertown - I was first exposed to it when I was 14 or so, and it struck a pretty wrong chord for me. It's been more than 20 years, and I don't remember the details, but I remember feeling, well, it was supposedly about young misfits, but really it was about people who adhere to a pretty persective notion of what a young misfit should do. As a young teen, I was into books and computers and D&D, not music and motorcycles, and the people who were into music and motorcycles were just as unappealing to me as the so-called mainstream was (I quite enjoy music now, including a lot of the music I rejected both days, but I still hate motorcycles with a passion).

If it makes you feel better, I only remember one character really riding a motorcycle (in Pratt's "Our Stars, Our Selves," and that character was a dick.

Like music, love of books creep up quite a bit in this one. (And those characters are awesome, and total geeks.)


amalmohtar

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Reply #4 on: July 19, 2011, 09:36:49 PM
Thank you SO MUCH for doing this. It was great fun to pour out my rambly thoughts, and my heart melts to hear my sister's voice joining mine in PodCastle. Just pure joy, all through.



Tori

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Reply #5 on: August 13, 2011, 02:58:55 PM
I am so happy that Bordertown has been reopened. I have read each of the Bordertown books several times. They'll be happy to have some company on the shelf.



Unblinking

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Reply #6 on: October 21, 2011, 12:32:14 PM
When I heard the Bordertown story on Escape Pod, I had no idea that Cory Doctorow hadn't been the one to invent the world.  I hadn't heard of it before that story, and I hadn't realized it was a shared world that pre-dated that.  So this spotlight was very interesting.

But, really, that song.  I loved that song.  I'm a sucker for a good ballad, and I loved everything about this.  The lyrics, the music, the instruments, the vocals.  What a beautiful voice, and combined with those lyrics, this is one of my favorite songs that I've heard in a while, one of those I can imagine listening to over and over until I know all the lyrics.  I think my wife would like it, though she isn't a big fantasy fan.

I see that there's a link to a YouTube video of the song.  Is there any chance of getting a standalone audio file of it?  I suppose I could trim it down for my own private use with Audacity, but if there were an official version of just the song I'd rather have that.  Then I could listen to the song whenever I want without having to skip to the particular part of the Spotlight episode.  And if it were released on a Creative Commons license, I think I'd like to re-post it with a promo for Welcome to Bordertown.  The song makes me want to buy the book and read the story it ties to, so I think others might have the same reaction and spreading the word is good, right?  :)

All in all, I found this Spotlight to be somewhat more appealing than the first one.  The first one didn't seem to fall firmly into advertisement or review.  This one seemed more clearly an advertisement (I'm not suggesting it was paid, I'm just saying what the tone conveyed to me).  I don't have a problem with an advertisement, and the extra content in the song made it especially worthwhile.