Honestly this book was just an all around good time. When you consider how many years this story has managed to span its just a great picture of what good story telling can achieve.

I appreciate having had an opportunity to read this book in ARC form. The appeal of this particular book was not evident to me, and if I cannot file a generally positive review I prefer to simply advise the publisher to that effect and file no review at all.

Anthologies are my passion and this one does not disappoint! The majority of these stories are extremely good. I especially love Bentley Little and Poppy Z. Brite. Will be looking at the rest of the Borderland anthologies!

Borderlands: Volume One is an anthology of weird fiction that is as great and weak from the sums of its parts. It is fairly uneven but there is some pure brilliance found within the pages. There are extreme highs from Silva, Little and DeChancie to name a few but there is also some stories that really didn’t connect.

It is often very difficult to put together an anthology whether you are talking of a novel or television show and there are some that are weaker than others. Not sure if the weaker ones are weak because they are found between stronger stories that weakens those. It is an interesting collection that does a relatively good job. The editor Thomas F Monteleone should be recommended by putting this collection together because this is never an easy feat.

Overall, this collection is the voice of new horror which includes a whole new genre of authors that have recently come to the fore within the last ten years. A lot of newly celebrated authors sitting along some authors who are are well established. Uneven but there is certainly something that will speak to everyone but you may have to sieve through the ones that don’t.

Borderlands is a volume of short stories that aims to chill your bones and disturb you. Some of them were intriguing and delectable, like dessert served to you after a warm dinner and makes you go “ah, now I’m ready to sleep”. Ones that made an impression were The Calling, Delia and the Dinner Party, Stephen, By Bizzare Hands, and some others I can’t quite recall. But I do remember most of the good ones were mostly in the middle of the book, and had they not come sooner enough, I would probably have put down the book.
The others were less interesting, or I don’t really get what the writer is trying to portray. I recall looking at the % of reading progress and wondering when will this book ever end.

Therefore, this stands at a 3 star rating- good enough to pick up and not regret the read, but not exceptional enough for me to remember it few years down the road.

This anthology of "weird fiction" is just that, fiction that is strange, edgy.....horror/dark fantasy that comes to life in these stories. Originally published 28 or more years ago, the stories collected here are still original, fresh and a reminder of the power of well written fiction and the imagination. This is a great anthology and a great collection to introduce other readers to this genre.
Favorites include Nancy Holder's "Glass Eye" (creepy); Poppy Z. Brite, one of my favorites, "His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood"; and Bentley Little's "The Pounding Room" but every story here is macabre.
Recommended
Thank you to #netgalley and Riverdale Avenue Books for this book for review.
#Netgalley #BorderlandsBookOne

DNF @ 24%

I had never heard of ‘weird fiction’ prior to reading this book’s blurb and was immediately intrigued. I usually enjoy stories that have unexpected twists and turns or cover terrain I haven’t encountered before. I love weird stuff!

So it both surprised and disappointed me that this book wasn’t for me. I did enjoy the first story - ‘The Calling’ by David B. Silva. It reminded me of Roald Dahl’s ‘Tales of the Unexpected’ with its macabre ending, so I had hope for the rest of the stories.

I found the second story so disjointed and jarring that I kept putting off finishing it. I finally decided I had to finish it to get to another story I’d connect with more so I pushed through to the end and then slogged through another three stories. I didn’t like a single one.

Perhaps if I’d read these stories when this anthology was first published in 1994 I would have found them shocking but most of what I read felt either clichéd or bad weird. I acknowledge that I may be missing out on some gems by throwing in the towel at this point (there are some really positive reviews for this book) but I think I can live with that, especially when I read some reviews commenting on the amount of stories featuring women being abused by men.

Whenever I rarely DNF a book I usually feel guilty about it and plan to give the book another shot in the future because I don’t want to miss out on any magic that I didn’t find for whatever reason during my first attempt. I don’t think I’ll be doing that with this book and I’m probably more sad than anything because I was really looking forward to discovering this amazing new (to me) world called ‘weird fiction’.

Thank you to NetGalley and Riverdale Avenue Books for the opportunity to read this book. I really wish I had loved it.

I'm of a split mind when it comes to this book. While I found several of the stories engaging, there were others I felt were mediocre at best. It's always difficult to create character empathy when you're writing short stories, and several of the offerings just never connected with me in either an intellectual or emotional way. As a result, I find myself unable to give the entire collection more than 3 stars, short-shifting those authors whose short stories rose heads above the others.

Every reader has their favorite authors. When I saw that this anthology contained stories by Bentley Little and Poppy Brite I knew I had to read it, but the best part of such a collection is the ability to read not only your favorites but to discover works by authors you may not have otherwise read.
I enjoyed most of the stories but the ones that stood out as favorites for me were-
The Grass of Remembrance" by John DeChancie about a man who sends away for a very unique grass seed after his failed attempts to keep his lawn alive. "The Pounding Room" by Bentley Little in which starting a great new job isn't all its cracked up to be, "The Raw and the Cooked" by Michael Green was a dark and satirical look at how the makers of your happy meal stay so happy. "The Man in the Long Black Sedan" by Ed Gorman involves a family man who takes a day off work to protect his family.
I think all horror lovers will find something to enjoy in this volume. Borderlands is a symphony of dark and disturbing fiction and I hope there will be future installments.