My Favorite Poems: The Wife of the Man of Many Wiles by A.E. Stallings

The Wife of the Man of Many Wiles
By A.E. Stallings

Believe what you want to. Believe that I wove,
If you wish, twenty years, and waited, while you
Were knee-deep in blood, hip-deep in goddesses.

I’ve not much to show for twenty years’ weaving—
I have but one half-finished cloth at the loom.
Perhaps it’s the lengthy, meticulous grieving.

Explain how you want to. Believe I unraveled
At night what I stitched in the slow siesta,
How I kept them all waiting for me to finish,

The suitors, you call them. Believe what you want to.
Believe that they waited for me to finish,
Believe I beguiled them with nightly un-doings.

Believe what you want to. That they never touched me.
Believe your own stories, as you would have me do,
How you only survived by the wise infidelities.

Believe that each day you wrote me a letter
That never arrived. Kill all the damn suitors
If you think it will make you feel better.

Welcome to Bordertown...

“Once upon a time (isn't that the way humans always start a story?) there was magic in the world, or so your bards and storytellers of old have always claimed: elvin lords in dark forests and sumptuous halls beneath the hills, dragons curled in mountain caverns sleeping upon hoarded gold, Nereids in woodland streams, mermen in the cold, gray sea.

Then there was none.

The tales differ as to why this happened (and I am not at liberty to confirm or deny them). Some say it was industrialization and the use of iron that drove the elvin folk away, some say the spread of Christianity; some say they “flitted” to a more hospitable world; some say magic did not die but merely lay sleeping with King Arthur in Avalon, waiting for a new age to begin. Whatever the cause, magic vanished – mysteriously and completely.

Then one day it came back again. We came back again.

And that's when the shit really hit the fan.”

--From the introduction to Borderland

Borderland.

For some people, the name won't mean anything but the combined meanings of its constituent parts, a land on some border they haven't heard of. For others, the name will conjure images of elves with Mohawks, magical mishaps, runaways, gangs, and rock and roll. I'm sure you can tell which side of this I find myself on.

The series, started by Terri Windling in 1986 (before I was even born) is what I consider some of the best of urban fantasy. It captures the idea of the urban – sex, drugs, rock and roll, and all the possible repercussions of those influences – and buts it straight up against the folklore of older days. It's a shared world, so there are as many authors' opinions and visions inhabiting the world as there are characters. Reading these books, the anthologies especially, is like exploring a real city and listening to a few stories along the way. In Soho, human teens, young elves, and halflings form species-based gangs. There are restaurants and bars aplenty; I, personally, would probably frequent Cafe Cubana, if only because I hear they brew a righteous Russian Caravan. Bands and clubs rise and fall. People love and leave, live and die. And through it all, the city seems to live with a pulse all its own.

There were three anthologies – Borderland and Bordertown in 1986 and Life on the Border in 1991 – that came out in rapid succession. At least, rapid as books go. There were novels – Elsewhere and Nevernever by Will Shetterly and Finder by Emma Bull – in 1991, 1993, and 1994 respectively. There was another anthology – The Essential Bordertown: A Traveller's Guide to the Edge of Faerie – in 1998.

Then there was none.

Not that the books disappeared, mind, but the world stopped dead in its tracks after The Essential Bordertown when the new tales stopped coming out. The conversation died, the tales stopped being told, and for those of us who discovered the books in the interim it seemed as though the the elvin realms had disappeared again, leaving us with only legends.

Then one day it came back again.

That day was not so very long ago when the announcement was made that, after a thirteen year hiatus, the Borderland was back. Welcome to Bordertown, coming out in May of this year, caught me by surprise. I won't lie to you; I'm a fangirl, and the only way I could express my glee at the news was a wordless shriek that wouldn't have been out of place emanating from a banshee's throat. I immediately pulled my copy of The Essential Bordertown down from the shelf and started re-reading.

I can't tell you what the Borderlands did for the world of fantasy except getting urban fantasy oh-so-very right and inspiring a few people on the way, but I can tell you what these books did for me. They offered me a particular brand of fantasy, one that didn't sugar coat anything or put it in an epic scope. They offered me honesty with my elves. This is a world covered with dirt. This is a world with real people and real problems. This is a world where the good aren't always pretty and the bad could be as hot as the jackass down the hall. It's accessible, it's cool, and it's sometimes downright rude.

Since, by this point, you're probably asking why I'm not telling you straight out to go out and read all of the books, I'm going to be honest with you: these books are wonderful, but they might not be for you. This is not the sort of thing you pick up if you like your fairies tiny and sparkly or your books nice, safe, and careful. After all, the Borderlands series didn't so much take my hand and lead me to the border as it threw me over its motorcycle, dropped me in the middle of a crowd of strangers in an alien city, and said “Kid, you're on your own.” These are books with teeth.

But, if you like your books with some swagger and you prefer your elves when they stop nancing about the forest like immortal hippies and start carrying switchblades, this could be the series for you. If it is, I hope you don't wait until May to start exploring the Borderlands.