2018 Reads: From the Borderlands (Borderlands #5)

From the Borderlands: Stories of Terror and Madness
Edited by Elizabeth and Thomas Monteleone


I picked this one up back when I worked at Books-A-Million (at their now-closed Hinsdale, IL store). I was on a major Stephen King kick (and, related, horror) and thought this a good intro to other others in the field.

It sat on my shelf for 12 loooong years. I finally started reading it on Halloween, 2017.

So after such a build-up, it must have been outstanding, right?

Eh. Ehhhh.

Some (few) of the 25 stories were great, but so many left me cool or just unhappy with the time spent reading them. And it certainly took me quite a while to plow thru this. I kept putting it down, lacking any driving motivation to finish or than to get it off my "currently reading" list (accomplished Jan. 1, 2018).

I think it's because many of the stories have a brand of "horror" that isn't something I like - somewhat real-world pervy "human horror" as opposed to the supernatural. In that sense, it was a great book; it helped me to further distill my preferences. After reading it, I can honestly say that there's a chunk of horror out there I just never need to try again, and authors who will remain unknown but for their story in this collection.

Given that this is the fifth volume of the Borderlands anthology series (edited by husband and wife team of Thomas & Elizabeth Monteleone), these writers and stories (and sub-genres of horror) have fans. The book holds an average rating of 4.01 on Goodreads - no mean feat!

And I did find some definite quality and new authors to check in on. Those that stood out as exceptional, aside from King's, had high concepts and/or an element beyond human understanding :

• one where your hands are magically swapped out for another person's - and this happens all over the world - every day, week, etc. - and you hope to one day get your own 
• a twisted prison "escape" 
• dealing with ghosts on the line as a profession 
• a 7-day, personal apocalypse 
• seeing inside the head a B-movie monster, with a surprising amount of empathy 

Again, eh. Largely forgettable. Not stories of terror and madness, except a few. No, these are tales of creeps and disturbing portraits of humanity.

A 2/5 for me on Goodreads, and that's rounding up some.


-E