Robert McCammon's The Border

I used to read science fiction almost exclusively. This was in my youth and early adulthood. I read a lot of pretty great stories and books. I also read some dismal things. That's the nature of the game.

By the time the 1980's were up and running, I was growing tired of SF. To me, way too much of it was inspired by lousy movies and TV shows. A lot of it was too concerned with technology and there wasn't enough focus on the inner workings of the humans in the stories.

I made the shift to horror, and was quite happy about it. I still read the occasional SF yarn, but it was becoming fewer and farther between them.

Today I am reading a little less horror, but I'm not reading a whole lot of science fiction either. I'll re-read some classic Golden Age things now and then, and extremely rarely I will embark on a new science fiction novel. It has to be a really special case.

Robert McCammon's new novel, The Border, is just out from Subterranean Press. Some are claiming that it hails back to 80's classic McCammon titles like Swan Song, and Stinger, but unlike those hybrid novels, The Border is pure science fiction.

The bare bones plot of The Border sounds like it is straight out of a Michael Bay movie, or maybe something from the Silver Age of comics. Lots of action, violence, and typical SF tropes. You've got your alien races who choose Earth as a battlefield in their war with one another. You've got bloodthirsty mutants. A magic child who might have the power to save humanity. Teleportation, death rays, and explosions galore.

Doesn't sound very sophisticated, does it?

Well, this is Robert McCammon we're talking about.

If readers wish to approach The Border as a slam-bang action novel, they will have plenty to enjoy while reading it. If readers are looking for something more, they too will find much to ponder.

To me, The Border works as a parable about second chances. About new beginnings and shaking off the chaos we've all been through. Nobody's life has been a picnic, and most of us have faced despair, depression, hopelessness, fear.

The best works of fiction make us look at the world, and our own lives, in new light. The Border did that for me. I felt as though I had been through a transformation when I read the final sentence. One that made me see things more clearly, and to put my life and its challenges into better perspective.

I congratulate Robert McCammon, not only on a magnificent job with The Border, but daring to do something so different with his fiction. I am grateful that he took this diversion from the chronicles of Matthew Corbett. Now I hope he hurries up and gets back to that character and the plight he is in at the conclusion of The River of Souls.

In closing, I thank Subterranean Press for providing the perfect literary home for Robert McCammon, and for allowing him the freedom to take chances with his writing career.