The Border

This book came really close to being a classic. The idea of Earth being a battleground of two other alien races is awesome, the idea of a guardian of the galaxy is awesome, the use of a child as the receptacle for the alien is awesome. The book though fell short of awesome, but nonetheless was pretty good.

What bothered me was that there was too much stuff going on. And you could tell what the ending was going to be way before we actually got there. And, the main protagonist - Ethan - was very difficult to relate to.

Despite all these, it still was a fun read with alien vs. alien on our turf.

As a HUGE Robert McCammon fan, I was beyond excited when I read that he was writing an epic science-fiction/horror book. (I will probably faint when I finally get the signed copy I ordered from Cemetery Dance.) Overall, The Border did live up to my expectations.

The characters here were all well drawn except, oddly,for the main protagonist, Ethan. I felt that we never got to know him in-depth.
As we started learning who Ethan was, we discover he's being taken over by The Guardian, and then before we know it the real Ethan is gone. To little or no fanfare, I may add, which felt wrong to me.


I loved the sci-fi bits of the war between the Cyphers and the Gorgons. The Gray Men were beyond scary as was just the thought of living in a world show more caught between warring space factions. The imagination that could think all of this stuff up is worth worshiping, IMO. Some of these creatures and their modes of transportation were amazingly vivid.

Now here's the part I don't want to even give voice to: I disliked the ending. A lot. It did not ruin my reading experience as a whole, but it brought my rating down by one star. I hate, yes-HATE, deus ex machina endings and this is surely one. In the midst of discovering one of the greatest tragedies of mankind, comes this fancy gadget to save the day. Really? All of this wonderful creative imagination and then that to end it? I was SO disappointed.

Overall, I was pleased with The Border and happy to see the Robert McCammon from the 80's with whom I originally fell in love. His passion and love for his characters is still evident and I love him for that. If it weren't for that ending, this would be yet another book for my McCammon favorites shelf.

As it stands, this was still an excellent book-and I do highly recommend it! show less

Another McCammon gem!

As a longtime fan of Robert McCammon's novels, I can say that I've read just about everything the man has written and enjoyed each experience. That is certainly true with "The Border".

Like two drunken bar bawlers who take their fight from the old Western saloon into the street, the battling Gorgon and Cyphers alien civilizations have allowed their war to keep expanding outward into the Galaxy far enough to reach Earth. The unwitting people of Earth are powerless to do anything to stop the carnage and soon find themselves helpless victims of the destruction.

After years of fighting, only a handful of earthlings are left to fight off the alien attacks and all appears to be lost until the appearance of a strange boy show more with no memory who begins to demonstrate his unusual powers to combat the Gorgons and Cyphers.

Though suspicious of him at first, the small band of survivors that he links up with slowly begin to see that he may contain the secret to their salvation and begin to follow his directions. The novel really begins to soar at that point as the action really ratchets up.

As with each of McCammon's books, "The Border" is filled with memorable characters and thrilling scenes. Those that panned the book stated that it was too similar to "Swan Song". While I could see some similarities to it, this book stands effectively on its own merits.

McCammon fans will be pleased. show less

Well. That wasn't very good, was it?

Look, let's just get this out of the way. If you want to read better versions of this novel, read [b:Swan Song|11557|Swan Song|Robert McCammon|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1445981000s/11557.jpg|2947187] for the apocalytic elements, then [b:Stinger|11556|Stinger|Robert McCammon|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1340796928s/11556.jpg|16692450] for the really bad SF/alien elements.

McCammon is not a SF author. That's pretty damn obvious. He can be an excellent author when he wants to be. [b:Boy's Life|11553|Boy's Life|Robert McCammon|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1314302694s/11553.jpg|16685995] proves it. Unfortunately, lazy, unfocused efforts like this one, or [b:The Five|10189558|The Five|Robert show more McCammon|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327896424s/10189558.jpg|15088657] shows how off he can actually be when he's off.

Seriously, there isn't a single character in the novel that has anything approaching a reasonable back story that's developed enough for the reader to give a shit about them, or to reveal any of their motivations.

The aliens are similarly loosely sketched. Big miss on the main character, Ethan as he struggles after coming back from the dead, losing his memory, and dealing with an alien presence encroaching on both his body and his mind. None of it was developed.

Finally, there's the base premise. McCammon would have us believe that some sort of strategic border "passes directly through the planet" and causes the fighting between the two races. Right through the planet? Because, last time I checked, the planet in question, the titular border in The Border actually orbits the sun at a distance of 93 million miles, meaning that particular border must move by a factor of 186 million miles, depending on where it is in the orbit.

But they scrap over this planet? Stupid.

This was a rather sad way to finish off the last of the series of books that I started not quite a year ago, beginning with McCammon's first effort.

But I'm done now. And after this one? Kinda glad I am. show less

Average sci-fi entertainment that is marred by a particularly weak "it was all a dream" type ending. We don't even get to shed any tears, none, and all those shed along the way were wasted. I found the characters tepid by McCammon standards and the scenario and plot, while showing early signs of innovation, settled into a fairly conventional class in the end. Hardly an occasion for rejoicing about McCammon's return to 1980s form. A fat read strictly for McCammon aficionados.

A story of humanity caught in the crossfire as powerful aliens species fight over control of Earth, this is a gruesome, wrenching novel with just a touch of hope.

The pride is McCammon's usual mix of lurid description and sentimental wistfulness, but the characters are well built and the action riveting. Fun, but falls a little flat in the depth department.

This book is an interesting mix of Robert’s earlier work Swan Song, mixed with Stephen King’s The Stand add a healthy dose of War of the Worlds and stir. Then you shake all these up and add a smidgen of comic book action –Zombies, flesh eating and shape shifting, Area 54 - to it you will have The Border.

This was a great book, although pontificating and plodding at times; then there are other times that it just felt it was going at warp speed. Some of this book really made me philosophical and had me pondering the state of our universe, the world cockiness as to how we think we are ‘the big bad’ and what may or may not be out there; some other parts just made me roll my eyes.

It seemed to me that the characters had not been show more fleshed out very well. I never really felt for any of the characters. I never had any sympathy for what they were going through nor did I ever feel enough about them to have any empathy for them. Learning about Ethan –what he was becoming, what he was is a fascinating aspect of this book. I wish this aspect had been explored a bit more. I never thought I would say this about a book, but I think it should have been maybe 200 to 250 pages longer and then it really could have fleshed the characters more, made the story seem less comic bookish and made more of an impression on me show less