The Borribles

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It is sad to pass through life without one good Adventure. It is better to die young than to be caught. If you're my friend, follow me round the bend. —Borrible proverbs

Described by one early reviewer as "not so much mock epic as muck epic", The Borribles is one of the first (and still best) examples of Urban Fantasy. Written by the late Michael de Larrabeiti, this series is comprised of three volumes:

• The Borribles
• The Borribles Go For Broke
• The Borribles: Across The Dark Metropolis

The books focus on the epynomous Borribles, immortal elf-like street urchins who live on the edges of the human world, stealing what they need and living where they can -- and making a virtue of both. They are surrounded by a rich culture of songs and tales and a book of rules and proverbs tailored to the life of adventure, defiance of authority, and casual thievery that defines the very nature of "being Borrible". Although the trilogy is set in England -- specifically, the economically-devastated London of the 1970s -- it's clear that Borribles are not a solely British phenomenon; they exist around the world. However, the saga is very much an English one.

The stories start when a Borrible named Knocker discovers that the Borribles' traditional enemy, the Rumbles -- a race of giant talking rats with a penchant for living high on the hog with technology and goods stolen from humans -- have begun to expand out of their stronghold under Wimbledon Commons and into other parts of London. In response, the Borrible tribes of London assemble a team of eight champions, one from each tribe, to assault the Rumble headquarters and assassinate the Rumble High Command. Given training, weapons and the names of their assigned targets, the Adventurers set off on the dangerous trek across the city, surrounded not only by the dangers that afflict Borribles every day, but by plots within plots and secrets kept from one another. And when they finally reach their goal, it's only the beginning of a greater set of dangers which ultimately threaten all of London's Borribles.

In the trilogy, the neat, orderly and boring adult world is positioned in direct contrast to the wild, scruffy world of the Borribles. Along with structure and organisation, materialism is heavily derided; the Borribles have fulfilling existences despite their lack of possessions, while those who crave material wealth are inevitably presented as villains. Comradeship and co-operation are also presented as highly laudable traits -– the Borribles will go to any length and take any risk to protect one of their own. Though written as young adult fiction, the books deal with serous topics, such as debate over what causes are noble enough to die for and which aren't.

The trilogy was originally published in the late 1970s and early 1980s and immediately was the target of reactionary criticism for its "antisocial" and "anti-authority" themes. The release of the third volume was actually canceled in 1985 by a nervous publisher who felt that in the wake of well-publicized riots that year, the political climate had changed too much for it to be considered "acceptable" anymore; fortunately, a less squeamish firm then took up the challenge. Despite this, the trilogy became, and remains, a cult classic, with literary figures such as China Mieville, Diana Wynne Jones, Neil Gaiman and Cory Doctorow touting its influence on their work and eagerly evangelizing it to anyone who will listen. And the movie rights have been optioned many times over the years, although no production has yet to escape Development Hell.

Sadly, as Michael de Larrabeiti passed away in 2008, no new Borrible adventures are likely to be forthcoming. However, as of January 2014, the entire series has been relaunched by TOR UK in both ebook and print formats.

The publishers have set up a Facebook page for the trilogy here.

You can read the first chapter of The Borribles here at Boingboing.net.

Related Links:

• The Borribles voted Best London Novel
• theLONDONi on The Borribles
• The Borribles Twitter feed

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Tropes used in The Borribles include:

• Action Girl: Sydney and Chalotte.
• Anyone Can Die: Major characters can and do die for real here and there. Life for the average Borrible is, as the saying goes, nasty, brutish and short.
• The Artful Dodger: Knocker in particular, but any of the more heroic Borribles fit this archetype.
• Asexuality: Borribles start off as prepubescent children (with one very notable exception), so there's little to no sexuality -- at least in the adult sense -- in them to start with. And once they Borrible, there's pretty much no difference whatsover between male and female; after all, Borribles don't reproduce sexually. (Despite this, it's pretty obvious that Knocker feels some kind of attraction toward Chalotte in the first book.)
• Awesome McCoolname: What every Borrible hopes to earn. At the end of the first book, Sydney posthumously designates Knocker's second name as "Burnthand", and everyone agrees it's this trope. Except Knocker himself, who isn't actually dead; when he learns what he was dubbed, he thinks of it as a reminder of one of the most foolish things he ever did.
• Band of Brothers: What the members of the Great Rumble Hunt become by the end of the first book, with a loyalty to each other and their group stronger than their tribal and other ties.
• Becoming the Mask: One of the disguised midgets dispatched by Inspector Sussworth in the third book comes to appreciate the Borrible way of life so much that he actually becomes a real Borrible, despite being an adult.
• The Big Guy: Stonks.
• Bittersweet Ending: The trilogy ends with Knocker volunteering to remain behind to be caught by the SBG -- and thus inevitably to get his ears clipped, turning him back into a normal human child -- so that the rest of the heroes can escape undetected.
• Brats with Slingshots: The classic forked-stick-and-rubber-band slingshot (called a "catapult" in British parlance) is the traditional weapon of all Borribles, and they'll eagerly embrace its high-tech descendent the wrist rocket. Borribles are deadshots will catapults; they can -- and do -- kill both Rumbles and adult humans with well-placed shots.
• British Accents: On display throughout. The Borribles generally speak in a lowerclass dialect (although Sydney demonstrates enough upperclass mannerisms that one wonders who her family was before she ran away and Borribled).
• Chaotic Neutral/Chaotic Good: The Borribles are by nature extreme individualists dismissive of all attempts to regulate them. They do recognize good and evil, and although their interpretations are somewhat colored by their culture, do come down (more or less) on the side of good.
• The Chessmaster: Spiff.
• Children Are Innocent: Thoroughly subverted. A child has to be very much not innocent to become a Borrible. And if you consider Borribles just mutated children... well, there are no innocent Borribles. (Although Sydney comes close at times.)
• Disney Death: Knocker, at the end of the first book, appears to have died during the group's escape from the Wendle tunnels; they discover in the second book that he didn't die, but was captured and used as slave labor.
• Earn Your Name: The only way to get any kind of name as a Borrible: until you've earned a name by an impressive feat of daring such as assassinating a leader of a rival gang the best you can expect is to be referred to as "hey, you!" The plot of the first novel is driven in part by the protagonist's desire to get a second name (which is not unprecedented; one of his associates has several names, each commemorating some memorable deed).
• Elmuh Fudd Syndwome: The Rumbles have a universal lisp. Since their racial name starts with an "R", it forces them to pronounce it as "Wumble", emphasizing their origin as a Parody of The Wombles.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The District Assistant Commissioner.
• The Fair Folk: It's strongly hinted that the Borribles are the origin of most "elf" and "fairy" myths.
• Family-Unfriendly Violence: Fights are bloody, and people on both sides die in the "sight" of the reader, sometimes in disturbing manners.
• Fantastic Racism: The mutual loathing the Rumbles and the Borribles have for each other; also, the government attitude toward Borribles smacks of institutional racism on many levels.
  • Also the disdain the other Borribles of London have for the Wendles of Wandsworth.
• Fell Off the Back of a Truck: Played with. Mentions of things falling off the backs of lorries would be followed by comments about how bumpy the roads are in London, or what a useful thing gravity is. As every Borrible is a thief by definition, all the uses of the phrase are clearly very ironic.
• Final Solution: What Inspector Sussworth is hoping to enact upon all Borribles, everywhere.
• Friend to All Living Things: Sydney.
• Funny Animal: The Rumbles qualify for this trope in every way -- and are a definite reminder that "funny animals" are not necessarily humorous.
• Heroic Sacrifice: At the end of the third volume, Knocker chooses to stay behind to be caught by the SBG so the others can escape.
• History Marches On: The socio-economic conditions which made 1970s England so hospitable to the Borribles, and the urban wasteland in which they had their adventures, are both long gone.
• Hobbits: Subverted -- the Borribles are urbanized, adventurous, scruffy, and tough; they live in a world much like ours, but with fantastical elements. They do share the stereotypical hobbit's small size, stealthiness, distaste for authorities, compassion for animals, and tendency to steal whatever's not nailed down, though.
• Human Subspecies: Borribles definitely qualify. Human childen turn into Borribles, and if their ears are clipped, Borribles go right back to being human children.
• I Have Many Names: An explict goal for most if not all Borribles: Borribles begin their (new) lives nameless, and only gain names by great deeds or adventures; the more names one possess, the more legendary and well-known one is.
• Inspector Javert: An utterly unsympathetic version is found in Inspector Sussworth, to whom the Borribles' very existence is in defiance of his social and political vision of the world.
• Lawful Evil: Pretty much all government is portrayed this way. When the police are allowed to physically mutilate a prisoner without any kind of trial or due process first in order to turn him into a good little citizen, it's hard to see them as anything else.
  • Borribles also view the Rumbles this way, and what little we get to see of Rumble society suggests it might be justified.
• Like Reality Unless Noted: The world is very clearly 1970s Earth -- except for the immortal elfin children and the intelligent rodents each maintaining their own civilizations in the cracks and crevices of human civilization.
• A MacGuffin Full of Money: The Rumbles' box of money which Spiff secretly charges Knocker with retrieving (under the guise of being a "historian" documenting the Great Rumble Hunt); it directly drives the ending of the first book and much of the plot of the second.
• Meaningful Name: A cultural trope for Borribles -- all Borrible names refer to their personal histories and refer to specific deeds they've performed or adventures they've had.
  • The heroes of the books are a special case even among Borribles: they were each provisionally given a name before earning it -- the name of their target on the Rumble High Command. When they succeeded in killing their target, the name would become theirs permanently.
• The Mole: An entire team of moles, in fact -- in The Borribles: Across The Dark Metropolis, Inspector Sussworth recruits a group of midgets to disguise themselves as Borribles and infiltrate Borrible society to find the heroes.
• Mouse World: Although the Borribles and the Rumbles are somewhat larger than the usual inhabitants of a Mouse World, their (mostly) hidden civilzations still count.
• The Movie: Film adapations of The Borribles have been bandied about for a decade or more; the film rights remain in active play as of this writing, but so far they remain in Development Hell.
• The Man Behind the Man: The District Assistant Commissioner, Sussworth's superior.
• Neat Freak: Inspector Sussworth, to the point of complete germophobia.
• Not Growing Up Sucks: Averted vigorously. As far as Borribles are concerned, growing up is basically death.
• Odd Couple: Long, lean, intelligent neat-freak Inspector Sussworth and his right-hand man, the rather dim, overweight and slovenly Sergeant Hanks.
• Parody: The trilogy prominently features a major parody recognizable only to the British: The Rumbles are a vicious parody of The Wombles.
  • It's also been suggested that the Borribles themselves are a parody of The Borrowers.
  • The Special Borrible Group is am equally vicious parody of the [wikipedia:Special Patrol Group|Special Patrol Group].
• Pointy Ears: The only obvious physical trait that distinguishes Borribles from human children.
• Posthumous Narration: There are a couple very subtle hints at the end of Across The Dark Metropolis that the entire trilogy has been told by the clipped and now grown-up Knocker.
• Real Women Don't Wear Dresses: Mostly by accident; there's functionally no difference between male and female Borribles, and all Borribles pretty much wear the same general clothing: jeans, sneakers, sweaters and knit caps pulled down to hide their ears.
• Really Seven Hundred Years Old: Although Borribles are theoretically immortal, few survive long enough to enjoy it. Spiff, however, is rumored to have been around London Borrible society since the days of "the old Queen" (presumably Victoria and not Elizabeth I). This turns out to be true; furthermore, the Wendle leader, Flinthead, is Spiff's brother (they ran away and Borribled together), so is just as old.
• Rodents of Unusual Size: The Rumbles, who are ratlike and the size of human children.
• Runaway Hideaway: Borrible society provides many examples of the Type 3 variety; some are long-established, others are temporary squats. Perhaps the most permanent (and impressive) example are the Wendle tunnels under the neighborhood of Wandsworth.
• The Runaway: Every Borrible starts out as a runaway child before metamorphosing.
• Satisfied Street Rat: Spiff, Flinthead and many others, despite not technically being adults.
• Street Urchin: The base state for a Borrible; a very successful Street Urchin turns into a Borrible.
• Take That: In addition to the scathing satire of The Wombles found in the Rumbles, the rag-and-bone man Dewdrop and his son 'Erbie from The Borribles are vicious caricatures of Steptoe and Son.
• Team Mom: Sydney.
• Team Pet: Sam the Horse.
• Terrified of Germs: Inspector Sussworth.
• Token Black: Orococco
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Chalotte and Sydney, respectively.
• The Unmasqued World: Authorities know of the existence of Borribles and establish special police squads to deal with them. The average citizen has heard of Borribles, but usually has never seen one (at least knowingly). Rumbles own automobiles and drive them in the street in broad daylight.
• Urban Fantasy
• What Do You Mean It's Not for Kids?: Much of the criticism of the trilogy's "subversive" nature was rooted in the automatic (and rather ridiculous) assumption by Moral Guardians that because the Borribles were like children, the books were not only intended for children, but were a primer for a proper way of life.