Roller skating, roller derby, glitter, drugs, sex, disco, glam rockers, funk, nightclubs, nightlife; these are just a handful of subjects covered in Apex Publications’ anthology Glitter & Mayhem, edited by John Klima, Lynne M. Thomas, and Michael Damian Thomas. Add some aliens and very literal party monsters, along with an invitation-themed introduction by Amber Benson, into the mix, and you get twenty original stories about, well, all sorts of things, with a particular focus on self-discovery and self-acceptance.

Twenty stories is a lot of partying, but I’m happy to say that I wasn’t burnt out by the end. Part of this may be because the first and last two stories of the collection are so damn strong; they’re both fairy tale retellings, which is right up my alley.

In “Sister Twelve: Confessions of a Party Monster” by Christopher Barzak, my all-time favorite fairy tale — “The Twelve Dancing Princesses” — is retold with a half-modern twist. The youngest sister gets to tell her side of the story; in the original tale, twelve princesses find a door beneath their bed that leads to another world. In that world, they meet twelve princes who take them to a palace where they dance until their shoes are ruined. When their father, the king, sees their destroyed shoes every morning, he offers the hand of any princess to any man capable to figuring out where they go and what they do. What’s different about this version is that instead of the sisters disappearing each night to dance at an elegant ball, they visit nightclubs from our own world, partying with the likes of Andy Warhol at clubs such as Studio 54 and Womb in Tokyo. It’s a refreshing way to retell the story without altering the bulk of what makes this particular tale so resonant: the mystical world, the princesses’ love of dance, the tattered shoes. It’s also worth noting that in the original, the younger sister is the only one who really seems to ever notice when something is out of the ordinary, and so it’s fitting that she, the one who stands out most in the original, would be given her own perspective.

The last story is Rachel Swirsky’s “All That Fairy Tale Crap,” a wonderful meta-fictional retelling of Cinderella in which the fairy tale world is turned upside down and examined from the perspective of a feminist Cinderella figure; false Prince Charmings constantly try to trick women into believing that they’re the real deal, and Cinderella sleeps and parties with her stepsisters. Funny, smart, and one of the best stories I’ve read, period, this story is tough to explain but an absolute delight to read.

Another highlight of the collection is Kat Howard’s “With Her Hundred Miles to Hell,” which reinvents the Greek underworld mythos. Hades is a club with a six-visit limit, the Erinyes are the bouncers, and if you drink the cups of ambrosia and pomegranate seeds that Hades offers from his seat at the bar, you’ll die a permanent death. Morain works at the club, making her dreams into pills for customers to swallow. But her dreams at home are having lasting consequences in the real world, and so she is tempted by Hades and his pomegranates, his offers of sleep without repercussions. Absolutely beautiful, dark stuff here. A story about choices and sacrifices.

In Damien Walters Grintalis’ “Inside Hides the Monster,” a siren wonders why her songs no longer lure people. This is another darker mythological retelling; the siren needs to feed, but she must be careful not to let her song out in front of too large a crowd, or her victims’ energy will be too much for her. She discovers a night club where the music is modern and unlike anything she has ever heard; she hates it, at first. The siren in Grintalis’ story isn’t all monster; she does what she can with what life has given her, and because of this, she is a complicated, sympathetic character, despite the fact that she maims people. My kind of gray area, “Inside Hides the Monster” modernizes the siren myth in just the right way.

Another mythology-based story: the selkie story gets a disco edge in Cat Rambo’s “Of Selkies, Disco Balls, and Anna Plane.” Anna Plane, a young woman in love with her gay best friend, the story’s narrator, finds herself when he takes her to a local gay bar. As she breaks out of her shell, she takes a job as bartender there and befriends a group of selkies who inform her that the bar’s proprietor is a sorceress who has stolen her selkie lover’s skin. Anna decides that it’s up to her to get the skin back and set the other woman free. This is a story about being in love with someone who doesn’t love you back, and how two very different people choose to deal with that rejection. It’s also a coming out story, as the narrator struggles throughout the story to voice his sexual orientation.

These darker stories, however, don’t make up the bulk of Glitter & Mayhem; in fact, most of the stories in the anthology are lighter-hearted. In “Apex Jump” by David J. Schwartz, a roller derby team is invited to play on another planet, though they’re unaware where the venue is located at the time. In Jennifer Pelland’s “Star Dancer,” Cass moves to a small town where her options for recreation, and girlfriends, are limited; when she discovers through the use of MDMA that the local belly dancer with glittery skin is actually an alien in exile from her planet because she wants nothing more than to dance, Cass is drawn to the adventure. This story turns farcical pretty quickly, and Cass’ quippy voice is solid company all the way through. Both of these stories are entertaining, and they both offer the speculative fiction fan glimpses of stuff they wouldn’t ordinarily see in alien stories: roller rinks and derby, for one thing.

Also impressive in this anthology is the amount of stories which feature women characters and characters of varying genders and sexualities. In “A Hollow Play” by Amal El-Mohtar, Emily writes letters about her life in London to her best friend, Paige; one of the events she writes about is a new friendship with Anna, who invites her to a Spangled Cabaret show. Anna is in a poly relationship with two individuals who aren’t quite human — one of these individuals is also genderqueer, and the other, Lynette, is a performer in the Spangled Cabaret. When Lynette tells Emily about the world they came from, and how they can’t go back, Emily becomes involved with their lives in a way she couldn’t have imagined.

Some more highlights of the anthology:

In “Such & Such Said to So & So” by Maria Dahvana Headley, a police officer gets a call one night saying that “the drinks from Bee’s Jesus had finally killed a man.” Bee’s Jesus, as it turns out, is a nightclub where the cocktails come to life; each drink has its own personality, its own body, which emerges when it’s ordered. The narrator, one of the cops, has a long-standing history with the club, having met his ex-wife there. This highly-original story has a noir feel, and as usual, Maria Dahvana Headley’s prose is something to be reckoned with.

Tim Pratt’s “Revels in the Land of Ice,” is about a college student who befriends an older man named Crater; he promises to teach her magic. When he informs her that there will be a breach into a faerie world he visited in the past, and that the breach will happen in a local, closed-down roller rink, she’s wary of just how much truth he’s telling. Crater is an excellent character who starts Aerin, the college student, on a journey of self-discovery. The ending is resonant.

“Bess, the Landlord’s Daughter, Goes for Drinks with the Green Girl” by Sofia Samatar is about two ghosts who try to live out their deaths to the fullest, spending their nights at bars, going home with strangers, and living by the creed: LIVELIVELIVE. Clever, fun, and haunting.

Also, be sure and check out the cover art, by the talented Galen Dara, one of my personal favorite illustrators.

Overall, Glitter & Mayhem is well worth checking out, especially if you’re in the mood for some highly original tales of party lives. You can purchase Glitter & Mayhem on Amazon or through Apex Publications.