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Glitter & Mayhem
(InCryptid #2.2 - Bad Dream Girl)
by
more…
Welcome to Glitter & Mayhem, the most glamorous party in the multiverse.
Step behind the velvet rope of these fabulous Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror tales of roller rinks, nightclubs, glam aliens, party monsters, drugs, sex, glitter, and debauchery.
Dance through nightclubs, roller derby with cryptids and aliens, be seduced by otherworldly creatures, and ingest cockta ...more
Step behind the velvet rope of these fabulous Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror tales of roller rinks, nightclubs, glam aliens, party monsters, drugs, sex, glitter, and debauchery.
Dance through nightclubs, roller derby with cryptids and aliens, be seduced by otherworldly creatures, and ingest cockta ...more
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Kindle Edition, 348 pages
Published
August 21st 2013
by Apex Publications
(first published August 1st 2013)
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Community Reviews
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Start your review of Glitter & Mayhem

I am not quite there yet..meaning not done. My review is for just two of the stories, both of which I liked. But this features many stories and it maybe a book I read all the way through and may not be..right now I am picking the specific stories I like.
These are all short Urban Fantasy stories with the common theme being Disco, Nightclubs, Nightlife, Dancing, Neon lights, Bars etc..with lots of strange stuff featured. It is not a genre I usually read much in.
I remember many years ago, I saw a s ...more
These are all short Urban Fantasy stories with the common theme being Disco, Nightclubs, Nightlife, Dancing, Neon lights, Bars etc..with lots of strange stuff featured. It is not a genre I usually read much in.
I remember many years ago, I saw a s ...more

I have read a lot of strange, weird, and bizarre fiction over the years, but I do believe Glitter & Mayhem may just be the oddest collection of stories I have ever come across. I'm not talking avant-garde or surreal, as is so often the case with Bizarro fiction, just plain old . . . well, odd. As you may have guessed from the cover, if not the title itself, this is sex-crazed, drug-fueled, glitter-drenched science fiction and fantasy that is firmly embedded in the disco-esque party scene.
While s ...more
While s ...more

Sep 28, 2013
Amal El-Mohtar
rated it
it was amazing
· (Review from the author)
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
fantasy
Requisite Humble-Is-For-Pies disclaimer: I have a story in this.
Further disclaimer: I was having a very, very, very bad day when I decided to immerse myself in this book, and reading it went a long way towards making me feel like something more than a smear on the pavement.
Furthest disclaimer: I know and love several of the people involved in the making of this book.
So! I loved it. I did not love every single story, but I liked almost all of them, really liked a significant number, and outright ...more
Further disclaimer: I was having a very, very, very bad day when I decided to immerse myself in this book, and reading it went a long way towards making me feel like something more than a smear on the pavement.
Furthest disclaimer: I know and love several of the people involved in the making of this book.
So! I loved it. I did not love every single story, but I liked almost all of them, really liked a significant number, and outright ...more

Bad Dream Girl by Seanan McGuire
I only read Antimony's short in this anthology so the rating is only for that. I plan to come back and check out the other stories over time.
Antimony is a character that I'm intrigued with. I admit that I'm not in love with all the roller derby stuff but I do like how there's enough there to give me the picture on what is going on and not quite too much there to make me overly bored.
As I already love the other two Price children (in this generation), I was glad to ...more
I only read Antimony's short in this anthology so the rating is only for that. I plan to come back and check out the other stories over time.
Antimony is a character that I'm intrigued with. I admit that I'm not in love with all the roller derby stuff but I do like how there's enough there to give me the picture on what is going on and not quite too much there to make me overly bored.
As I already love the other two Price children (in this generation), I was glad to ...more

Anthologies are like eating mystery cake. Yummy chocolate with random add ins like caramel, butterscotch, raspberry, shrimp, feet, durian, pate, caviar, or okra. Some go well, some don't, and some just don't work in this combination.
...more

Glitter and Mayhem may only exist as an excuse to throw a glow-in-the-dark roller skating book release party at Worldcon—I am not exaggerating; that is literally how this anthology came about—but it does present a diverse collection of short stories about parties, roller derby, debauchery, glam aliens, sex, drugs, and so on. What's impressive is that the general "party" theme, however prevalent, doesn't feel repetitive, thanks to the authors' different takes and levels of adherence. Some stories
...more

A fantasy anthology with a lot of references to parties and roller skating.
Sister Twelve: Confessions of a Party Monster - Christopher Barzak
I liked this one. It's about 12 princes that escape through the floor of their castle to a hub realm from which they can go to dance parties in every imaginable time and dimension. One of them stays.
Apex Jump - David Schwartz
A very entertaining story about a roller derby team that gets recruited to an intergalactic bout many light years away.
With Her Hundre ...more
Sister Twelve: Confessions of a Party Monster - Christopher Barzak
I liked this one. It's about 12 princes that escape through the floor of their castle to a hub realm from which they can go to dance parties in every imaginable time and dimension. One of them stays.
Apex Jump - David Schwartz
A very entertaining story about a roller derby team that gets recruited to an intergalactic bout many light years away.
With Her Hundre ...more

This novella is going to be published this summer in the anthology Glitter and Mayhem - I got an early copy of it as my thank you swag for helping back the anthology on Kickstarter, and I think it's the nicest Kickstarter perk I've had yet! Set in the same InCryptid universe as Discount Armageddon this story stars Verity's little sister Antimony, she of the pit trap fame, as she investigates mysterious goings on in her roller derby league. I've only been to roller derby once, and I spent my firs
...more

I received a free copy of this book in return for a review, via the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program.
Little cinder girls, we're raised in fire.
Either you melt and become the simpering thing you're supposed to.
Or else you temper into something calloused and unbreakable.
The book started off well, as the first couple of stories are two of my favourites. "Apex Jump" is a science fiction story about a roller derby team that gets invited to play a very unusual away match, while "Sister Twelve: Con ...more
Little cinder girls, we're raised in fire.
Either you melt and become the simpering thing you're supposed to.
Or else you temper into something calloused and unbreakable.
The book started off well, as the first couple of stories are two of my favourites. "Apex Jump" is a science fiction story about a roller derby team that gets invited to play a very unusual away match, while "Sister Twelve: Con ...more

I only bought this for Seanan Mcguire's contribution but I read it all and for the most part I loved it! It has introduced me to some new authors whose work I will be checking out in the future.
Individual ratings are as follows:
Sister Twelve... by Christopher Barzak -5/5 stars FAVOURITE
Apex Jump by David J. Schwartz - 4/5 stars
With her hundred miles to hell by Kat Howard - 2/5 stars
Star Dancer by Jennifer Pelland - 3.5/5 stars
Of Selkies, Disco Balls, and Anna Plane by Cat Rambo - 4/5 stars
Sooner ...more
Individual ratings are as follows:
Sister Twelve... by Christopher Barzak -5/5 stars FAVOURITE
Apex Jump by David J. Schwartz - 4/5 stars
With her hundred miles to hell by Kat Howard - 2/5 stars
Star Dancer by Jennifer Pelland - 3.5/5 stars
Of Selkies, Disco Balls, and Anna Plane by Cat Rambo - 4/5 stars
Sooner ...more

Skates on. Ante up.
Myths, legends, 90s industrial music and roller derby. This book has a lot going on all at once. And so much of it makes you ruminate on the clubs of your own misspent youth*. At the same time, this anthology is what you always wished those clubs would be: secret fantastic portals where you really were the hero of a dark fantasy epic that made all that time spent picking out your outfit suddenly worth it.
All anthologies are mixed bags, but what impressed me here was that the ...more
Myths, legends, 90s industrial music and roller derby. This book has a lot going on all at once. And so much of it makes you ruminate on the clubs of your own misspent youth*. At the same time, this anthology is what you always wished those clubs would be: secret fantastic portals where you really were the hero of a dark fantasy epic that made all that time spent picking out your outfit suddenly worth it.
All anthologies are mixed bags, but what impressed me here was that the ...more

I can’t really top Amber Benson’s introduction to the anthology, Glitter & Mayhem, edited by John Klima, Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas. She’s pretty much got all the eye-popping, funkadelic, trippy feel to each and every one of these stories down to the very bones. All I can really do is give you a repeat. These stories bend, twist, break just about every stereotype there is – gender bending, race bending, species bending, mind bending. It’s all in here. Between roller derby, roller sk
...more

Before I start this review, I should make one thing clear: I'm the least club-going, disco-loving person I know. I think I was in a club once in my whole life, but it was too loud, and the lights were too bright, and I left as soon as it was polite. I also can't dance, don't do drugs, and consider "a great party" to be one in which the cylons manage to destroy humanity during a game of Battlestar:Galactica. All these things should probably make me hate "Glitter and Mayhem" - an anthology of disc
...more

The stories aren't bad, but the only stand-out entry is Sofia Samatar's "Bess, the Landlord's Daughter, Goes Out for Drinks with the Green Girl," which covers some of the same territory as Helen Oyeyemi's Mr. Fox, but in a whirl of bars and flirtations and dancing and friendships and escapes that come too late. We are fascinated by beautiful dead girls; they take their revenge.
I also liked:
Tansy Rayner Robert's "The Minotaur Girls," where a girl needs to free her friends from the labyrinth of a ...more
I also liked:
Tansy Rayner Robert's "The Minotaur Girls," where a girl needs to free her friends from the labyrinth of a ...more

Jan 05, 2017
Jessica ❁ ➳ Silverbow ➳ ❁
added it
Reviewed by: Rabid Reads
Bad Dream Girl, InCryptid 2.2
2 stars
As much as I love roller derby, I did not love this story.
BAD DREAM GIRL felt like it was written to fill a anthology slot, and while it kind of was, McGuire writes for anthologies all the time, and it's always been meaningful to whatever world she's adding to.
Not this time. It was all, "I don't wanna bore you with details,"--seriously, that was said at least three times--Antimony trying to figure out what kind of cryptid she was deali ...more
Bad Dream Girl, InCryptid 2.2
2 stars
As much as I love roller derby, I did not love this story.
BAD DREAM GIRL felt like it was written to fill a anthology slot, and while it kind of was, McGuire writes for anthologies all the time, and it's always been meaningful to whatever world she's adding to.
Not this time. It was all, "I don't wanna bore you with details,"--seriously, that was said at least three times--Antimony trying to figure out what kind of cryptid she was deali ...more

Jun 03, 2013
Glennis
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
single-story-from-previous-antholog
Up front I supported the Kickstarter for this book and I also happened to win a review copy off of Goodreads. I was sold on this anthology mostly because of Seanan McGuire was in it and I enjoy her stuff. What I got was a great story by her and several other stories that were great and at least one I know will be on my Hugo ballot for short story next year. There were a few stories that didn't kick with me but that seems to happen in every theme anthology that read. As much as I thought all the
...more

Aug 07, 2013
Cathy
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
urban,
fantasy,
paranormal,
science-fiction,
people-of-color,
satire,
anthology,
short-stories,
read-in-2014
I've wanted to read this for over a year, ever since I saw the table of contents on SF Signal. I didn't even know if I'd be able to get it, it was Kickstarted and I didn't know if it was something my library would end up getting, but I kept checking for a long time. I wasn't that into short stories at that point, I just wanted to read the stories by Seanan McGuire and Diana Rowland. In the last year I got hooked on short stories enough to be really excited about seven more of the authors, which ...more

This collection is so on-point, it's awesome. It's like being inside a Bowie song. Or, ALL the Bowie songs. Sometimes almost literally, what with all the Bowie references that pepper the stories.
Some of the authors date themselves, e.g., tons of '80s references, but that is fine with me, as a child of the '80s myself. And for better or worse, the feelings and experiences captured and/or desired here are indeed kind of becoming relics of a past age.
I didn't love all the stories, but I did love ...more
Some of the authors date themselves, e.g., tons of '80s references, but that is fine with me, as a child of the '80s myself. And for better or worse, the feelings and experiences captured and/or desired here are indeed kind of becoming relics of a past age.
I didn't love all the stories, but I did love ...more

As with most short story collections, there were some stories here that I liked more than others. Nobody who knows me will be surprised that Seanan McGuire's story ranked at the favored end of the scale :)
Sister Twelve: Confessions of a Party Monster by Christopher Barzak - 4/5, fun and interesting take on 12 Dancing Princesses
Apex Jump by David J. Schwartz - 5/5, holy crap I liked this story. It was fun, and funny, and had a couple hard pokes in the feels. Good characters and engaging writing.
W ...more
Sister Twelve: Confessions of a Party Monster by Christopher Barzak - 4/5, fun and interesting take on 12 Dancing Princesses
Apex Jump by David J. Schwartz - 5/5, holy crap I liked this story. It was fun, and funny, and had a couple hard pokes in the feels. Good characters and engaging writing.
W ...more

“Glitter and Mayhem is a speculative fiction anthology of Roller Derby, nightclubs, glam aliens, (literal) party monsters, drugs, sex, glitter, debauchery, and more.” Yes. Yes, it is. The call for stories was wide open, and there are a number of dark fantasy and horror stories packed into this particular night club. Like any great party, there’s an interesting mix. Within are tales of ghosts on the party circuit, interstellar roller derby leagues, and nightclubs filled with demons and Fae. These
...more

Aug 01, 2017
Carolyn F.
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
anthology-omnibus-essays,
library-book
Anthology. As I was reading this book there seemed to be a theme of rollerskating lesbians but then I found out there were some other stories interspersed. I wonder if that was initially what the publisher were going for but then needed extra stories to fill it out.
The average rating is 3.33 stars. More than I thought actually.
1. Sister Twelve: Confessions of a Party Monster by Christopher Barzak. 12 sisters travel through time dancing at famous and infamous clubs. One wants to stay. Good stor ...more
The average rating is 3.33 stars. More than I thought actually.
1. Sister Twelve: Confessions of a Party Monster by Christopher Barzak. 12 sisters travel through time dancing at famous and infamous clubs. One wants to stay. Good stor ...more

Aug 03, 2013
Victoria Hooper
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
fantasy,
short-stories,
magic,
away-with-the-fairies,
aliens,
paranormal,
urban-fantasy,
surreal-or-weird,
fairytale
Glitter and Mayhem is a short story anthology with the theme of glamour, parties, nightclubs, drugs, sex and rollerskating, all with a science fiction or fantasy element. The stories are all odd, some more so than others, and there’s a wonderful mix of fun, tongue-in-cheek, scary, thoughtful and sad. An anthology with this kind of theme could have suffered from stories that are all too similar in style and feel, but here this is not the case at all; the editors have managed to collect a really i ...more

This collection was really a 2 star read for me but I am bumping it up because it hosts an entire cast full of lesbian, transgender, bisexual and queer characters (no gay, intersex, asexual that I recall). There needs to be a lot more of this showing up as "normal" in fiction. Unfortunately, despite a variably diverse character list the stories themselves left me wanting.
This collection just tries too hard. It wants you to be able to taste glitter and it falls short and floats in that nebulous r ...more
This collection just tries too hard. It wants you to be able to taste glitter and it falls short and floats in that nebulous r ...more

This was produced via kickstarter apparently. I didn't know that until I happened across a review, I think it was Tor.com I initially read about it. It's an Anthology that asked for submissions with a prompt of,
...which sounded like heaven to me. So I bought it for next to nothing on 'smashwords', about $3.95 or something I think, which was a steal considering one or two of the stories are wo ...more
"Roller Derby, nightclubs, glam aliens, (literal) party monsters, drugs, sex, glitter, debauchery, etc."
...which sounded like heaven to me. So I bought it for next to nothing on 'smashwords', about $3.95 or something I think, which was a steal considering one or two of the stories are wo ...more

Fantasy, science fiction, horror, even cyberfunk... yes, I said funk. It's all here. Glitter & Mayhem is a collection of short stories about glamour, skates, nightclubs, and weird and queer people, not all of them human. It promises a fun party full of drugs and great music, mainly David Bowie, which is not that great, really (Gene Loves Jezebel is far better, as William Shunn & Laura Chavoen can tell you), and that is what we get. Specially skates.
There's a problem with anthologies like this, b ...more
There's a problem with anthologies like this, b ...more

I was a little bit dubious about this book when I first learned about it through its kickstarter. I mean, I wasn't into disco, I didn't roller skate... I liked glitter as much as the next girl but... meh. I decided it wasn't going to be for me and carried on with my life.
Then one of my favourite short story writers, Damien Walters Grintalis, announced that she was going to have a story in Glitter and Mayhem. That made me pay more attention. I put it on my mental 'To Be Read' list and carried on ...more
Then one of my favourite short story writers, Damien Walters Grintalis, announced that she was going to have a story in Glitter and Mayhem. That made me pay more attention. I put it on my mental 'To Be Read' list and carried on ...more

First, I figure I should point out that most of these stories were fantasy and only a handful were science fiction. If you like fantasy more, great. If you're like me and figured it'd be more science fiction based on the cover (or at least half science fiction), just know that it's not. Also, the stories were considerably less queer than I was expecting based on the title/cover. As in, I figured all of them would be, and not all of them were. So my expectations were a little off going into this.
...more

This is part of the Glitter and Mayhem anthology. I hope the book ends up being for sale! I didn't know about the kickstarter T_T Also the Apex publisher's site says it'll be out in September, not August...
8/25/2013 6:01 PM
It was amazing!!!! I love cryptids... I love the family!!! Yayayayyayayay!!!
Also if you buy it from Apex Publishing you get a .mobi, a .pdf, and an .epub for the same price as amazon, and you don't have to keep it in the cloud like my kindle makes me...
3/4/14 Read the second t ...more
8/25/2013 6:01 PM
It was amazing!!!! I love cryptids... I love the family!!! Yayayayyayayay!!!
Also if you buy it from Apex Publishing you get a .mobi, a .pdf, and an .epub for the same price as amazon, and you don't have to keep it in the cloud like my kindle makes me...
3/4/14 Read the second t ...more

I'm not marking this anthology as read or giving it a star rating yet because I've only read one novella so far. I do intend to come back to it at some point though so I'll update this review as I read any further stories.
Bad Dream Girl by Seanan McGuire
Read 29th October 2016 - Rating 3 stars
We saw Antimony's tryouts for roller derby in the previous short story but in this one she's a full member of the team and she loves every minute of it. She joined the Slasher Chicks as a way to keep fit and ...more
Bad Dream Girl by Seanan McGuire
Read 29th October 2016 - Rating 3 stars
We saw Antimony's tryouts for roller derby in the previous short story but in this one she's a full member of the team and she loves every minute of it. She joined the Slasher Chicks as a way to keep fit and ...more
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