Prom Night

by Nancy Springer (Editor), Tippi N. Blevins (Contributor), Julie R. Good (Contributor)

For all those new graduates with a little time on their hands, here's a chance to attend a prom that is beyond your wildest dreams! From an elf who can only stay in the mortal realm if he can get a date for the prom...to a young man who finds out that forbidden acts sometimes depend on your perspective...to a girl who gives a whole new slant to the legend of "Pygmalion", here are 22 evenings to remember and be thankful that none of these people were in your class!

Includes:

Meeting Dad by Tim Waggoner
Three Strands of Her Hair by Dave Smeds
Happily Ever After by B.A. Silverman
Touch, a Kiss, a Rose by Alan Rogers
Peggy Sue Got Slobbered by Lorelei Shannon
Senior Prom by Fred Saberhagen
That Dress by A.R. Morlan
Marchen to a Different Beat by Lawrence Schimel
Omar's One True Love by Gary Jonas
Solid Memories Have the Life Span of Tulips and Sunflowers by Michael Hemmingson
Lunar Cycle by Larry Walsh
Borrowed Lives by Richard Parks
How Can I Live by H. Turnip Smith
Pocket Apollo by Connie Wilkins
Bitterfly by Julie R. Good
Chaperone by Lawrence Watt Evans
Strangest Passion the World Has Ever Known by Stephen Gresham
Ancient Order of Charming Princes by Tippi N. Blevins
Music to Her Ears by Lisa S. Silverthorne
Love, Art, Hell, and the Prom by Leslie What
Memory and Reason by Jenn Coleman Reese
Executioner's Prom Night Song by Billie Sue Mosiman

Genres: Fantasy, Anthologies, Short Stories, Horror, Short Story Collection, Science Fiction

320 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published May 1, 1999

About the author

BIO -- NANCY SPRINGER


Nancy Springer has passed the fifty-book milestone, having written that many novels for adults, young adults and children, in genres including mythic fantasy, contemporary fiction, magical realism, horror, and mystery -- although she did not realize she wrote mystery until she won the Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America two years in succession. DARK LIE, recently released from NAL, is her first venture into mass-market psychological suspense.
Born in Montclair, New Jersey, Nancy Springer moved with her family to Gettysburg, of Civil War fame, when she was thirteen. She spent the next forty-six years in Pennsylvania, raising two children (Jonathan, now 38, and Nora, 34), writing, horseback riding, fishing, and birdwatching. In 2007 she surprised her friends and herself by moving with her second husband to an isolated area of the Florida panhandle, where the birdwatching is spectacular and where, when fishing, she occasionally catches an alligator.

Reviews

[Jenn]

Contains my first story sale ever, "Memory and Reason."

[Mjhancock · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nancy Springer puts together a collection of speculative fiction short stories, where the theme is Prom Night.

The short version of this review is A+ on concept, B or lower on execution. It's challenging to put together a short story collection based around a theme. You can place together a dozen stories that are all excellent in their own right, but if they're excellent in a way that's too similar, or even in a way that doesn't fit the rest of the collection, things can still fall apart. However, that's not what happened here. Yes, there are some similar notes that are hit a bit too frequently, but there's a fair degree of tonal variation. (And also, not to be overly blunt, too many quality stories is not a problem here.) Instead, I'd place the problem in three parts: too many comedy stories that don't hit their mark, too many drama stories that don't hit their mark, and too many speculative fiction stories that don't feel particularly interesting in their speculation. The fact that I can think of at least three speculative fiction stories that are better than this and not included in this collection (and I'm not even counting Carrie!) is telling.

Let's do some highlights. David Smeds' "Three Strands of Her Hair" establishes a nice melancholy with a story about an elf who's taking advantage of the prom to further his own immortality magic. The slight feel of self-loathing the character seems to have over the proceedings works very nicely. "The Strangest Passion The World Has Ever Known" by Stephen Gresham is, I think, the best story at capturing the feel of a teenager's hope for the prom, of a desire for passion and romance desperately competing against a reality that rarely allows it. It has a heart-warming conclusion, and a nice tribute to classic horror. (I'm not exactly sure what's going on with the sister in that story, though.) "Music to Her Ears" by Lisa S. Silverthorne is a sweet story about abiding love; it overplays its hand a little, but it has a really nice conclusion. "Love, Art, Hell, and the Prom" by Leslie Watt is a little flawed in execution, but I love the twist--a deal with the devil fails because not even the devil can overcome teen peer pressure. And there are one or two others that are overall positive, but not particularly worth mentioning.

And then there are some less good: in general, I don't think the "fairy godmother" riffs hit on anything particularly interesting, though admittedly I'm not a fan of modern fairy tale takes unless they really go for the style of pre 20th century fairy tales. I'll give a little credit to the stories that explore less heteronormative prom experiences, as that was less mainstream in 1999, though not unique. Alan Rodger's "A Touch, A Kiss, A Rose" is getting closer to something interesting, but doesn't fully make its point clear. And the time travel centred "Borrowed Lives" by Richard Parks is similar, albeit with an elderly protagonist rather than two ditched teens. Still, it comes down to the same issue of needing just a little more on what the author wants the takeaway to be. And generally speaking, as I said, the comedy focused ones didn't land for me. Either they weren't funny and were kind of dull, or they weren't funny and kind of creepy. For example, Fred Saberhagen's "The Senior Prom" features an alt-universe story where everything is maximally public BDSM and the deviant sexuality is sneaking off to have a meaningful conversation; it manages to go all the way around where it feels weirdly prudish. I think Connie Wilkins' "Pocket Apollo" is the closest any of the comedy ones came to landing for me, with a kind of gender-swapped male Galaea figure as the prom date for the protagonist.

On the whole, then, this collection has more misses than hits for me. I guess that leaves the question of what I actually wanted here--what is an ideal prom story? I suppose it'd be something that balances the reality of the moment with the emotional significance of it, whether that means innocent hope and lust or bittersweet remembrance. And in the subject of speculative fiction in particular, that'd mean reinventing some aspect of it with something fantastic and looking into how it changes. Again, my favourite stories here do that, but I do wish there was more of them.

[Johanna Bordeaux · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another one of Lisa Silverthorne's never miss short romances that a like a sweet confection between stories to clear your literary palate. You know that these members of the never-ending true love tribe will be able to surmount their stars crossing and will end up safely entwined in their Happily Ever After. There's enough tension to keep you reading, but enough certainty of the HEA that it makes this the perfect comfort read for all of us with the heart of a romantic, no matter how hidden in real life.