"Nirvana High" is a science fiction short story by Eileen Gunn and Leslie What. It was first published in Gunn's 2004 collection Stable Strategies and Others.
Synopsis Barbara is a student at Kurt Cobain High School, where everyone has a tendency to self-harm; as well, many of the students and faculty have superpowers.
Reception "Nirvana High" was a finalist for the 2005 Nebula Award for Best Novelette.Nirvana High, at Science Fiction Writers of America; retrieved June 5, 2018 The Seattle Times commended Gunn's "knack for blending a bizarre premise and an offhand, colloquial tone".What's New: the Cult of Celebrity, by Michael Upchurch, at the Seattle Times; published October 10, 2004; retrieved June 5, 2018
At the SF Site, Paul Kincaid considered the story "promising", but ultimately "disappointing since it never quite explores its idea with the courage it demands, and ends flatly rather than with the resolution that could have lifted it."The James Tiptree Award Anthology 2, reviewed by Paul Kincaid, at the SF Site; published 2006; retrieved June 5, 2018 Strange Horizons questioned the story's presence in 2006's James Tiptree Award Anthology 2, as its "gender credentials appear rather weak".Render Unto Chaos: The James Tiptree Award Anthology 2, edited by Karen Joy Fowler, Pat Murphy, Debbie Notkin, and Jeffrey D. Smith, reviewed by Victoria Hoyle, at Strange Horizons; published November 6, 2006; retrieved June 5, 2018
Tangent Online lauded the story's "forgiving, we're-all-in-this-together outlook";Stable Strategies and Others by Eileen Gunn, reviewed by Thomas Marcinko, at Tangent Online; published February 21, 2005; retrieved June 5, 2018 Abigail Nussbaum, however, called it unmemorable and 'essentially plotless', with "(t)he ordinariness of Barbara's problems overwhelm[ing] the extraordinariness of their setting." The 2005 Nebula Award: The Novelette Shortlist, at Asking the Wrong Questions, by Abigail Nussbaum; published February 26, 2006; retrieved June 5, 2018
Background Gunn has noted that, when she wrote the story in 1997 — prior to the Columbine High School massacre — the idea of a school being legally forbidden to prevent students from being armed, and therefore installing technology to monitor students' emotional state in the hopes of detecting aggression, was intended as satire.alone in the kitchen, editorial by Eileen Gunn, at Infinite Matrix; published April 15, 2005; retrieved June 5, 2018 She has also stated that, by 2004, she was unable to tell which parts of the story were written by her and which by her co-writer.Interview with Eileen Gunn, by Karen Fishler; published June 24, 2004; retrieved September 9, 2021; "“Nirvana High” makes me laugh, because I can’t tell what I wrote and what Leslie wrote, so it’s not as though I’m laughing at my own jokes."
References
External links Text of the story at EileenGunn.com