“Stained Glass Heart,” by Catherine Asaro bothered me.  I’m willing to cut her a little slack—she was the editor of this anthology too, and I can’t imagine what stayed in the slush pile.  But to have characters say “What the hell?” strikes me as way too obvious, and she uses it way too often.  The parents of the groom, who is our hero, are trying to arrange a high-ranking political marriage for him.  The groom wants to marry his childhood sweetheart instead.  Seemingly, his parents would have better things to say upon finding out about the marriage’s cancellation on galaxy-wide TV.  Or better things to feel, or ways to find out, or something.  Add that to the candy-colored setting and the fact that the groom is, god forbid, a dancer (because on this world men just don’t do that), and the whole story comes off as juvenile.  True, we’re talking about two teenagers—but teenagers in love have thoughts and feelings and emotions too, real ones, and I would have liked to see Vyrl actually care about something in a beyond-token fashion.  And Lily was barely a cardboard cutout.  The world and galaxy of Torcellei Valdoria took center stage here, and it took it far enough to be ridiculous.