On Thursdays I share a question from a reader and do my best to sit on my hands and let my readers give the advice… I kind of know what you’re going to say, Dan: “Use your words.” But I’m having a hard time figuring out which words to use, I’m not even entirely sure … Read More »
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Many of us dream of time travel, but what if that travel was thrust upon you randomly and unwillingly? Author Joseph Eckert brings us a fresh take on time travel in his new novel, The Traveler. Venture on through his Big Idea to see when and where this unique travel idea originated.
JOSEPH ECKERT:
The core of The Traveler is family. More specifically, the core is the relationship between an average Midwestern father and his extraordinary son. Simultaneously, it’s also a vast science fiction story about a man tumbling helplessly forward through time, the length of time he travels doubling every twenty four hours.
Bear with me, if you will, as I look back three decades (oof—that hurts to write) to two key events in my life that would lay the groundwork for the Big Idea behind The Traveler.
The first event involves me, precocious youth, coming home from what I remember was fifth grade, having just learned about exponents. I found my mother and convinced her to change my allowance. Instead of a dollar a week (or whatever it was), I asked for just a penny a day. Just one cent! Except she’d double the amount the next day, and each day thereafter. So: two pennies on day two, four pennies on day three, eight on day four, and so on. My mother agreed. My plan was in flight. Soon, I knew, she’d be forced to pay me thousands, then millions of dollars! Cue maniacal fifth-grade laughter.
We didn’t even make it to day ten before she called it off.
Despite my dream of phenomenal and unlikely wealth coming to an abrupt and inglorious ending, I retained my interest in exponential increases. We see such increases in life and the sciences, from viral propagation to the now mostly defunct Moore’s Law in computing, to amusing dinner table discussions of vampires overrunning the planet (and subsequently starving because everyone’s a vampire and no one’s left to be a living blood bag—this is common dinner table discussion, right?).
The exponential penny scheme was event one. Event two took place when I was around the same age, at a book store in Northern Wisconsin called Book World.
My parents didn’t often take me to the local library, for whatever reason, but they did take me to Book World, sometimes leaving me there for hours. Rather remarkably for a small town bookstore not far from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Book World had a solid sci fi and fantasy section, including books by authors living outside the United States. It was through Book World that I was introduced to the works of Tad Williams, Joe Haldeman, Clive Barker, and, most importantly for this Big Idea, Peter F Hamilton and Iain M Banks.
I remember walking into Book World. Pushing through the glass door, stepping into the narrow entryway with its gentle upward slope, angling around the crowded newspaper stacks. Entering the store proper, I recall the smell of books baked into the very walls; the soft creak of the floorboards under my sneakers in the perpetually hushed space; the winding path I’d take from the front door, always walking by the magazines first (craning my neck to try to see around the plastic covers blocking the Playboys and Penthouses… I was an adolescent boy). Down the aisle, glancing at the comic books for anything new and eye-catching, then a fast one-eighty around the end cap, into the fiction and then the fantasy and science fiction section. What new wonders would await?
I have a clear memory of seeing the covers for Consider Phlebas and The Reality Dysfunction for the first time. What amazing futures must those books contain to have such glorious art on the outside? I convinced my parents to buy them (or I used my allowance… perhaps contributing the meager amount I received from my exponential penny scheme) and began to read.
Magically, powerfully, the wonders inside the pages exceeded the promises made by the covers.
And as I read, I began to wonder. What if? Could I write something like this, in this tradition? Something this big, this grand, with this amazing scope?
Hard cut to many years later.
As I was pulling together the idea that was The Traveler, I knew I wanted the protagonist to be a relatable Everyman, one whose life was not extraordinary until a defining moment when it all changed. I wanted a father-son relationship to be at the core, reflecting a bit of my life experience with my own father. And I wanted to write something in the vein of Peter F Hamilton and Iain M Banks, asking big sci fi questions and (hopefully) bringing the reader on the kind of imaginative ride I remembered from those science fiction classics of my youth.
But how to get our modern-day relatable Everyman into a grand sci fi future? What could get him there but not instantly… instead, by steadily increasing degrees…?
Ah hah!
The exponential penny scheme returns and finally bears fruit.
Thus was born the central conceit of The Traveler. Scott Treder, a Madison area database admin, is driving to work one day when his car disappears around him. Scott, still going twenty five miles per hour, falls out of the sky and tumbles down the sidewalk. As he sits, battered and bruised and confused, on the side of the road, his phone reconnects to the network. He has dozens of texts and voicemails waiting for him.
It’s twenty four hours in the future.
The next day, at exactly the same time, he travels two days forward. Then four, then eight, then sixteen… and this time, there’s no mother, eyebrow arched, to cotton onto the scheme and put a stop to things before day ten.
As Scott jumps forward through time, his brilliant son, Lyle, grows obsessed with figuring out what’s happening—and with saving his father.
The Traveler is out now in the US and UK. I hope you enjoy reading it, and I hope it carries you on a journey the same way those brilliant works by Peter F Hamilton and Iain M Banks did for me in my youth.
The Traveler: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Bookshop|Books-A-Million|Powell’s
Author socials: Website
Y’all already know that I am not a horror fan. Horror has always been my least favorite movie genre, and there are very few movies within the genre that I even consider worthwhile. When I went to see Obsession, I was already outside of my comfort zone by going and seeing a horror movie in theaters, as they’re always too loud and I really hate being jump scared in front of other people.
You can imagine my surprise when Obsession ended up being the best horror movie I’ve ever seen. It is one of the most incredible films I’ve seen, even when I take it out of the horror ranking. It’s just that good.
I’d like to give y’all some spoiler-free thoughts first, so you can get a good feel for why I love this movie without getting into the nitty-gritty details, but then I will go deeper with spoilers and get into what makes it so damn great.
For starters, Obsession has so many little factoids about it that it make it more special than most films right off the bat, like the fact it was made for under a million dollars, at a whopping $750k. I have not heard of a successful, theater-released movie having that small of a budget in I don’t even know how long, if at all. That is so impressive. Not only that, but it is one of the only films, alongside E.T., to do better financially in the following weeks after opening weekend. Most movies peak at their opening weekend, but Obsession just kept getting more and more popular.
The fact that the cast was comprised of people I’d never heard of it made it all the better, because when you have Matt Damon as your lead, it’s hard to see him as anyone other than… Matt Damon (looking at you, Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey). So having a cast full of people I’ve literally never seen before made it feel so much more real. It’s more immersive when you don’t recognize big name stars that steal the spotlight. These people felt like people, not celebrities in a movie. Plus, everyone did such a stellar job, especially Inde Navarrette! She was perfectly terrifying.
Without giving too much away, the basic plot is this guy, Bear, wishes that his crush, Nikki, loved him, and let’s just say he gets more than he bargained for. The themes this movie explores are extremely heavy. Bodily autonomy, consent, love VS obsession, toxic and abusive relationships, family-friendly topics like that!
The horror element in Obsession is a special kind of dread that sticks with you long after you leave the theater. This movie sat heavily in my brain for days on end. A lot of horror movies give you two hours of cheap adrenaline rushes and jump scares while being oh so forgettable, but Obsession truly haunts you. “Unsettling” is too timid of a word to describe the feeling it will leave you with.
I find the pacing to be rather good, as there’s no B-plot for this movie, so it’s pretty much just all go-go-go with no breaks. There are no slow parts or scenes that feel unnecessary. All the scenes feel like the perfect length.
The lighting is a work of art in this movie. The soft, dim lighting at the bar, in Bear’s house, and throughout the film alongside the dark, shadowy, spooky scenes is so good. It’s very atmospheric, and feels somewhat intimate. Even the scenes that are dark aren’t that kind of super annoying horror movie dark where you just can’t see shit for the sake of jump scaring you. It’s like an actually well done type of darkness.
So, great performances, good pace, nice lighting, and a special kind of horror, all for under a million dollars! Pretty impressive stuff.
Now let’s get into the details. SPOILER WARNING!
From the moment we meet Bear, we are shown, expertly, how he is kind of a piece of junk. When practicing his confession speech, he only brings up how Nikki was nice to him and was there for him when he was going through a tough time. He never says what he likes about her as a person, just what she has done for him and how she makes him feel.
When he gets home and finds his cat dead, he puts it in a black garbage bag and throws it away. Who does that?! That is not how you dispose of a deceased pet?!
At trivia night, he tries to confess his feelings at an awkward, inopportune time that would affect the rest of the group and impact everyone’s evenings.
He didn’t give his gift to Nikki, he used it for himself and then lied to her, saying he left her gift at his house. Because he sucks!
AND HE CALLED HER FREAKY NIKKI EVEN THOUGH SHE HATES THAT. Bear is a certified jerk, even though it seems like, at first, that he’s just a shy, nice guy with a crush.
Worst of all, Bear is a coward. When Nikki asks him bluntly if he likes her, he pussies out and says no, then regrets it immediately. Then, when Wish Nikki says she knows he likes her, he denies it and makes her confess first before admitting that, yes, he does like her.
He is a coward when he can’t shoot himself and takes the pills instead, and he is a coward when he tries to throw up the pills because he doesn’t have the nerve to actually kill himself. He is a coward to the bitter end, and I think that is amazing. What a flawed, awful, hate-able character. There is no redemption, because he couldn’t even commit to killing himself. He is never the good guy, he is, from the start, the bad guy.
I have never felt worse for a horror movie character than I feel for Nikki. In the short amount of time we get to see the real Nikki, she is fun and kind and thoughtful. Nikki seems like a genuinely nice person, and it’s easy to see why Bear would have a crush on her. And suddenly, she’s gone. Trapped in some sort of horrible, agonizing negative space while something else controls her body, with only short spurts of consciousness where the real Nikki is begging to be freed, fighting to be released from Wish Nikki taking back over. Each time the real Nikki surfaces I can only imagine what is going through her mind, or if she wonders if this will be the last time she ever gains control again, just to succumb back under. Of course, it reminds me a lot of Get Out, which is also a great movie!
To be hurt by someone you think of as a friend, not just hurt but condemned to this cursed existence, only for him to ignore your pleas for death. UGH. Poor Nikki. It’s actually so heartbreaking. And so real! It’s often the people closest to you that hurt you the most.
Honestly their entire friend group is such a mess, with Ian and Nikki hooking up and Ian not telling Bear even though he knows how he feels about her. Ian tries sabotaging Bear’s attempts at confessing and is unhappy about his relationship with Nikki, yet never even mentioned his and Nikki’s situationship to the guy who is supposedly his best friend. Plus, if Bear is his best friend, why didn’t he believe him or at the very least hear him out more on the One Wish Willow?
If my best friend came to me, obviously distressed, and a ton of weird stuff had been going on lately, and they told me it was because of this very real wishing stick, I’d at least hear them out instead of calling them crazy right off the bat. I trust my friends with my life, and love them dearly, why would I believe they’re lying to me about something like this? Bear was obviously extremely distraught and practically begging Ian to listen, but he refused and just wished for a billion dollars to be a fucking dick.
As for Sarah, she was a Pick-Me praying on the downfall of Bear’s and Nikki’s relationship, judging from the sideline while also trying to make moves of her own on Bear. She asked him to meet her late at night in private, then told him that Nikki is taking advantage of him and he doesn’t deserve it, and that he needs someone “more chill.” Literally referring to herself as a better match for him than Nikki. What kind of friend does that?! She even says that he was supposed to kiss her, not Nikki. Does she secretly hate and envy Nikki? She is not a girl’s girl, that’s for sure, and she got a face full of brick for it. (I’m just kidding, she didn’t actually deserve the brick for being a Pick-Me, but it still is an unfortunate character flaw.)
Point is, this friend group really sucked. Nikki was the best of them, truly. Now she’s an extremely traumatized girl who will never be the same because of one selfish boy’s actions. She was a beautiful soul, and now she has been through hell and back, and is certainly forever changed. Again, poor Nikki. It makes me so sad!
I really love that the One Wish Willow isn’t even an evil thing, you can make a wish and have everything go great. The shopkeeper that made his wish certainly seemed fine, and Ian got his billion dollars with zero issues. It’s solely because Bear made a bad wish with bad intentions that his wish turned out so terrible. I find that to be an extremely satisfying mechanic, even though it sadly comes at the cost of Nikki.
This was a well-shot, well-acted, well-executed film with an amazing concept and cast. I loved it, and saw it three times in theaters. I highly recommend it, even if you aren’t usually a fan of horror movies. It’s probably the best film I’ve seen this year.
Have you seen Obsession yet? What did you think was the scariest part (for me, it was definitely when Bear is on the phone with One Wish Willow, and you hear Nikki screaming in agony in the background)? What’s your favorite horror movie? Let me know in the comments, and have a great day!
-AMS
On this week’s queer-themed Sex & Politics, Dan chats with the right-leaning writer Ben Kawaller. His recent three-part series, Strange Bedfellows (on the Reflector podcast,) goes into the sometimes uncomfortable history of how the LGB movement started including the T and the Q. Dan and Ben have a long, sometimes contentious conversation about gay history, … Read More »
The post Sex & Politics #45 appeared first on Dan Savage.
If anyone could be considered a Russian counterpart to the infamous British double-agent Kim Philby, it was Oleg Gordievsky. The son of two KGB agents and the product of the best Soviet institutions, the savvy, sophisticated Gordievsky grew to see his nation's communism as both criminal and philistine. He took his first posting for Russian intelligence in 1968 and eventually became the Soviet Union's top man in London, but from 1973 on he was secretly working for MI6.
For nearly a decade, as the Cold War reached its twilight, Gordievsky helped the West turn the tables on the KGB, exposing Russian spies and helping to foil countless intelligence plots, as the Soviet leadership grew increasingly paranoid at the United States's nuclear first-strike capabilities and brought the world closer to the brink of war.
Desperate to keep the circle of trust close, MI6 never revealed Gordievsky's name to its counterparts in the CIA, which in turn grew obsessed with figuring out the identity of Britain's obviously top-level source. Their obsession ultimately doomed Gordievsky: the CIA officer assigned to identify him was none other than Aldrich Ames, the man who would become infamous for secretly spying for the Soviets.
The 31st anniversary isn’t usually the one where people get introspective about the nature of marriage and stuff — we tend to like big round numbers for a reason — but last year on this day Krissy and I were in Venice doing all sorts of touristy things and I really didn’t have the time or the inclination to spend my time in Italy on a laptop (and not even a laptop; I took my iPad with me). This year for our anniversary we’re going to Versailles, but it’s the one in Ohio and it’s pronounced “Ver-SAILS,” and we’re going there for dinner at a nice restaurant there. So as it happens I have some time today to muse on the nature of matrimony.
I’ve spoken before of the things that Krissy and I have done to make sure our marriage stays strong over the years, from simple things like saying “I love you” a lot — and I do mean, a lot, I don’t know any other couple who says it as much as we do — to more complicated things like continually checking in on each other, not taking each other for granted and making sure both of us are getting our needs met by the other. This is stuff I think most married folks can do, and should do, in the way that works best for their own relationship; basically, the understanding that relationships, even (and maybe especially) the good ones, are still work and ought to be tended to, instead of just being taken for granted.
But the other thing is I think Krissy and I both got lucky in finding the person best suited for helping us become the person we were hoping to be. And yes, at least initially that absolutely was luck; when Krissy spotted me on a dance floor she could know nothing else about me other than I danced like I wasn’t worried about being judged for it, and when I first laid eyes on Krissy I knew nothing about her other than she was the sort of beautiful that could make people walk into walls because they were looking at her. These were good things, sure. A fine start, and enough to get us to go on that official first date three weeks later. But ultimately not a lot to go on.
I still think Krissy is beautiful, and she still enjoys my dance stylings, but it’s everything else that really sealed the deal. It became clear to me that not only was Krissy smart, she was in many ways smarter than I was, with a far better sense of how to actually navigate the day-to-day world in a successful fashion. She was (and is) a direct-line and decisive thinker where I had and have a tendency to overthink and be discursive. None of this is news to long-time readers here, of course; I’ve talked about this before. But what I don’t think people understand is what an actual revelation it was for me to see something like that in action, inside the context of my actual life. I was not — and this is putting it extremely charitably — raised in a situation where order and executive function were common, and it was something I struggled with myself, and, no surprise, still do.
To see someone who just naturally had it, and used it like it was no big deal, well. It was like watching someone perform actual magic. And this person was willing to use it! For me! And us! Together! Aside from the actual fucking relief of having someone in my life actively being stable and sensible and reliable, and also loved me, there was the practical matter of how much potential this opened up for our life together; that I could, and was allowed to, focus on things I was good at, that would end up benefitting us both. I often say to people, here and elsewhere, that I have the career I have because Krissy is my partner, but I genuinely don’t think people understand the extent to how that is true. I would still be a writer, to be sure. I would not this writer, with these books, and this life.
And what about Krissy? Well, I was funny and clever, which is not to be discounted, even if, as we all know, there is a fine line between “clever” and “asshole.” She also saw I was talented — I had a skill that I both used and continued to develop, and an ability in it that was more than just standard issue. On top of that, I was (and still am!) ambitious, which Krissy saw as a plus. Just as I saw potential in what she offered to me in terms of stability and reliability, she saw potential in what I offered to her in the desire to do bigger things, and saw where she fit in with making those things happen.
Equally if not more importantly, Krissy figured out that I didn’t need to be trained out of any bad habits when it came to our partnership. My own particular brand of masculinity was and is not one that required me to petulantly stomp my foot about how I was the man in the relationship, damn it, and therefore was the one in charge of whatever it was a dude was meant to be in charge of. I could write a whole series of posts — and maybe I will one day — about how much of “masculinity” boils down to “I don’t like being argued with and if I don’t get my way I will explode,” but for now, suffice to say that this is not a particular neurosis of mine. Krissy saw, I like to think accurately, that I valued her for every part of her, which included her decisiveness and initiative. I did not need to be told that Krissy should be allowed to cook across the whole range of her abilities. She did not ever have to diminish who she was because she was worried my ego couldn’t handle it.
So, these are the things that we figured out early about each other. As we continued, it turned out that we helped each other build on all of these things. We have never argued about “who is in charge,” not just because that was not an argument worth having, but because the way our skill sets fell out it’s literally never been an issue. To put it extremely generally, when it comes to our lives together, I handle strategy and Krissy handles tactics, because that’s how our brains work best. Strategy without tactics is useless; tactics without strategy is pointless. It’s not about who makes decisions. It’s about, when we make the decision, how do we make it happen.
None of this happened because we knew from day one about any of this. It came from paying attention to each other, valuing and trusting each other, and building on what we’ve done as we’ve gone along. We got lucky when we met that these things about us were already there, and we liked them about each other. But then we did the work together, every day, so that these things we liked were given space to develop into things that would let us build a whole life together, across four decades now. It would be simplistic and wrong to suggest all of this happened without hiccups or snags or occasional misunderstandings along the way, of course. We are both human beings. But the deep well of love and trust that we can draw from helps a whole lot when that’s happened.
I don’t think any of us can help if we get lucky when it comes to drawing a partner who helps us be our best self — I think Krissy and I found the right person for us almost entirely by random and had the good sense to go with that. I do think everyone can look at the partner they have and ask “how can who I am and what I do make their life better, and our life better?” Because, you know, I have faith there is an actual good answer for everyone there. You have to find it. And then you have to do it. And then keep doing it.
And keep asking it, because life changes. Krissy and I are not the people, or in the same circumstances, in our 50s as we were in our 20s, 30s, or even 40s. Every step of our life we wanted and needed things from each other and, so far, at least, we’ve figured out the ways to make that happen. It’s work! It never stops being work! And the reward is having a life that only you two could have made for each other. There was no guarantee that at any step along the way we couldn’t have fallen out of step with each other. Sometimes that happens, and sometimes when that happens the best thing is to call it and move on separately. That’s all right! For us, it keeps working. We work to keep it working.
This is where we are, 31 years into the marriage. I spend a lot of time letting Krissy know how wonderful I think she is, and how much I value the life we built together, and how much I’m looking forward to continuing to do that, for as long as we get to. She’s the best thing to happen to me, and I keep trying to return that favor. I’ll keep doing it. She’s really great.
— JS
Transformative Works and Cultures has released No. 48, a special issue on Disability and Fandom guest edited by Olivia Johnston Riley and Lauren Rouse.
The essays in this special issue focus on disability both as a marginalised identity and as a critical scholarly approach to fandom and fan studies. It is a rich collection, featuring theory, case studies, and fannish meta on a broad array of issues and fandoms; there is also a review of Katherine Andersen Howell’s Disability and Fandom (U. Iowa, 2025). Other articles include:
The next issue of TWC, No. 49, is a general issue. It will appear on September 15.
We accept submissions for our general issues on a rolling basis. We particularly invite fans to submit Symposium articles.
TWC’s issues in progress include:
On yesterday’s commute home I concluded The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History by Ned Blackhawk. This is a history novel which focuses on the relationship between Native Americans and the United States, from the initial colonization efforts of Europeans to modern day.
I think the thing this book does best, and I think what it was trying to do, is make indigenous Americans active participants in history. Everyone knows that they were victims of countless atrocities, first at the hand of European invaders and later by the United States government, but they are often reduced to the role of passive victim: people to whom things simply happened. Not so, says Blackhawk. Native Americans were shapers of history as much as anyone else, and he brings their role and influence to the forefront here.
One of the things this pushes back on hard is the idea of inevitability: that what happened to the indigenous people of North America was always going to happen. We can see, throughout this book, so many moments when things could have been different if the right people had chosen differently.
It also is very revealing as to the sources of anti-indigenous violence in the decades before and after the American Revolution. It was in many cases, the settlers who were pushing hardest for violence and dispossession of the native peoples, not the government. Of course, the government agreed in the end, but both the British and later the American government initially wanted more diplomatic relationships with Native American tribes—but the settlers, fueled by bigotry, greed, and fear, lobbied hard for a more severe approach, and in the end, they won.
It’s also an incredibly detailed chronicle of native resistance to colonization and how hard Native Americans have fought for centuries to preserve their cultures and be allowed to simply exist as they wish. The breadth and variety of techniques they have employed to this end are truly remarkable. Knowing more about the modern legal struggles of the tribes is also a useful tool for looking at where to go next.
Some reviews found the book dry; personally, I can’t disagree that it was dry, but I did not find its dryness a problem. It is a historical chronicle, not a novel, and it does its job very well. It is well-researched and a thorough survey. I think it does well balancing covering a large swath of history with many different peoples and conflicts while also digging in a bit to certain specifics. I found it deeply engaging and I think the country would be better off if everyone had a better understanding of this material.
My only complaint is that it does end a little abruptly, but it had to stop somewhere.
Not all books fit the mold of the genre they’re in. For Alethea Kontis, she wanted to write romance without the explicit parts, wanted to write a YA book that wasn’t dumbed down for kids with no attention span and no literacy skills. Well, she did it, and she did it her way, in her newest novel, Thieftess.
ALETHEA KONTIS:
This post is for the smart kids. The rebels. My fellow goonies.
This essay marks my FIFTH time as a guest on The Big Idea—I am now a proud member of the Whatever Five-Timers Club! Please remind me to make sure John and Athena mail me my membership card.
The last time I was featured on Whatever was in 2017. The Before Times. An Age of Innocence. Social media was less commercial, Gen AI was a dream of the future, and the CDC’s playbook was positive the next great pandemic would be influenza. I went to conventions back then. I knew what K-pop was, but I didn’t know K-dramas existed. I didn’t speak any Korean, Portuguese, Croatian, or Arabic. I had never been to Asia or Africa. Storm chasers were other people, and the topic of a movie I loved once upon a time.
Back then, I wrote books that were publishable.
I joke because it’s both horrible and true. My books are too long. Too clever. Too smart. Too subtle. Too bloody. Set in the wrong time period. Set in a country where I wasn’t born. Contain protagonists who are the wrong age. Contain far too many difficult/archaic/polysyllabic words. Contain too many complicated characters from too many different cultural backgrounds.
In the current capitalist climate, picture books need to have TENSION. Romances needs to have SEX. Middle grade novels need to be FAST PACED and also SUPER SHORT because no one has an attention span anymore and 10-year-olds are intimidated by thick books. Plus, thick books are expensive. And for the love of all that is holy, do NOT write any more Young Adult Fantasy. Ever.
I cried after the call where my agent told me that last one.
She’s not my agent anymore.
Honestly, it’s a miracle I was even traditionally published in the first place. A handful of excellent people had the privilege of being able to take a chance on me, and for that I will be forever grateful. These days, no one can afford to take a risk. I get it.
But I can’t afford to stop writing. So I didn’t.
In late October 2023, I got the rights back to the Woodcutter Sisters books. The series of my heart. You remember them: they read like a mashup of The Princess Bride and a non-Disney Once Upon a Time. Yeah. The YA Fantasy ones. Got awards and stuff. There were seven Woodcutter sisters, all named after the days of the week. I got to write Sun-Fri. Harcourt orphaned me before I could tell the Pirate Queen sister’s tale. My working title was Thieftess.
Thieftess has a listing on Goodreads. As of this writing, there are 2 reviews. The first laments the news of my publisher dropping the series. The second was posted by someone so excited to announce that the series would be returning that THEY WROTE IN ALL CAPS. Both of these entries delight me to no end.
Freedom is a beautiful thing. I consciously took advantage of mine this past decade. I lived, defiantly. I chased storms, learned other languages, traveled the world, and made hundreds of new friends all over that world. And I quietly, constantly, kept writing in the background.
In a way, my series being released from my trad publisher was a mercy. I wasn’t sure the committee would let me get away with all the things I wanted to do in the rest of the books anyway. And when it came time to finish writing Thieftess—eleven years after I started it—I embraced my tiny rebellions.
In nutshell, Thieftess:
The book also contains a million Easter eggs, but so did Enchanted. Heck, so did AlphaOops. That’s a very on-brand Alethea thing. But the rest is my rebellion.
Here in 2026, joy itself is a rebellion. Kindness is a rebellion. Naps are a rebellion. Poetry is a rebellion. Smart books that trust their readers are a rebellion. Reading prologues and epilogues is a rebellion. Writing in cursive is a rebellion. Writing your own emails is a rebellion. Leaving your phone in the other room is a rebellion. Going outside is a rebellion. Speaking more than one language is a rebellion. Quoting Shakespeare is a rebellion. Imperfection is a rebellion. Daring to fail over and over again is a rebellion.
Finishing this absolutely gorgeous book that took me eleven years to write—and then releasing it into the world—is my rebellion.
When I originally took @princessalethea as my screen name on LiveJournal (remember LiveJournal?) it was because my role model was the feisty leader of another particularly infamous rebel alliance. I mean to carry on in that same fine tradition.
And now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go write a book with a bunch of sex in it. Because I’m still broke.
Love you, Squad.
xox
Princess Alethea
PS: Goonies Never Say Die
Thieftess: Amazon
Here at the Scalzi Compound we’ve been having a lot of work done: New garage/barn, new porch railings and entirely new back deck. The good news is all of that work is just about done, with only a couple of small things yet to be done. The bad news is that all the construction trucks, pallets and tractors did a number to parts of our yard, turning its previously relatively smooth surface into a festival of ruts and uneven bits.
This will not do, so Krissy had the landscaping company we use come out, dig out the ruts, regrade and then reseed the lawn. This means that for the next few weeks there’s probably going to be this big brown patch in the yard (which I assume will be covered by straw, etc; I guess I’ll find out by the end of the day), but after that everything will be fine. This is a bit of cosmetic work that’s actually been a few years in the making — parts of the redone area have been uneven for a while now — but it was the ruts left by the construction vehicles that made Krissy decide now was the time.
(Well, that and the fact that, inasmuch as we’re already having so much else done — and have budgeted for it — the additional expense of this can just get rolled into all of that.)
It’ll be nice to walk on that part of the lawn without possibly tripping, and also, inasmuch as this is the last piece of (intended) work at the house for the year, it’ll be nice to not have other people’s trucks and construction vehicles around. I like what we’ve done with the place, to be sure. I’m looking forward to being able to enjoy it.
— JS
Kraith Collected, a collection of Star Trek zines set in the Kraith universe, is importing a copy of the zines’ fanworks to the Archive of Our Own (AO3).
In this post:
Kraith Collected is a series of works in the Kraith universe, a series of Star Trek: The Original Series fanfictions, many originally published in other zines. Each volume contains works by Jacqueline Lichtenberg and other writers whose works went through several rounds of edits to be given a number in the Kraith chronology and become part of the official Kraith universe. There are also two pieces of meta, Kraith Creator's Manual and Understanding Kraith, which describe the Kraith universe.
The fanzines to be imported are:
The purpose of the Open Doors Committee’s AO3 Fanzine Scan Hosting Project (FSHP) is to assist publishers of fanzines to incorporate the fanworks from those fanzines into the Archive of Our Own. It is extremely important to Open Doors that we work in collaboration with publishers who want to import their fanzines and that we fully credit creators, giving them as much control as possible over their fanworks. Open Doors will be working with Kraith Collected to import a copy of the fanzines listed above into separate, searchable collections on the Archive of Our Own. As part of preserving the fanzines in their entirety, all art in the fanzines will be hosted on the OTW's servers and embedded in their own AO3 work pages.
We will begin importing works from Kraith Collected to AO3 after July 2026. However, the import may not take place for several months or even years, depending on the size and complexity of the task. Creators are always welcome to import their own works and add them to the collections in the meantime.
We will send an import notification to the email address we have for each creator. We'll do our best to check for an existing copy of any works before importing. If we find a copy already on AO3, we will add it to the collection instead of importing it. All works archived on behalf of a creator will include their name in the byline or the summary of the work.
All imported works will be set to be viewable only by logged-in AO3 users. Once you claim your works, you can make them publicly-viewable if you choose. After 30 days, all unclaimed imported works will be made visible to all visitors.
Please contact Open Doors with your creator pseud(s) and email address(es), if:
Please include the name of the publisher or fanzine in the subject heading of your email. If you no longer have access to the email account the publisher has a record of, please contact Open Doors and we'll help you out. (If you've posted the works elsewhere, or have an easy way to verify that they're yours, that's great; if not, we will work with Kraith Collected to confirm your claims.)
Please see the Open Doors website for instructions on:
If you have further questions, visit the Open Doors FAQ, or contact the Open Doors committee.
We'd also love it if fans could help us preserve the story of Kraith Collected, Kraith Creator’s Manual, and Understanding Kraith on Fanlore. If you're new to wiki editing, no worries! Check out the new visitor portal, or ask the Fanlore Gardeners for tips.
We're excited to be able to help preserve Kraith Collected!
- The Open Doors team and Jacqueline Lichtenberg
Commenting on this post will be disabled in 14 days. If you have any questions, concerns, or comments regarding this import after that date, please contact Open Doors.
The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, OTW Legal Advocacy, and Transformative Works and Cultures. We are a fan-run, donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.
Kraith Collected, a collection of Star Trek zines set in the Kraith universe, is importing a copy of the zines’ fanworks to the Archive of Our Own (AO3).
In this post:
Kraith Collected is a series of works in the Kraith universe, a series of Star Trek: The Original Series fanfictions, many originally published in other zines. Each volume contains works by Jacqueline Lichtenberg and other writers whose works went through several rounds of edits to be given a number in the Kraith chronology and become part of the official Kraith universe. There are also two pieces of meta, Kraith Creator’s Manual and Understanding Kraith, which describe the Kraith universe.
The fanzines to be imported are:
The purpose of the Open Doors Committee’s AO3 Fanzine Scan Hosting Project (FSHP) is to assist publishers of fanzines to incorporate the fanworks from those fanzines into the Archive of Our Own. It is extremely important to Open Doors that we work in collaboration with publishers who want to import their fanzines and that we fully credit creators, giving them as much control as possible over their fanworks. Open Doors will be working with Kraith Collected to import a copy of the fanzines listed above into separate, searchable collections on the Archive of Our Own. As part of preserving the fanzines in their entirety, all art in the fanzines will be hosted on the OTW’s servers and embedded in their own AO3 work pages.
We will begin importing works from Kraith Collected to AO3 after July 2026. However, the import may not take place for several months or even years, depending on the size and complexity of the task. Creators are always welcome to import their own works and add them to the collections in the meantime.
We will send an import notification to the email address we have for each creator. We’ll do our best to check for an existing copy of any works before importing. If we find a copy already on AO3, we will add it to the collection instead of importing it. All works archived on behalf of a creator will include their name in the byline or the summary of the work.
All imported works will be set to be viewable only by logged-in AO3 users. Once you claim your works, you can make them publicly-viewable if you choose. After 30 days, all unclaimed imported works will be made visible to all visitors.
Please contact Open Doors with your creator pseud(s) and email address(es), if:
Please include the name of the publisher or fanzine in the subject heading of your email. If you no longer have access to the email account the publisher has a record of, please contact Open Doors and we’ll help you out. (If you’ve posted the works elsewhere, or have an easy way to verify that they’re yours, that’s great; if not, we will work with Kraith Collected to confirm your claims.)
Please see the Open Doors website for instructions on:
If you have further questions, visit the Open Doors FAQ, or contact the Open Doors committee.
We’d also love it if fans could help us preserve the story of Kraith Collected, Kraith Creator’s Manual, and Understanding Kraith on Fanlore. If you’re new to wiki editing, no worries! Check out the new visitor portal, or ask the Fanlore Gardeners for tips.
We’re excited to be able to help preserve Kraith Collected!
– The Open Doors team and Jacqueline Lichtenberg
Commenting on this post will be disabled in 14 days. If you have any questions, concerns, or comments regarding this import after that date, please contact Open Doors.
I am planning my wedding, which is happening this summer. My partner and I are trying to plan an event that’s casual, fun, and full of love. Unfortunately, my parents are MAGA. And they relish trolling me. The other day on a very rare phone call they started going on about wearing MAGA gear at … Read More »
The post Red Wedding appeared first on Dan Savage.
A woman who enjoys multiple orgasms doesn’t understand why, physiologically, all woman can’t come over and over and over. Like she can. A gay man wants a new word for the practice of rubbing dicks together, other than “frotting.” On the Magnum, Dan interviews Tracy Clark-Flory whose memoir My Mother’s Daughter: Finding Myself in My … Read More »
The post Impromptu Anal appeared first on Dan Savage.
Apparently the 31st wedding anniversary is the “Write Your Spouse a Song” anniversary, because that’s what I did this year. As many of you know, Krissy and I actually have a three-day anniversary, since June 15 is the anniversary of me proposing (that happened in 1994), June 16 is the anniversary of our first date (1993), and June 17 is the anniversary of our actually getting hitched. Last year to celebrate we went to Venice. We weren’t going to top that this year, but I still wanted to do something fun and maybe memorable.
Also, and independently, I wanted to start writing actual songs this year, and not just cover songs and noodly electronic compositions. So, while Krissy was away yesterday hanging out with friends, I camped out in my music studio and wrote up this song, about how Krissy is, you know, really great. Literally, that’s the song! My wife! She’s great! I dig her the most! It’s not complicated! And also, if you listen to the lyrics, not in the least bit subtle. It’s clear I’m a big fan of my wife.
I’m pretty happy with the song but I do have some compositional caveats. One, this is the first song I’ve written in literal years, and I’ve only written, like, four in forty years, and one of them was a co-write with a far more accomplished musician. I decided to make it easy on myself by not trying to write The Greatest Love Song Ever Written, just the greatest love song I’ve written about my spouse to this point, which I think we can all agree is a much more achievable goal for a novice. Two, this is me in the home studio, so consider this song to be demo-quality. Three, I don’t know why for this song it turned out I need to be singing in a fake, quasi-British-esque accent in order to stay anywhere on key, but apparently I do, and now we will all just have to live with this piece of information.
Nevertheless! I really like this openly sweet, kinda silly love song, and Krissy, as it happens, loves it, so if any of the rest of you like it, too, that’s a bonus. It’s already a hit with its intended audience of one. Which, I’m not going to lie, is a relief. It would have been awkward if I wrote a song for my life and as was, like, all, “you call that a decent middle eight?” or something like that. I actually had to leave the room while she listened to it for the first time. I don’t get that nervous about anything. But, you know. You write a love song for your spouse, you want them to love it. I’m glad mine did. Maybe you’ll like it too.
— JS
Though I’ve always loved Madison Beer’s voice in KDA, the fictional girl-pop group from League of Legends, I’ve never really listened to her own music outside of that. Turns out, unsurprisingly, that she has some real bangers.
This song of hers, “Yes Baby,” is one I have had on repeat for the past week or so and it is so in my head it’s wild. Not that I’m mad about it, it’s really fucking good. Give it a listen:
I love the clubby feel, the soft feminine vocals, the bass. It’s a great vibe. I hope this song helps you rock through the rest of your Monday, and have a great rest of your day!
-AMS
Today’s Go-To Piece of Criticism comes from Suzanne Scott, and it’s a wonderful quote from a book that is not cited enough, I think, in fan studies, despite being an absolutely critical underpinning of the field. Girls and Subcultures by Angela McRobbie and Jenny Garber shifted the whole field of subculture studies, which previously really only talked about male subcultures because those were the ones that were visible in public space: bikers, mods, rockers, Teddy boys, punks etc. It was McRobbie and Garber who pointed out that female subcultures tended to operate very differently…. Suzanne Scott herself is one of the most significant scholars to build on this work: her book Fake Geek Girls: Fandom, Gender, and the Convergence Culture Industry (NYU 2019) looks at the ways in which women and girls are still seen and treated differently when they do fandom. –FC
“The objective and popular image of a subculture as encoded and defined by the media is likely to be one which emphasizes the male membership, male ‘focal concerns,’ and masculine values. […] Female invisibility in youth subcultures then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, a vicious circle, for a variety of reasons.”
"It might be suggested that girls’ culture of the time operated within the vicinity of the home, or the friends’ home. There was room for a great deal of the new teenage consumer culture within the confines of the girls’ bedrooms. Teenage girls did participate in the new public sphere afforded by the growth of the leisure industries, but they could also consume at home, upstairs in their bedrooms."
From "Girls and Subcultures” by Angela McRobbie and Jenny Garber (1977)
I view much of fan studies as a direct response to McRobbie and Garber’s call to arms, course correcting the “structured secondariness” of women in accounts of subcultural participation by centering the practices of girls and women in the field. Despite being written in response to a very specific moment in the development of media subcultures and scholarly accounts of them, I return to McRobbie and Garber’s essay again and again, finding it newly resonant and inspiring each time. Most recently, I was drawn back to their discussion of the ways that girls’ participation in and expression of subcultural identities might be contained to their bedrooms in an effort to theorize high end cookware aimed at aging and affluent fans and domestic spaces like the kitchen as an emergent space for fannish expression. The authors push us to think broadly about how identity (situated at a specific sociocultural moment) shapes reception within subcultural communities. They also pointedly prompt us to think about how our positionality as scholars shapes the work we produce, demanding that we be attentive to the less visible but nonetheless vibrant practices of media consumption that escapes our immediate view as researchers, and cautioning us against the “vicious cycle” of erasure that not moving outside of one consistent account of a community can perpetuate.
- Suzanne Scott, Associate Professor (University of Texas at Austin, Department of Radio-Television-Film)
Posted: Francesca Coppa
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