I didn’t leave the house at all last weekend. Instead, I spent Saturday smashing A Court of Splintered Harmony and Sunday watching BookToks about it. In this week’s newsletter, senior podcast producer Taylah Strano quizzes me about the Maasverse and the rise of romantasy
The regulars
10 chaotic questions with Ashanti: ‘I’ve had a bodysuit snap off on stage. That was not my coolest moment’
The moment I knew: He said he was having a midlife crisis, I saw a man willing to face his fears
Leading questions: My upbringing was not full of leisure activities. How can I model a joyful life for my kids?
Stream team: Lupin is back! Omar Sy is ridiculously watchable and effortlessly charming as a blindingly brilliant thief
We can’t stop talking about: a court of sexy fairies
Taylah: Who is Sarah J Maas? Alyx: Sarah J Maas is basically the Taylor Swift of romantasy. A Court of Splintered Harmony, the sixth book in her biggest series, A Court of Thorns and Roses, sold 1.7m copies worldwide on pre-order and on the first day of sale. There were midnight parties all over the world for the release. So her sexy fairy novels – and when I say sexy I mean there are sex scenes that last for 10 pages or longer – are keeping publishing afloat right now. Unfortunately, from my perspective and many of her other fans’, if she is Taylor Swift, this is her The Life of a Showgirl (it’s not very good).
Taylah: You have dabbled well and truly in this genre, right? Alyx: I haven’t dabbled, or even deep-dived. I am a mermaid and this is the sea I was born in. Beyond Harry Potter, I was reading Tamora Pierce and Mercedes Lackey and Cecilia Dart-Thornton as a tween. “Romantasy” has become a huge buzzword in publishing lately, but romance novels have been very popular for a very long time, and fantasy novels have been very popular for a very long time, and there’s always been a lot of crossover. And when a popular fantasy novel lacked romance, fan fiction was there to fill the gap. The word is new, but the genre isn’t.
Taylah: Can you explain the plot of A Court of Splintered Harmony? Alyx: Without spoiling anything, it is essentially about a group of immortal fairies and chaps with wings sitting around a room having arguments about political and military strategy for most of the book. There is a big dramatic climax and a little bit of fallout. The characters behaved in such out-of-character ways that there’s a popular fan theory that they were under mind control; and a lot of the most important action happened off page in an entirely different series called Crescent City. So some fans are a bit miffed to have only read what seems like half a book; especially since that book is weirdly a different size from the other books. But Maas is the queen of twists. So most people are reserving judgment until the second book in the “Movement” (which is how Maas is describing this series-within-a-series) comes out in January.
Taylah: Is it sexy? Alyx: There are spicy scenes. But there’s already discourse about how unsexy they seem in this particular book. When you’re writing an erotic scene, it’s not so much about the words and phrases and trying to go for linguistic diversity as it is about making it hot. And what makes it hot is the dynamics between the characters. And so the spice in this book falls flat because the romantic dynamics are not it. Also, quite famously already, she used the term “silken sac” to describe one of the male main character’s testicles. So that’s been a fun part of the ride.
Your week ahead
What to watch | Wicker, the breathily anticipated genre bender in which Olivia Colman falls in love with a sexy basket played by Alexander Skarsgård, just landed in Australian cinemas. A mixture of fantasy, folk horror, romance and comedy, as Colman said in our interview: “You get sent a lot of scripts that you feel you’ve seen before. But when I read this, I was like an octopus. I changed colour and went: ‘Oooh!’”
What to play | This recommendation comes with a warning: you will lose days, potentially weeks of your life to it, and I personally am not allowed anywhere near it because I have self-control issues. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, arguably one of the greatest video games ever made, and certainly the one closest to my heart, has been remade and released for Nintendo Switch 2. In a five-star review our critic calls it: “A dream come true.”
What to read | Prefer your fantasy infused with prestige? China Miéville’s 1,200-page epic The Rouse, which the author says was 20 years in the making, has just won Britain’s prestigious Goldsmiths prize. Anyone who has blitzed through his brilliant, horrifying Bas-Lag trilogy will know that in his hands pages can fly fast, in expansive directions, so don’t be disturbed by the doorstopper of it all; save your unease for the content.
What to cook | Mangos have arrived early this year, which means Sabrina Ghayour’s zingy chicken feels suddenly seasonally appropriate. It’s baked with a mango, lime and chilli marinade. Serve it with her sticky spring onions and seriously savoury latke if you want to make a dinner party out of them, or have it with rice and a salad for something a little less ambitious.
What to book | At the end of the month, a sprawling arts, music and culture festival is descending on western Sydney and the Blue Mountains, with temporary visual art exhibitions, performances, workshops and parties. There’s even a fortune-teller hidden in a secret location somewhere in Katoomba. Superposition is on Thursday 26 November to Sunday 29 November.
Wishlist
Obviously the aestheticisation of everything is not without its problems; but I do quite like the idea of something that makes taking your antidepressants a little less depressing. Dosey make fancy pillboxes, and their recent malachite-inspired compact ($49) is particularly pretty. Pity they don’t make a day-and-night version for those of us who need uppers and downers.
Open tabs
Australians are creative swearers, but not quite as imaginative as the Brits, a group of lexicographers who study swearing have found. Steve Dow has interviewed them to find out more about how cursing helps shape national identity.
This week’s slam-dunk for weirdest story, via the Daily Mail, is about an unlikely interspecies love affair. Researchers in Ethiopia have been following Achille the bull and Patroclo the donkey, and found that the pair “repeatedly chose to stay close to each other and engaged in many different affiliative behaviours, such as licking, rubbing, and nuzzling, alongside the repeated mounting behaviour”.
Tell us … What’s your favourite fantasy romance?
Are you a romantasy fan? If so, I’d love to hear what’s on your must-read list. Tell me the author, the title or series name, and why you love it by replying to this email or contacting me via savedforsunday@theguardian.com. I’ll share a few reader favourites in the coming weeks.
