Episode 1: Introducing Changeling Cast

Oh hello. Welcome to changeling cast the podcast dedicated to reading and dissecting urban fantasy, paranormal and speculative romance series. I'm your host Mara from the YouTube channel books like whoa. And we are kicking off Season 1 with Nalini Singh's Psy-Changeling series! So welcome everybody, as I said, my name is Mara. And I do have an existing kind of presence here on the bookish internet as the YouTube channel slash booktube channel

bookslikewhoa. I have been doing booktube for about three and a half years now I think. And I really, really enjoy it. It's one of my favorite kind of pastimes that I have going. And I am just a big, big old book nerd. That's the long and the short of it. I am an omnivore and my reading tastes. So I definitely read pretty much every genre, I guess. I'm trying to think if there's anything that just like straight up won't read. I don't think so I think I'll read pretty much anything.

I'm well known for my love of classics, actually, I'm trying to think of like analytics wise what what my most viewed content tends to be, I think it has to do with like kind of literary classics. mystery, especially Agatha Christie, Agatha Christie is my favorite author. And I've done a lot of kind of deep reading projects of her various series. We'll come back to that later. And then romance is kind of the other big topic that I'm

known for. I actually ended up doing my master's thesis thing, looking at romance, kind of the intersection between romance and religion. So I have written a lot about romance. And I am definitely a passionate kind of advocate for being destigmatized as a legitimate thing that people enjoy reading, and you know, subsidizing the rest of the book publishing industry. So it's an important genre. So that's kind of who I am. And I am kicking off with this episode

a podcast. So I love podcasts. I have been listening to podcasts, basically, since they've been a thing. I was an early adopter of the form because I don't know I, when I especially when I'm walking around doing chores, or like taking a walk or, you know, out shopping or whatever. I like to either be listening to an audiobook or a podcast. And my kind of first genre that I enjoyed in podcast was book related podcasts. I remember does anybody remember the Bookrageous podcast back when

that was the thing? I loved the slate book club when that was poppin. I liked all of the early book podcasts. And then you know, over time, I've you know, kind of risen and fallen with various ones. I like Book Fight. I like Literary Disco. And of late, I've been very much enjoying some romance podcasts, which are kind of what have directly inspired this very podcast you are listening to right now. And basically, I have been doing booktube for three and a half years. Like I said, I

still really enjoy doing it. But I am always looking to sort of challenge myself creatively. And I was kind of thinking about what a fun project for 2021 could be in terms of my kind of online bookish content. And I thought that maybe it would be a good time to try doing a podcast because I listened to and very much enjoyed two podcasts last year. One was Fated Mates, I still am listening to that. Obviously, it's a great ongoing

podcast. But I really enjoyed their first season where they did a deep dive into Kresley Cole's Immortals After Dark series. That was a great companion because I ended up doing kind of a reading blog project of that series. So I really enjoyed that. And then when I went on a deep dive with the Ice Planet Barbarian series at the end of 2020. I also found Ice Planet podcast during that. And I've been enjoying catching

up with that. And from there, I think between listening to that, and also just kind of in my YouTube content thinking I would like to have another series that I could do a real deep dive on because at the beginning of my channel, I did two big reading projects with Agatha Christie, I did something I called Project Poirot where I read every Poirot book and short story and everything in chronological order, or I guess the order of publication, I should say. And then I did the same thing for

the Miss Marple series. I really enjoyed having that as a regular reading project. I know that a lot of my audience really enjoyed that. And it was a way that a lot of them even found me. And I've been looking for another series that I could do a similar kind of analysis with. And so I've been looking for something that I thought merited that kind of deep dive into each book. I also that when I was thinking about it realized a lot of what I did in those projects really would have worked just

fine as an audio form. Rather than you know, having kind of a video. So rather than taking on another video project on a semi regular basis, because it does involve a little bit more work in terms of editing, in terms of me actually having to look you know, somewhat presentable on camera right now I'm sitting in my sweats and looking pretty messy here on a Sunday

afternoon. So that kind of project if I could do it with a podcast, which is require less work for me, and it would give me a chance to kind of fulfill a longtime dream, which is to have a podcast because I have just loved them for so long. So without a combine, I also realized that I've been sort of wanting to do a reread of the millenia sing side changeling

series. So I thought all of these factors together kind of point towards a podcast of me doing a very detailed deep dive reading, rereading project really, of Nalini Singh's. Psy-Changeling series would be a great way to go. And I'm calling this Changeling Cast. Obviously, that's an allusion to Psy Changeling. But my thought is I'm calling this tentatively

season one. And I'm going to leave the door open for possibly other series that have some kind of changeling element to them, be it a shapeshifter kind of like wear situation, which is what we have in this series and in many speculative romance

speculative fiction series. But changeling also can refer to say, so I figured that that kind of opens the door up to also potentially doing a read through of a series that has say, so I figured this would be a specific enough mission statement for this first season that we you know, pretty focused on a specific goal as as a podcasting nation, I don't know, what do we what do we call this relationship between podcasters and the listeners' between us, I

think we can stay on track. But I think in the future, if this is something I enjoy, if this is something you know, that you guys enjoy, and get some traction, then we also have room to do different series in the future. Maybe I could do like a mini series with just like the Ilona Andrews Innkeeper series, because there's definitely a shifter in that one. I don't know. Anyway, I think that this, you know, hopefully is specific,

but broad at the same time. Part of why I picked Psy Changeling is that I do think that this is a series that merits you know, a pretty close read just based on how much is going on with it, in terms of the actual plot beats, the interesting world building, and how all the political machinations come together. And then also, I think that there's a lot of genuinely interesting thematic content happening in a

lot of these books. And then on top of that, there's also some, you know, like sexy werewolves and, you know, sexy psychic dudes. So, you know, I think it really has everything I look for, there's often some kind of sort of either Suspense Thriller, mystery type plot

engine. And I will say that if you if I'm, you know, kind of describing my ideal book, my favorite kind of book is set in some sort of speculative world, there's a mystery plot engine or a thriller plot engine in terms of sort of the type of story being told. And then there is a strong romantic element. And I would say that this is pretty heavy on the romance. But that works for me in this case. And aside from that, I would say that this the series definitely falls under kind of that rubric

of what I really enjoy. I first read this series back in, it would have been in 2015. It was right after I graduated from grad school, I was unemployed, I was looking for a job, kind of because actually, I spent a lot of that fall just binge reading the series, catching up with it, I could not put it down. I mean, I basically would like, read a book a day. And then like, along with that, I would do job hunting until I caught up. It was a very delightful bingeing

experience. And so I think I have very fond memories of this series purely from just to like, thank you for helping me get through this kind of difficult time in my life perspective. So I have a lot of nostalgia and joy with it. But I've kept up with it since and I feel like, you know, I think we're like 19 or 20 books in and it's still going really strong. The next book comes out in July of this year of july of 2021. And it

started in I believe 2006. So it's been going strong for 15 years, I think that the books are still really good and doing interesting things with the characters and with the world. So I think that this is going to be a worthy project. So today, we're going to talk now that I've kind of explained who I am and why I'm doing this. Today we're going to talk about who Nalini Singh is who the author is, because she's a goddess. I'm going to give you a background

on what the series is. I'm going to give you the pitch of why I think you should read the series if you haven't talked about some of the high level themes that I find interesting going into the project, and then also just sort of a little bit of housekeeping of how I see this Season of the podcast going. And I should note, I actually purposely decided to record this before I'd started any rereading. So I'm going into this with my

recollections. I think that will be part of the fun of this is maybe potentially having my recollections corrected over the course of this reading project. So with that being said, let's start with who Nalini Singh is.

She is a pretty prolific author who I've been enjoying for about six years now, I guess. But she's been writing for longer than that. She's been writing since 2002. She was born in Fiji, but raised in New Zealand. So she's a Kiwi. She spent three years living and working in Japan. And she's also travelled extensively around Asia in general. She is of South Asian descent. She's been a lawyer, a librarian, a candy factory general hand, bank temp, and an

English teacher. So she's very well rounded in terms of just sort of her life experiences, I feel like and I now, like when I was doing some research on her for this, I do feel like I have a better sense kind of, of where she's coming from, and kind of why her books are the way they are. But anyway, so her first book is called Desert Warrior. And it's a category that was published by Silhouette Desire

in 2002. And on her website, she says, "I've been writing for as long as I can remember, all of my stories held a thread of romance. Even when I was writing about a prince who could shoot lasers out of his eyes, creating unique characters and giving them happy endings is my favorite sing. I even love the voices in my head. So there's no other job I'd rather be doing. I hope to continue living the dream until I keel over of old

age on my keyboard." Which, hey, if you found something you love doing, and you're as good at it as she is, more power to you! Some of her favorite writers and books just to give you a sense of sort of where she's coming from influence wise, that I saw her mention are Mercedes Lackey, the Pern books by Anne McCaffrey, Anne Bishop, and Patricia Briggs. She mentioned Othello by Shakespeare, which I thought was an interesting

illusion. Also the In Death books by JD Robb which if you guys have any familiarity with my love of JD Robb slash Nora Roberts, once I saw this, I was like, Oh, I do definitely see the influence of the In Death series on site change length for sure. Simple Jess by Pamela Morsi, which I thought was an interesting if you've read that book. I thought that was an interesting note. Demon moon by Meljean Brook, who I love and Magic Strikes by Ilona Andrews. And Ilona Andrews is my favorite

currently writing author. So that made me happy to see. And then just also shout out to the fact that she writes a lot of she writes a lot and she's written a lot of different kinds of books. So she definitely has gotten her start within the romance genre. So like I mentioned, she started off with

categories and contemporary. She also currently has a self published contemporary series going that I always call the Rock series that are set in New Zealand, kind of surrounding this rugby family, which is a series I enjoy. She also has a currently running speculative series called The Guild Hunter series, which I know there are some people who prefer the Guild

Hunters over Psy Changeling. I personally definitely prefer Psy Changeling over Guild Hunters just because for me, they're the Guild Hunter series does have sort of an episodic structure in terms of having a different couple and every book, kind of, but it keeps going back to a main couple. And that main couple I don't really love like they're fine, but I don't love them. But it's an interesting

world. It's basically instead of playing...the Psy Changeling series, the main kind of characters are either weres, humans, or Psy, which are sort of like psychically gifted race. But in guild hunters, it's angels and vampires. And she also has a lot of really interesting political machinations in that series. So it's a good series I just personally because of kind of my character preferences, don't like it as much. And then she's also sort of branching out into

thrillers recently. And I think her thrillers are also really good. I tend to be somebody who really prefers or values character driven kind of stories. So for me seeing romance authors like Nalini Singh, also like Alyssa Cole recently, transitioning into thrillers is something I love to see because it means that they tend to bring those same sort of character driven sensibilities to their work and mystery thriller. So I've enjoyed her

work there as well. So that's a little bit about our author in question, Queen Nalini. I also just I have to say I love her name. Na-li-ni Singh. Just all those "ee" noises I find very pleasing to my ear. I'm planning on reaching out to her publicist to see if maybe I can get an interview with her on here. So I'm hoping we'll see how that goes. But that's a little background about her. And now we're going to transition to a

summary of the series for those of you who have not read it. For those of you who have read this series and just need a refresher, and as I said, I purposely have not started my reread yet at the time of this recording. So I've done my homework, and I'm using my memory. But I may get a couple of things wrong as we go along. So we'll correct that as we go. Just bear that in mind. Okay, so the Psy Changeling world is a series that set in an

alternative version of Earth. So it's our world, but different. And in this version of our world, there are three races, there are humans, there are changelings, who can shape shift into different kinds of animals. And then there are the Psy who have these different kinds of psychic mental abilities. And we'll talk more about what each of these kind of character groups deal is here more in a minute. But those are the three

races. The Psy have been the race that has been sort of dominating on the global stage since the beginning of something that is called silence that was instituted in 1979. We'll talk more about that in a minute. But it's been about 100 years since then. So the series starts in 2079. And basically, we're kind of joining the story at a moment where there is a lot of kind of upheaval happening and power balances are starting to shift.

So the beginning of the storyline is focusing on these different sort of revolutionary movements that are changing up the way things have been going up until that point. So in our first novel, which is called Slave to Sensation, when we join that we've got the side who are sort of dominating for about the last 100 years, and they've been doing this through something called Silence. So Silence is basically this kind of protocol that the Psy have instituted on

themselves. And actually, maybe I should pause here and give you a rundown of exactly kind of what the deal is with each of these groups. And this is coming directly from Nalini Singh's website. So she says "The Psy have phenomenal mental abilities from telepathy, telekinesis, psychometry, to foresight", so there are Psy who can read minds incredibly strongly, there are Psy who can teleport, there are Psy who can move things with their mind, there are Psy who are gifted at medical healing.

And there are Psy who can see the future. They have all these different mental abilities. And those abilities are designated with a letter and then Psy. So for instance, if you are a medical side, you would be an "M-Psy". So they have these abilities. But the but she says "those gifts come with a price they drive the side to insanity and murderous violence. The Psy are cold, detached and do not have relationships based in emotion anymore because of

Silence. And the most powerful among them are car are called Cardinals. And Cardinals are identified by their distinctive eyes that look like the night sky. So they're white stars on black." So the Cardinals are the most powerful version of Psy. But every Psy has sort of a designation given to them, they're tested for how strong their mental ability is. And they are also and so you'll meet, you will see Psy that are referred to as like, I don't know, like a 7.1, telepath,

whatever. And they usually have one primary gift, but sometimes they will also have sort of like a weaker gift that they also have. So maybe you're a cardinal medical Psy, but you have like a 4.1, telepathy power. And the 4.1. Like the scale is sort of like the Richter scale like it grows exponentially with every point. So Cardinals are incredibly powerful. So that's kind of what the deal with the Psy... so Silence. So as Nalini says that you have these mental abilities, but they can make you

incredibly unstable. So 100 years ago, the Psy Council who are sort of the overall rulers of the Psy, people realized that they had a lot of basically serial killers in their midst who were driven insane, because they just couldn't control their, like incredibly strong psychic abilities while they were just trying to live life. So the idea behind Silence is that you learn those protocols a child to shut down all of your emotion, which keeps the more unstable Psy from becoming

murderous. And it allows all of the Psy to focus their focus on their gifts without hurting anybody. And essentially, the idea is that you're driving out the inefficiencies of messy human emotion is kind of the idea. So this has allowed them to become incredibly powerful, but sort of at the expense of having any feelings, emotions, family connections, anything. So that's the Psy. Then the second

race are the changelings. And so the changelings are... think your classical kind of like werewolf situation- they have two forms human and animal. And Singh's website says "they are at home in both forms. Some changelings are dominant others are more submissive. Major changeling groups in this series include leopards, wolves, bears, water based changelings, and Falcons." There's other kinds of weres. But those those are the ones we've kind of seen a lot of

so far. "They are as emotional as the Psy are cold, they are passionately devoted to their mates and blood loyal to their packs and clans. Changelings are physically powerful, and as dangerously intelligent, an alpha changeling can go toe to toe with a cardinal sign and not blink." So basically, they have a different kind of supernatural ability. But both of these abilities are based in science. So like this is not a world where it's magic that is giving these different races power, it

is science. So for instance, all of the Psy, because they don't care about emotion anymore. They've also become very focused on trying to essentially like breed stronger and stronger beings with psychic abilities. So they usually don't even have sexual relations to create children. They basically do all of their kind of family formation through these different contracts. And then through artificial insemination.

So basically, there are families, but they don't have the same kind of like emotional connection. And like I said, they're very focused on sort of like genetically perfecting their race, and then changelings it's also kind of understood to be a genetic thing. So it is passed, like... changelings can marry humans, and their offspring could have like different kind of genetic components based on how you know those different kinds of genes

interact with each other. I should mention that the third race are humans who are just like you and me and Nalini Singh's website says, "however, they are caught in the midst of a power struggle between the Psy and the changelings. At the beginning of the series, humans are considered the weakest of three races. But as the story continues, we discover they have a critical role to play." And then it also mentions this thing called the Human Alliance, which I'll talk about here in a

minute. So those are kind of the people at play. So at the beginning of the series, The Psy, they've been living under Silence for 100 years. They are dominating on the world stage, but they can be matched by the changelings. The reason that they haven't been challenged very much in the last 100 years by the changelings is that the changelings are divided into

those different packs. And they have been in a lot of sort of interpack like territorial wars for the last 100 years that have pretty much calmed down by the beginning of the series. So because they don't have sort of like a centralized governing force the way that the Psy have the Psy Council. They have a harder time sort of joining together to challenge the Psy on

a large scale. The changelings cannot be controlled by Psy really, which we'll talk more about, I think as the series goes on, because I think that introduces some interesting themes. But humans can be controlled mentally by the Psy. So the humans don't like... there's some humans who have problems with the changelings. Like there's basically some like racism towards changelings from

humans and vice versa. There's a little bit of that, but there's a lot more intermarrying and sort of like comingling between changelings and humans. Humans don't sort of distrust changelings writ large the way they do the Psy because the Psy have been systematically like stealing humans ideas and then making them forget they ever had them and like manipulating them in business deals and like screwing them over basically in the way that the changelings

don't. So there are some humans who are wanting to come together. Also to kind of push back on how dominating the Psy have been. So as the series begins, we've got the changelings finally coming down from a lot of their inter territory squabbling and they are becoming more powerful. Humans are starting to kind of coalesce under this to various degrees under either the Human Alliance or just generally wanting to kind of push back

against Psy dominance. The other thing that's happening is that the Psy themselves are starting to have sort of inter race discord because Silence is not as perfect as they would have other people believe. Outwardly to the rest of the world, the official party line the Psy have is that every single Psy has achieved perfect Silence, meaning that they have achieved perfect emotionlessness. So this, that's kind of the United Front they are presenting.

However, within the Psy... and I should at this point mention that the side are all connected through something called the Psy Net. So part of having these psychic powers is that you need biofeedback from other beings with those psychic abilities, and it forms this sort of mental network, which I, I'll try to find a description of it, but it's kind of... what I.. the way it's described is almost like the night sky, and each Psy is a different star, and they all can

see one another. And they all have mental feedback with each other. They also are collectively storing all of their shared knowledge into the sort of psychic space. And so there's constantly news floating around in this psychic network. It's very...it sounds very nebulous when I'm describing it, I think Nalini Singh actually does a really good job of sort of like giving you concrete visualizations of what she's trying to describe here that I am probably not doing as good of

a job of it. But basically, if you when you were first born, if you are Psy, you instantly have to connect to the Psy network, or else your brain sort of dislike short circuits and you you'll die. So all of the Psy are connected to each other in this space. Butbthey are also if they just part of what drives them that can drive them insane is that there's so much information that they can't process at all. So you also have to learn to develop these essentially... mental shields.

And there are different Psy who are like specialized in that... whatever. Okay, so in the Psy Net, it looks like with everybody shields up that everybody is perfectly emotionless. However, behind those shields, there are a lot of them that actually are having emotions, but they have no tools... like either they want to be Silent, but they can't maintain it. And they're trying to keep anybody from knowing that they can't maintain it.

Because if the Psy Council finds out that you have broken Silence, they will they kill you or they will at minimum put you essentially in like a mental institution and you'll never get out. So I think they may be lobotomize people? I don't know, we'll find this out as I begin my reread. But it's really bad if people find out you've broken Silence because the Psy Council will come in and take you so there are some people who are trying to not break Silence, but

they are anyway. And then there are other people who want to break Silence because they basically feel like it this bargain of having zero emotion is not worth the consequences. So Silence is not perfect within the Psy Net. But outwardly, everybody thinks that they are still all emotionless whatever. So those are all the different revolting forces. Basically, you've got within the Psy, there's this upheaval happening. There's all of these political machinations happening within

the Psy Council. Some of them want to maintain Silence, some of them want to break it for themselves, but not let anybody else break it. Some of them want to totally like just get rid of Silence altogether and start something new to have that happening. You got the changelings who have always resented how dominant the Psy on the political stage. But they up until now have not been able to

do anything about it. But now that things are calming down, they're forming all of these business relationships with the Psy. And they are forming business and sort of like interpack treaties with each other. So one of the biggest kind of shifts is that two of the most powerful packs in the world have been fighting each other for a long time. In California, there is one called the dark river pack, which is a pack of leopards who are based

in San Francisco. And then there is a pack called the Snow Dancer pack, which are wolves and they are basically the rest of California. However, both of them have these kind of young new leaders. And they have formed at the beginning of this series like a tentative like they're working towards having an alliance like they're they're at least got a detente and they are working on kind of working

together. So this is really upsetting the balance of power, because they're both incredibly, like they're going to be a force to be reckoned with. So that's happening, and then the Psy Net itself. So there's people who are rebelling against Silence within the Psy. And then the Psy Net itself has become incredibly unstable. We learn this more and

more as the books go on. And the Psy Net itself is threatening to basically like break apart and if that happens, like millions of Psy will die, because they are reliant on it to, like, have this biofeedback. So that's happening. And then the humans are also like, there's these like, kind of extremist groups who are trying to essentially like, think sort of like white nationalism, but just humans.

It's that kind of that idea. And then there are other humans who are basically just like, hey, like, we're tired of, like, not as extreme as those groups but like, we want to find ways to have more kind of abilities to be more assertive in world politics. So Anyway, I think that covers sort of like what the world is like and kind of the premise of the series because so I've been talking a lot about the kind of speculative aspect of this. But the other piece of this is that

it is a romance. And so every book is a different couple getting together. And basically, each book is a couple getting together and furthering the overall plot of how, like what's going to happen with the Psy? How the changelings are or are not going to, you know, learn to work together better? So there's, that's the macro plot. And then the micro plots are these romances. And usually, these romances are between

different species. And that creates just a lot of inherent tension, like the first three books at least, actually, I think most of the, maybe the first four or five, are a Psy and a changeling becoming mates. One thing I should mention is that there is a version of fated mates in this series with changelings. It's not the traditional version, though of a fated mate. It's not like you instantly see someone and you instantly are mates, that she does do that later in the series. It's an interesting

variant. But mostly it's like, you meet somebody and you have this inclination that they could be your mate. And this idea of the mating dance, which is essentially like a courtship period where you're you both are like accepting that you're going to be mates ensues. So there is some uncertainty and we do see some situations where mating dances don't work out. So it's, it's a kind of fated, maybe not

a perfect one. Anyway. Most of these early books are the changelings who are hyper emotional and hyper driven by passion and who wants they find a fated mate. Like that's something to be celebrated. You know, that's their drive, and then their fated mates or the people that they at least have an inclination could become their fated mate? Are the Psy who have no emotion. So like, you've got conflict inherently

baked into the setup. And then as the series goes on, there's a lot of different variations there are Psy getting with other Psy, which are some of my favorites. I'm gonna be honest with you.There changelings getting with other changelings, there are Psy and human or changeling and human, like, there are a lot of different

variations. And I think that part of what keeps this series moving forward is that Nalini Singh has found really has found a lot of different conflicts within this world she set up, which I think speaks to how well conceptualized this world is, because it does lend itself to a lot of different types of conflict. The only other thing I should mention in terms of things you need to know about the world, it is 2079. So there are also some technological advancements that you see in

this series. They're not drastic, but they are there. So like you do have a kind of version of a flying car. They do have like, much more advanced medical technology, people do seem to be living a lot longer, like not indefinitely, but like, it's not unusual to encounter people who are like in their hundreds. So also, just as a note there, that sort of the overall world as we know it. So

now transitioning into my pitch of why you should read it! Okay. So first, as we've talked about this world setup is really interesting and cool. Like the actual world, I think she does a really good job of describing it. It's the world building itself, I think is is really well done, especially for a series of this kind that doesn't always value world building. I think she clearly does. And she's clearly put a lot of thought into how she set up her

world. So that's cool. The political machinations of this series are so fun! So if you are somebody who that's like one of your main things you like in kind of a speculative type series is sort of the, okay, this person is trying to assassinate this person, and this person is trying to get this person to be on their side so they're going to blackmail them and like, those kinds of macro plots, if you like that this series has some of my

favorite versions of that. The actual romances I do find to be pretty satisfying. I will tell you, I think when we are in these earlier books, I'll say, I do think some of the romances at this point are starting to feel a little dated from the earlier books, because it was written in 2006. And in genre fiction time,

15 years is an Eon! A lot changes in terms of sort of the conventional tropes or sort of like the types of conflicts that are or are not acceptable, a lot changes in romance in 15 years. So I do think some of especially the earlier books, the romances feel a little dated, I'm sure we'll talk about that. Some of them are fantastic. Like Book Three, Judd is still a series like fans of this series, we still talk about Judd. Judd's book is one of the best books on this series. So it's not all of

them. Some of the romances I still, I still think feel great from that era. But all that to be all that being said, I do think that the character work is really good. And if you can kind of go along with some of the dated elements of it in terms of some of the alpha, what I would call an alphahold, that alphaness of some of the earlier heroes, I think that the romances really are very satisfying. Like, like I said, there's a lot of kind of juicy tension built into why they can

or can't be together. There's some sexy scenes, which I think are usually done pretty well, like the actual romances of these books are very satisfying for people who enjoy romance read, I will say that probably the two things that have made this one of my most successful recommendations to people like I have a nearly perfect track record of like, if I recommend this to somebody, they end up telling me that they really

enjoyed it. If they like there's a I can think of one or two people I know who I recommended who didn't enjoy it. But mostly people who've gone on to read it have said like, this was so fun. And it's for two qualities one, the recurring characters and the kind of community building she does. These, especially the packs, like they just have this perfect quality of found family. It's so nostalgic, it's so cozy.

They have like this just ride or die mentality for their group for their neighbors for their family. And there's just such this lovely warmth to all of those kinds of found family interactions. We also have like lots of recurring characters. And I think she handles her recurring characters in a really elegant way. Sometimes I think later in series, recurring characters really just feel like fanservice, they don't have a purpose of why they're there.

And you just basically have them show up because everybody wants to see them. While that is true, and I do think that the transition book between the two kind of seasons of Psy changeling, which I guess I didn't mention, I'll come back to that. But I think that one felt that way a little bit. But overall, the recurring characters are really fun to see. And I think she finds organic ways to include them that that feels well executed, in my opinion. So the character work in this series is

fantastic. And then the way that she structures these books, it just is so frickin bingeable like, you just can't put these down. I couldn't Anyway, when I first read them, they like they just fly by. They just are really propulsive reads like, you just want to keep going she apportions the macro plot to each book in a way that you want to keep reading because you're wanting to find out like, holy crap, like what happened to this, like, this just blew up?

What are the implications of this gonna be like, you just want to keep reading for that. She also plants a lot of seeds of like, Oh, it looks like maybe this person in this person might get together. So you also have that you're reading for, like, there's just something very tangible about this series. So it's very just a fun series in terms of, you'll pick it up and you'll if you like it, you'll just want to power straight

through it. So in terms of like, why I think you should read this, if those things sound appealing to you. Those are sort of my main selling points I give to people. And then finally,

before we talk about some logistics, just themes coming into this project that I enjoy about this series, and I expect we will explore further as we go along. First, I would say pretty much in every race and each of the races, but definitely the Psy and the changeling most prominently... You have this theme of a corrupted community moving towards a healed community. So you see this at a micro level with different things that we see with packs and with different side

families. But just writ large, when we start the book, The changeling community is coming out of a period of the kind of loyalty to their pack having been something that has corrupted their overall ability to get along with each other. So they become so territorial that they're killing each other... it's just a bad scene. And they finally have started to learn that lesson by by the time we're joining with the changelings.

And they're kind of coming out of that into a more healed version of what it means to be in community both with their own pack but also with other packs. So we're seeing them starting to have these alliances. We're seeing them starting to say like hey, we need to find a way to work this out that is not violence. We've got to find other ways to kind of share territory. So that has been happening for the changelings. And we're kind of joining them at a point where they really are

starting to heal. For the Psy, we're a lot of what this series is, is the Psy reaching their breaking point of, they have become completely corrupted as a community because their politicians are corrupt. And the way that they're controlling their community are sort of like the rules of their community, while well intentioned at first has totally destroyed what it means to be like a person in a lot of ways, and it's destroying them rather than allowing them

to thrive. So a lot of what this series is about is the Psy learning from the changelings, but like kind of on a micro level with these different pairings but then also that expands to be a bigger thing of the site learning from the changelings what it means to have a restored community. So I think that's a lot of thematically what's happening here? Also, I mean, like you guys know, if you watch me at all, but I love Jane Eyre, and Jane, there's just so many Jane Eyre parallels I feel like in

the series. Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice are sort of two of the ur texts of the romance genre in general. And I definitely think that paranormal slash speculative fiction tends to draw more from Jane Eyre than it does the Jane Austen books. So in general, that's maybe a different discussion for a different day. But I would argue that like kind of paranormal romance, in general, comes more from sort of the Gothic romantic tradition. So I think that's

already there. But specifically, and I'm going to make an entire video essay about this at some point. One of the main themes in Jane Eyre, I would argue, is this pull between passion and duty, in the form of sort of the two main potential love interests that Jane has. So Rochester kind of representing unrestrained passion, and St. John, representing sort of like

complete devotion to duty. And what Jane Eyre ultimately is about, I would argue, is how you reconcile both forces within yourself that are both good, but

that have to be in balance. And I think that we see this pretty like directly allegorized in this series, where the Psy represent total discipline, no emotion, pure rationality, at least they think they're being purely rational and where that leads you, whereas the changelings represent or have represented in the past, pure passion of like, loyalty, above all else, loyalty to your family, and just like that, that can also lead you down a very

dark path. And what this series is about is, like, how do you find that balance? Right? Like, how do you find the balance of like, what makes being human or a person worthwhile, is the fact that we can love each other and have loyalty to each other and, you know, create art and do you know what I mean? Like, the whole, like Dead Poets Society of like, poetry is what makes life worth living, that kind of an idea. I think that that's, you know, an important piece of

what the Psy need to learn. And then the Psy also have things to teach about, like how you work together for a common purpose, like, they have become unified to the point of it being like stultifying to individuals, but like they are able to be disciplined and rational and like, they are able to achieve all of these amazing like kind of technology breakthroughs, and they're able to be very powerful because they are not wholly

ruled by emotion. So a lot of what this series is about is these different couples learning

from each other. I would also argue that that tends to sort of be a overarching theme in romance in general, that the heroine represents the hero, like learning to embrace his more soft, tendresse side of himself, and the hero, you know, listening from the hero like him being more rational and like, anyway, that's, I think, also kind of a bigger theme in romance writ large, but I think that's very directly a metaphor in this particular series.

Another kind of two sort of smaller themes that I think are definitely here though, is this idea of like interspecies or like interracial romance So interestingly the Psy are radically interracial in the sense of we would use it in our actual world. All they care about are trying to create children with the best abilities so like they've almost eliminated race within themselves as we today would

define it. Like they're all... pretty much all Psy intensely biracial, like their dad may be like, a Russian Nigerian, and their mom might be like a Japanese Canadian, like they are just looking purely at the DNA of like what's going to make the strongest baby. So they are all very, like they don't have race in the same way that we do. But they are very "species"-ist. Like they do not want any intermarriage with humans or changelings anymore. Like that

is corrupt. So it's like a different commentary on race, I feel like. Anyway, so I think it just introduces a lot of interesting themes around like different kinds of forms of prejudice and different kinds of conceptions of what it means to have like, an inter, quote unquote, interracial romance. So I think that's an interesting

theme. And then finally, to 2006 was like, the boom of like, right before smartphones became a thing, like kind of Web 2.0. I think the Psy Net is definitely meant to be sort of an exploration of what an explosion of informational technology does to people and kind of an exploration thematically of like what the internet is doing to our world. So those are two sort of sub themes that I enjoy, and that I see in these books. But overall, thematically, those are kind of my ideas coming into the

project. And I think... I mean, I could literally sit here and talk more about this, but we were going to have, you know, however many episodes to get into specific books. But I think that gives you a sense of sort of what I love about this series, why I think it's interesting why I think it's worth spending hours and hours talking about it over the next however many months. So that's kind of where I'm coming into this project. And then I guess just I'll leave you guys with

some logistics. So I'm envisioning posting an episode about every two weeks, you know, life may happen. And that may not be possible. But my intention is, you know, every other week, I will post an episode. They will be going up on Tuesday mornings, I will post on my YouTube channel, I'm in the process of getting listed with a different podcast feeds. So hopefully that will happen soon. I will have some of these that are just me. I am hoping to have some guests on I'm working

on that. So you'll hear from me, you'll hopefully also hear from some other people so that you get kind of some cross talk happening. I always find that enjoyable and podcasts. And then I do just want to mention that these are going to be spoiler filled episodes. So if you don't care about spoilers, I'm somebody who doesn't usually really care that much about spoilers, but I know some people really do if you've not read the series yet, and you do not want

to be spoiled for it. Just know these will be spoiler filled episodes. And if you have been with me for any kind of like reading of Agatha Christie, you kind of have a sense of the types of conversations I envision us having. I do you think that there'll be more of sort of like a recapping element in this than I did with Christie because I'm just going to go

whole hog on spoilers. So I think that there will be a little bit more recapping, but there'll also be a lot of discussion of the themes and whatnot. So I think I think that's it. I think that's our first episode, we hit you know, kind of what we're doing, who I am, how the logistics of this will work. I think I think we covered most of what we needed to. Yeah, I am excited to talk to you guys, about Psy changeling because I really do love this series. I think this will be a really fun project.

I'm really excited to be trying something a little bit different than what I've been doing before. And I'm very excited to hopefully find some new fellow lovers of this series. I know that it is well loved within a lot of groups. But I just I always get excited when I find other people who love this series because it is I think a special one and it merits I think a lot of discussion, which is why we're even doing so. I

think that'll do it for me. I hope you guys enjoyed this first episode and I will see you guys in two weeks to talk about the first book in the series which is called slave to sensation by Queen Nalini Singh. I'll talk to you guys then... bye! saying bye