tamaranth | 2026/037: Star Shipped

2026/037: Star Shipped — Cat Sebastian

Simon’s been trying to keep things friendly, neutral, light, to act like they didn’t spend two days presenting one another with secrets like outdoor cats gently placing mangled rodents at one another’s feet. [p. 205]

Simon Devereaux is thirty-four, prone to migraines and anxiety attacks, and for seven years one of the two stars of Out There, a sci-fi show described as 'Twin Peaks in space, leaning hard into the camp'. Simon's antisocial tendencies are acknowledged and accepted by the rest of the cast, and he has a comfortable enmity going with his co-star Charlie Blake, who's improbably good-looking and highly gregarious. Now Simon's thinking of leaving the show. Things hit crisis point when his ex, Jamie, moves back into his house and disrupts all of Simon's careful rituals. An opportunity for escape is provided by Charlie, who's worried about his step-dad and invites Simon to accompany him on a road trip to Arizona.

This is a delightful warm bath of a book, a slow-burn romance between two charismatic and likeable characters. Along the way, Simon -- the viewpoint character throughout -- learns to accept his mental health issues and his migraines as a form of disability (and his dachshund Edie as an emotional support animal); reassesses his relationships with co-workers, family and Charlie himself; and develops a taste for romantasy novels with dragons in them. (His favourite book as a kid was Patricia Wrede's Dealing with Dragons.) And sniping at Charlie, of course.

Star Shipped is also a love letter to fandom, from the dedication ("For the people who write the world’s most gorgeous stories about television shows I might have seen one episode of twenty years ago. You’re lifesavers.") to Simon's own background as a fanfic author (LOTR, Sherlock), and his pleasure that fans write fic about his character, and about him. There are snapshots of exchanges on an Out There fandom Discord, where the fans enthuse about public evidence of Simon and Charlie's relationship, and these are affectionate and spot-on, with a sense of the real people behind the pseuds.

I loved this: it was exactly what I needed, cheerful and funny and never demeaning or mocking Simon's mental health issues. And I loved the fandom-friendly energy, and the references to sci-fi tropes such as 'the body-swap episode', the hiding behind ruined alien temples, the interstellar bounty hunters... This felt like reading really good fanfic!

I also decided that it works for the 'a character who does Pilates' challenge prompt (at least unless something more apt comes along), solely on the basis of Simon's complaint that 'Sometimes Jamie makes me do Pilates'.