Recent Interests, January 2026
I think I may have undiagnosed ADHD – I tend to have short bursts of intense interest in a new topic before moving on rapidly. This cycle has compounded tenfold since Large Language Models became popularized, because I could just endlessly query them on topics of interest. My current interest is in a genre of Russian pulp fiction known as popadantsy. For those unfamiliar, it’s more or less their version of Isekai/cultivation/regressor novels with their own little subgenres. For those unfamiliar with the above, imagine A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, but applied to various scenarios – fantasy settings, VR, or the past so the main character can use their foreknowledge of events and competence to save the day.
One subgenre of popadantsy is something I deem Russian MAGA fanfiction – the protagonist is sent back in time before Russia collapses and helps Tzar Nicholas/Stalin purge Russia of all its weak and feckless men and repel western corruption and influence. This subgenre is what really interested me in the genre – it just sounds incredibly funny to read Russian grievance politics and historical fanfiction around the idea of your failed state being saved single handedly on your part after you drop in to communist Russia with just a smartphone in hand. Unfortunately, this specific subgenre of popadantsy isn’t available in the west – not very popular with publishers, for reasons I can’t imagine. What we do get are mostly LitRPGs, which are more in line with what we already get from Asian webnovels – people dropped in fantasy settings and need to grind and level up to get out of their situation.
I’m reading The Way of the Shaman right now, which is the same concept, except the MC is thrown in a virtual prison, spends all his time mining virtual ore ala Runescape to meet his daily quota so that he doesn’t die in game. Dying virtually doesn’t kill him, but it’s one of those matrix style VR games where he experiences physical feedback, so dying in game does give him the physical sensation of pain. I kind of like these table stakes style of grinding, where the focus isn’t necessarily on the protagonist becoming an insane master of the realm like The Boss in Connecticut Yankee, but just some expert in a weird niche that only like 10 people care about. It feels more true to life, where we play our little status games in our local hierarchies that most people are unaware of and could care less about. Anyway, the story is pretty simple and the writing feels stiff at times, like I guess how a non native Slavic speaker would come across in English. But it is fun and breezy. Good genre, thumbs up from me 👍
An AI conversation where I talk about cultural Isekai equivalents for each respective country https://claude.ai/share/829b1192-2d75-4a35-ab0b-55d72fd962d2