Traditional “slash fiction” tells alternative realities. Living online, these fanfics traditionally imagine the lives of users’ favorite characters from film, TV, literature, and even history, as very, very gay. Ron and Harry might share a bed at Hogwarts, Paul McCartney falls into the arms of John Lennon, and figures from different realities could collide too: Sherlock Holmes “collaborates” with Dr. Who. Slash by Emily Allan and Leah Hennessy takes the generous logic of the pop-culture-altering form to restage real literary and academic feuds, forcing rivals to confront each other face-to-face. Loading bookish icons with all the drama of the best written fanfiction, Slash presents intellectual history as a high-stakes spectacle.