American writers

Frank (Murray Bartlett) in The Last of Us.Image: HBOAfter its first two episodes, everyone knew The Last of Us was good, but episode three really put things on a whole new level. Titled “Long, Long Time,” the extended flashback beautifully told the love story of Bill (Nick Offerman) and Frank (Murray Bartlett), two men who fall in love and prove that good things are possible in a world where evil lurks around every corner. It’s been praised all over the internet for the past two days but, apparently, there’s more episode…

FrontierImage: SolarisIt’s February, traditionally a month for romance—but 2023 is also bringing a bumper crop of frights! There are several big horror titles out this month, including Stephen Graham Jones’ sequel to My Heart Is a Chainsaw and author Matt Ruff’s return to Lovecraft Country... as well as all the sci-fi and fantasy your heart desires.Image: 47NorthMeru by S.B. DivyaIn a far future in which humans dwell on Earth while posthuman “alloys” handle all the space exploration, the discovery of an Earthlike planet…

Photo: Pool (Getty Images)House Republicans, as early as this week, could have a powerful new panel at their disposal to grill Big Tech companies over long-alleged, but largely unproven accusations of conservative censorship and government collusion. Though Democrats and tech industry experts refute the committee’s premise, the panel could nonetheless force tech companies and their executives directly into the center of a meandering GOP spotlight seeking to reveal even the tiniest modicum of evidence thattech companies…

Image: Netflix | Scott GarfieldThe Pale Blue Eye is an adaption of a novel by Louis Bayard that imagines a chilling horror story set in West Point during the time that Edgar Allen Poe was in attendance. The early 1800s time period places the film well before Sherlock Holmes, offering a darker, more reserved kind of horror, creating a strange, slow-moving, threatening aura that I am, actually, all about.The Pale Blue Eye | Official Trailer | NetflixThe trailer shows Christian Bale as detective Augustus Landor, who is…

Michael Lewis, author of Moneyball and The Big Short (left) and Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of FTX (right)Photo: David Levenson / Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc (Getty Images)Michael Lewis, author of Moneyball and The Big Short, has been following FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried for the past six months to write his next book. And while the potential ending of Lewis’s book has obviously changed in the past week since FTX’s $32 billion implosion, Lewis is already shopping around the movie rights, according to a new report from…

This image gives me hives.Photo: Richard Drew/Associated Press | Screenshot: New York TimesBret Stephens, the New York Times columnist with a long history of bad conservative takes—the same man who decided to quit Twitter after he threw a fit over being called a bedbug—says he’s changed. In an essay for the Times opinion section published Friday, Stephens claims that a visit to Greenland changed his mind on climate change, but the uniquely infuriating essay is still full of Stephens-style bullshit, horrible design choices…

Photo: Dimitrios Kambouris (Getty Images)Just two months after swearing off giving Winds of Winter updates, perpetual updater and writer of Winds of Winter George R.R. Martin has an announcement: he has a Winds of Winter update.Who’s to say what prompted his decision to recently blurt out on a livestream that the book—over a decade in the making—is roughly 75% done. Maybe Martin forgot he’d told people to shut up and let him finish, because he’s been updating people on this book for over a decade now and just can’t help…

Art by Hristo ChukovImage: Ten Speed PressKnown to me only by the nickname “Ser Incel,”I’m delighted to learn here, for the first time, that the gross creeper dies.The Rise of the Dragon will be available on October 25. Preorder it here. Reprinted from THE RISE OF THE DRAGON: AN ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF THE TARGARYEN DYNASTY, VOLUME ONE by George R. R. Martin, Elio M. García Jr. and Linda Antonsson. Copyright © 2022 by George R. R. Martin. Published by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin…

Far-right writers have seen their hopes for an “Anti-woke” superhero go up in flames.Photo: charles taylor (Shutterstock)Superhero fans on the far-right political spectrum have one less movie to get excited about, putting their options for hateful heroes to—well—none. As first reported by The Daily Beast, a movie that was set to give us a big-screen rendition of an “anti-woke superhero” is shuttered, and the thousands of dollars fans invested in the project likely won’t be coming back to them, according to a video sent to…

Bloomberg poses with Oscar the Grouch during a summit in New York City on Wednesday.Photo: Bruce Gilbert (AP)Michael Bloomberg is taking on plastic producers. The billionaire announced Wednesday that he will launch a $85 million campaign to fight against the expansion of the petrochemical industry.The campaign, called Beyond Petrochemicals, will focus on three regions of the country—Louisiana, Texas and the Ohio River Valley—that have been particularly hit in recent years by new petrochemical plants and planned…