What Happened to the American Cinematic Universe?Dec 18
cold war II is a culture war, too
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Publishers, Take Note: This Is How You Win Back Men
a new novel imagines a world where we authorize american pirates to shoot down illegal chinese spy ships. here’s our review.
Madeline Hart
Sep 14, 2026
Madeline Hart is co-author with Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar on the book Mobilize, published March 2026.
Men read less fiction than women. Exactly how much less is subject to debate, but conservative estimates find a roughly 20-percent gap that’s persisted over a decade.
Walk into any Barnes & Noble, and you’re immediately hit with a kaleidoscope of pastel covers, each adorned with some variation of 2D cartoon art and a girly typeface. And that’s just the fiction table up front, before you get to “romantasy,” a booming genre filled with poorly written stories about hot alpha males lusting after awkward nerdy girls, give or take a dragon (hard to say which part’s the fantasy).
A viral New York Times article last year admonished men for not reading more fiction, and noted that men who do read fiction are rare, and hot. (“It was one of the most erotic things I ever heard. A man I know said he was reading all the novels of Jane Austen in one summer.”) But, clearly, if men don’t read fiction, it’s not because they’re dumb, unimaginative, or unenlightened — it’s because what’s on offer isn’t all that attractive to them.
The industry essentially stopped publishing novels for men, a state of affairs that is boring, even for many women — which is why it was so refreshing to pick up Frank Kidd’s 2026 novel, Once Upon a Time in Argentina. In this masculine book written by a man, a group of seven American private military contractors are unleashed on illegal Chinese fishing operations off the coast of Argentina.
Yes, Kidd’s novel is self-published, and yes, it’s good.
What Happened to the American Cinematic Universe?
Yes, Blowing Shit Up Is How We Build ThingsDec 2
media attacks on anduril's 'failed' drone tests ignore america’s storied history of blowing up hardware to build the world’s best weapons (and win wars)
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The Great American Incel NovelDec 21
there's a new book out about incels — here's our review
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Drone Wars (We’re Losing) Jul 9
how the u.s. fell dangerously behind china on drones — and what that means for the future of warfare
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Did China Just Smoke Hollywood?Mar 12
there’s a new video generation champion in town, and it ain't american. here's why seedance is so weirdly good, and what it means for the future of the ai arms race.
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My Descent Into the Horny World of Aggressively Gay 'Sus Rap'May 2
a group of x-rated gay artists are returning rap to its politically incorrect roots — and amassing millions of (mostly straight) fans in the process
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