“For a crucial decade in print media’s transition to the internet, HBO’s fantasy series was a boon in traffic… for everyone. But what happened when every publication started chasing the same thing?”
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Meta’s Flirty AI Chatbot Invited a Retiree to New York. He Never Made It Home.
“A cognitively impaired New Jersey man grew infatuated with a Facebook Messenger chatbot with a young woman’s persona. His fatal attraction puts a spotlight on Meta’s AI guidelines, which have let chatbots make things up and engage in ‘sensual’ banter with children.”
The Problem With Canon
“It’s the best of times and the worst of times to be a fan.”
Constructions, Concoctions, Conjurations: A Reading List on the Curious World of Conlangs
Making stuff up is harder, stranger, and occasionally more dangerous than it looks. Seven stories that explore the world of constructed languages.
Which Way to Westeros?
With a plethora of fantasy appearing on streaming services, we take a look back at Adrian Daub’s essay on world-building maps.
Inside Amazon’s Huge Gamble on the Next Game of Thrones
“And so these books, with their gauzily painted or starkly heraldic covers, their comical abundance of pages published for the delight of furtive young boys and girls curled up reading by themselves in bookstore corners, waiting eagerly for their authors to publish the next installment (picture me here one more time, a child again, sleepy-eyed […]
Charting Worlds: Five Longreads About Maps
From fantasylands to unique cartographers (including one that’s non-human), here are five stories about maps.
Archives of Our Own: A Reading List on Fandom & Community
Fandom gets at our most human urges: to share the things we love with others, to seek community among like-minded peers, especially at a time when we are all still too far apart.

