Since 2010, Unwinnable has been a showcase for weird, experimental, poignant, funny and iconoclastic stories. We're devoted to examining the intersection of the culture we love and the lives we lead. Unwinnable wants to bring you the best in pop-culture criticism, creative non-fiction, and the occasional serialized fiction once a week in a beautiful digital magazine. Unwinnable is life with culture. In this issue, Nathaniel Wattenmaker grows up (a little bit) and kicks his competitive gaming habit and Brian Bannen discovers how Joel Schumacher’s abysmal Batman movies actually saved the franchise. Andrew Smith teaches his class about videogame literacy, with surprising results. Finally, in our cover story, Jeremy Signor investigates the parallels between his anxiety and certain games like Silent Hill and Lone Survivor. That last one features photography from Stu Horvath and longtime Unwinnable contributor Brian Taylor. Hope you dig it. No matter what your taste, Unwinnable Weekly has you covered, so make sure to check out our selection of back issues today!

Deep beneath Gotham City lies the Court of Owls' deadliest trap--and Batman has fallen right into it! Can he escape, or will he perish in a maze of nightmare? Enter the labyrinth, Batman--if you dare!

Eight years after 9/11 and in the shadow of two protracted U.S. military campaigns in the Middle East, the enemy is not only undefeated but emboldened and resurgent. What went wrong_and what should we do going forward? Winning the Unwinnable War shows how our own policy ideas led to 9/11 and then crippled our response in the Middle East, and it makes the case for an unsettling conclusion: By subordinating military victory to perverse, allegedly moral constraints, Washington's policy has undermined our national security. Owing to the significant influence of Just War Theory and neoconservatism, the Bush administration consciously put the imperative of shielding civilians and bringing them elections above the goal of eliminating real threats to our security. Consequently, this policy left our enemies stronger, and America weaker, than before. The dominant alternative to Bush-esque idealism in foreign policy_so-called realism_has made a strong comeback under the tenure of Barack Obama. But this nonjudgmental, supposedly practical approach is precisely what helped unleash the enemy prior to 9/11. The message of the essays in this thematic collection is that only by radically re-thinking our foreign policy in the Middle East can we achieve victory over the enemy that attacked us on 9/11. We need a new moral foundation for our Mideast policy. That new starting point for U.S. policy is the moral ideal championed by the philosopher Ayn Rand: rational self-interest. Implementing this approach entails objectively defining our national interest as protecting the lives and freedoms of Americans_and then taking principled action to safeguard them. The book lays out the necessary steps for achieving victory and for securing America's long-range interests in the volatile Middle East.

Afghanistan was an unwinnable war. As British and American troops withdraw, discover this definitive account that explains why. It could have been a very different story. British forces could have successfully withdrawn from Afghanistan in 2002, having done the job they set out to do: to defeat al-Qaeda. Instead, in the years that followed, Britain paid a devastating price for their presence in Helmand province. So why did Britain enter, and remain, in an ill-fated war? Why did it fail so dramatically, and was this expedition doomed from the beginning? Drawing on unprecedented access to military reports, government documents and senior individuals, Professor Theo Farrell provides an extraordinary work of scholarship. He explains the origins of the war, details the campaigns over the subsequent years, and examines the West's failure to understand the dynamics of local conflict and learn the lessons of history that ultimately led to devastating costs and repercussions still relevant today. 'The best book so far on Britain's...war in Afghanistan' International Affairs 'Masterful, irrefutable... Farrell records all these military encounters with the irresistible pace of a novelist' Sunday Times

With great sacrifice, the Arabakia Kingdom Expeditionary Force succeeded in retaking Alterna, but Haruhiro finds himself crushed under the weight of what he's lost. The ambitious General Jin Mogis of the Expeditionary Force, the survivors of the Volunteer Soldier Corps, and the mysterious residents of the Forbidden Tower. In the middle of these different factions, each with their own goals, Haruhiro's party has one of their own members taken hostage, and are forced to go on a dangerous mission. Incredibly, their goal is... an alliance with the goblins?! As the team struggles, unable to find a way out, the man who once shared their joys and sorrows, but was forced to go down a different path, reappears! Now that Haruhiro and his party have lost their memory once more, the bonds they formed in Grimgar will become their strength.