Top/
Favorite reads of 2025
So this
was an interesting reading year for me. I normally hit my reading goals with
weeks to go but not this year. I finished reading all 123 Philip K. Dick short
stories for Dickapedia. This slowed me down because there were 80,000 words of
entries I wrote about them. That slowed me down. I also read many anthologies,
which I typically don’t list in my best of list. That includes Eco 24, End of
the World as we Know It. I read all four of the Anthologies I had stories in, including
Dread Coast, edited by Dennis Crosby and KC Grifant, Stories from the Motel Sick,
edited by Michael Allen Rose, and Space Horrors edited by E.S. Magill.
If you
want to hear me talk about all these books, I recorded a 3-hour podcast on the
topic with my homey Marc Rothenberg our 4th annual. Links below…
Video of Top Reads 2025 podcast
Audio of top 2025 reads podcast
Non-fiction
reads
Worlds
Built to Fall Apart Versions of Philip K. Dick by David Lapoujade
I think
this is a must-read for serious Dickheads and for non-Dick SF scholars to
understand why we dig the guy so much, and I certainly will be quoting this in
articles and podcasts for years to come.
Strangelove
Country by D. Harlan Wilson
This is a
special book, a one-of-a-kind look at one of the greatest filmmakers. Kubrick
is a director who is so important that you cannot teach the history of cinema
without talking about his films. DHW gives him the proper context, and explains
just why he is so important, not just to film history but all Science Fiction
that comes after his work.
FADE IN:
The Making of Star Trek Insurrection - A Textbook on Screenwriting from Within
the Star Trek Universe by Michael Piller
Plenty of great
books about GREAT movies. This is a great book about a just ok to kinda forgettable
movie. This is must read for aspiring screenwriters. The problem Paramont and
the ST powers that be didn’t want it published. So Piller’s widow made it
available in PDF.
The next two
were research for the sequel to The Last Night to Kill Nazis…
Nazi
Paris: The History of an Occupation, 1940-1944 by Allen Mitchell
Operatives,
Spies, and Saboteurs: The Unknown Story of the Men and Women of World War II's
OSS by Patrick K. O'Donnell
Best Retro
Reads of 2025
The
Martian Trilogy: John P. Moore, Amazing Stories, Black Science Fiction, and The
Illustrated Feature Section by John P. Moore
This might
be the most important release of the year, and it is a bit of a mismatch for a
new release to be listed as Retro. This story might as well have been the ark
of the covenant lost deep in a warehouse when it was uncovered. This is more of
a book review than a novella review at its core. Written in 1930, and taking place on September
8th, 2030, John P. Moore’s story was serialized in black newspapers in the
1930s.
The book
has contributions by the researchers who recovered the work, and plenty of
stars in black genre fiction. There are excellent essays by Brooks E. Hefner,
the author of Black Pulps, Edward Austin Hall, Co-editor of Mothership;
Sharee Renee Thomas, editor of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction; and
Hoosier author Maurice Broddus. Each of these is worth the whole book.
It is
about the history, the culture, and the knowledge of this forgotten tale. It is
about the academics who found it, who brought it back to life, and what it says
about the research still to be done, recovering lost science fiction. The bios,
articles, and essays are probably half or more of the book, and they are worth
the cost and time invested. This is as important a work released this year in
science fiction as it gets.
Sneak Preview by Robert Bloch
Wrote an
entire column in Amazing Stories so here is the link…
My Aamzing Stories piece on Sneak Preview
Dr.
Bloodmoney / Time out of Joint by Philip K. Dick
Both of
these novels were re-reads. Time out of Joint was for a discussion we were
having on the live Tuesday zoom hangouts about PKD and the meaning of words. It
also hammered home the point for me that PKD novels need multiple reads. Dr.
Bloodmoney I read in pretty much a single sitting, and I wrote about in a
Amazing Stories column here:
My Amazing Stories piece on my Bay Area trip/ Dr. Bloodmoney
The Iron Heel by Jack London
Written in
1908, There is a narrative set during this era, but excellent moments of
super-text footnotes that are the most Science Fictional parts as the idea is
that these footnotes were written centuries in the future by a historian.
The edition I read also has an introduction by Leon Trotsky who read the book
and wrote the introduction after Stalin exiled him and he found his way to
France. That is not messing around on the introduction.
The
Iron Heel is an
intensely radical work of Science Fiction, not just for 1908, it would be
considered radical even if it was written today. It is hard to dispassionately
rate the SF qualities without addressing the politics. In the process of
working on another project, I accidentally discovered a review of The Iron
Heel by Damon Knight from 1958. He described it as having exuberant and
clumsy conviction. The novel was half a century old already at that point. It
was strange to read.
Selected
Satires of Lucian
The
satires of Lucian, who lived on the outskirts of the Roman Empire around 150
AD. The Lucian gets weird, and of course, I love all this stuff. The idea
that this island on the farthest border of the known world, becomes home to a
war between Moonmen, Sun creatures, and Greek gods. Yeah, super bizarro.
This island is in a spot of the world we understand because we have globes and
maps of the whole planet. In the context of when this was written, it might as
well be set on another planet.
Counting
down my top reads…
Honorable
mentions (all fantastic novels you should read!)_
Where the
Axe is Buried By Ray Nayler, Astra Black #2: Breath of Oblivion by Maurice Broddus,
The Silver Revolver by John Shirley,
Vanishing Daughters by Cynthia Peleyo
Number 10…
10 Master
of Starlight by DW Arden
What is
amazing about this book is that, despite Oliver traveling around the globe, the
novel feels as rooted in the stars above (or below, that distinction is
meaningless in space). It is what seems a simple tale, Oliver has a rival in
science who he feels prevented a relationship with fellow Astronomer Vera, but
a stargazing trip into the wilderness might change everything.
There are
plenty of darkly comical moments. But the power of lyrical prose came about as
close as short novella could to describing the wonder of the night sky.
9 Awry by duncan
b barlow…
This
collection of short stories came out in a year when I was reading a lot of
short stories. My favorite stories in this book are Of Flesh and Fur, The
Fine Set of Teeth, and The Father’s Work. All three are contenders for the
best I read this year. There is no writer I compare Duncan to instantly, but
those looking for slightly off-beat stories look no further. His novels are
equally hard to pin down. You could accuse me of bias, but if I didn’t like it
I would be silent. I love this work and think he reflects the writer I know.
That is a great thing about writers from outcast tribes. The stories are in any
way punk rock, but that outsider vibe drips off the pages. Awry is a
powerful work.
8 Fiend by
Alma Katsu
Succession
was pretty great on its own, so it didn’t exactly NEED a supernatural version,
but I tell you what, it is this version is a very fun read. Alma Katsu is a
great writer who is fully capable of very important works of horror; her
historical horror is all-caps ART, but this one I consider popcorn
entertainment in every possible way. That is not to say that it does work on
deeper levels, it has plenty to say about greed and capitalism. I suspect from
peeping at the reviews that most readers are not looking deeper. In interviewed Alma about this novel…
my interview with Alma about this book!
7 Angel
Down by Daniel Kraus
A single-sentence
novel. Cool experiment, but it wouldn’t work if it wasn’t a good story. It is. As
the novel gets going, Bagger and his squad have to rescue a friend across the
battlefield. There, they make a shocking discovery in the middle of the
field.
As the title
implies, it is a spiritual being, and the introduction of the character is
emotionally powerful, as I was hoping. What this sign means is different
for everyone involved, and the source of the tension Kraus builds throughout
the rest of the novel.
6 New
Tomorrow by Cody Goodfellow
Cody’s
doorstop epic is a Watchmen-like weird fiction superhero story set in an
alternate America where teleportation is invented before the Great Depression. The
alchemy of this one-in-a-million novel. A knowledge of history, both real and
pulp fictional, literary talent, and a weird imagination capable of supporting
a marriage of all these elements into a blended family. Who else could come up
with a hero like Kid Amoeba?
It
highlights the vibe, the historical feeling you get reading the novel. New
Tomorrow is punching above its weight class on almost every page. It is an
epic worthy of the word, that is as strange as it is ambitious. An unbelievable
triumph.
5 All that
We see or Seem by Ken Liu
So in the
case of this novel, The hero Julia Z is hired by a lawyer named Piers to find
her client Elli, a famous influencer and dream artist. Elli uses technological
interfaces to weave dreams that she shares with an audience. The missing
character is interesting because her career and personal are a huge part
despite her absence. It is an aspect of the modern technology that Elli lives
on as content, a very 21st-century style of ghost.
The novel
is about technology that feels around the corner. I can see that over many
books, Liu will be able to use Julia Z to ride the technological waves and
comment on it all. This time it is Dream
weavers, Vivid dreaming, Fusion vision glasses, Neuromesh, and as things chance
I suspect we will get new stories that reflect that. The novel is filled with asides that comment
on modern technology.
Some of
Ken Liu’s readers were bummed by the near-future thriller. This novel is in
conversation with the themes of Mercerism in Do Androids Dream of Electric
Sheep, so of course it worked for me. It is a good and thoughtful thriller.
It is in conversation with PKD’s classic
and that is why it is a must-read for Dickheads, but anyone nervous about AI.
4 Your
Utopia by Bora Chung
This is a
fantastic story collection. Several of the stories are from a technological
point of view. A Song for Sleep is a powerful little tale about a smart
elevator that is watching a resident and ask, “-Is a “disease' similar to a
'malfunction”? The all-knowing nest firms. Next line in a general sense, yes.”
Surveillance
is a major theme here. This story of a smart elevator trying to determine
if one of the residents in the building is sick. Maybe Cursed Bunny is
more impressive, but this is my FIRST Bora Chung and it won’t be the last. I
would love t interview her, she went to grad school in my hometown, and she is
a hell of an author. Also note she went
to Indiana University for bit. Go Hooisers!
3 Red Star
Hustle by Sam J. Miller
This is a
far-future crime noir based on the real-life murder and scandal connected to
the Italian director of 120 Days of Sodom, Pier Paolo Pasolini. He was murdered
in 1975, and there are lots of strange connections to politics, sex workers,
and lots of other interesting elements. Great history to make the basis for a
crime sci-fi noir novel. It is weird to say that novel in part about addiction
and political murder is fun, but it is. There are mech battles, political
intrigue, a SF love story, and great world-building.
2 Model
Home by Rivers Solomon
The set-up
for a political haunted house novel is so well done by the neighborhood who
reject the black family, and the parents who insist on staying to prove a
point. (Every haunted house novel has to have a reason the people don’t just
leave). The excellently written and realized characters are the last pieces
that complete the puzzle. In the guise
of a haunted house novel, Solomon makes statements on child abuse, identity
politics, and normalized white supremacy.
“Even when
you fight with everything you have to escape the house, it doesn't matter. It
doesn't matter, because outside the house, is just as bad as inside the house.”
I like the idea that the haunting is as much
the parents and their effect on the kids as it was actual ghosts. If you think
about it, the actions of parents are the kinda thing that can haunt a person,
and there is no supernatural anything that has to be involved. I was lucky
enough to have good parents but I have known many people who have been
basically haunted their entire lives by the actions of one or both parents.
That trauma is the haunt in this haunted house. Impressive metaphor and an
excellent way to do something new with the genre horror.
Model Home
has several disturbing moments, including one of the most painfully raw sex
scenes I have read in a book. There are
moments with characters of humor and joy that help to create the “Care” in
Scare. No idea if horror is a genre Solomon intends to keep working in, but
this novel is a masterwork.
And the
best freaking new release novel I read in 2025…
Luminous by
Silvia Park
Luminous
is a novel set in a unified future Korea where robots are fully integrated into
this society. It is a family story, and Park does a fantastic job introducing
the unit at the center of this tale. Jun and Morgan are siblings who have not
spoken in far too long. Morgan has fallen into the family business; their
father designed robots, and now she does. Growing up, they had early robots in
their family, in Yoyo, whom they loved but disappeared.
Morgan’s
story opens when a child-like robot in her building goes missing. When the
Robot-crimes unit comes out to investigate her brother, Jun shows up. It is not
just that Jun was Morgan’s sister when they last saw each other; Jun nearly
died in the war and was transhuman as much as gender.
Luminous
is a deeply thoughtful science fiction novel, with grounded and fully realized
characters. The setting is powerful, the themes are rich with emotional depth. After really thinking it through...it is the best new release I read this year by a lot.
