2025, A Year in Reading: Best Books of the Year
I read 183 books in 2025, a little less than last year but still in the same ballpark. Despite—or perhaps because—of this breadth of reading, I find that I'm struggling to sum up my year in books. 2025 was a good reading year, with lots of satisfying reads in a variety of genres. But it has not been a year that cohered around any of one of those genres, around a particular series, or around one or even a handful of books. The books that have lingered with me over the course of the year have been esoteric and even unique, especially when it comes to the fantastic genres. A lot of the books in the list below are what I'd consider science fiction or fantasy, but only one of them is a title I expect to see on awards lists in the coming months. The others are too weird, too experimental, and sometimes just published by the wrong people.
All of which is to say, to any of the editors who have queried me over the last month for essays or paragraphs about the state of the genre, or even the written word in general, in 2025, that I am not entirely certain what to say in response. Except, perhaps, that this seems to have been a year in which there were very few big, zeitgeisty books published by mainstream SFF publishers, and that I wish that the response to such a year would have been for readers to look further and embrace what's being written on the boundaries of the genre. For those of you who are interested in such explorations, I offer this list. I read some very good books in 2025, and I hope that you will enjoy my thoughts on them, and perhaps add them to your own stack of books to read in the coming year.
Best Books of the Year
Audition by Pip Adam (2023, US publication 2025)
Adam's weird, hard to describe novel begins aboard a spaceship, where three giants tell each other the story of their lives. Their narratives are circuitous and repetitive. They lob the same canned phrases at each other again and again, and relate the plots of old movies as if they had experienced them firsthand. By repeating these nonsensical stories over and over, the characters begin to work their way to the truth of what has happened to them, a truth rooted in abuse and mistreatment. As the narrative shifts from the spaceship, to a training camp, to a prison, and finally to an alien planet, it reveals a story that demands sympathy for those our society often deems irredeemable, and reminds us of how gleefully we sometimes abuse those who are most vulnerable and friendless. What's most remarkable about Audition is how it achieves all these things—its literary pyrotechnics, its trenchant social commentary, and its tale of space exploration—with a lightness that makes the whole thing a pleasure to work through, and which reinforces the benevolence of its conclusion. (review)
A Granite Silence by Nina Allan (2025)
Straddling the divide between fiction and non-fiction, genre and literary writing, Allan's latest is, nominally, a work of true crime, an examination of the 1934 murder of an eight-year-old girl in Aberdeen. The chapters that describe the murder, its aftermath, and the killer's trial are perfectly judged, avoiding sensationalism while still conveying the horror of the crime and the way that its effects reverberate throughout a community. But soon Allan begins expanding outward from the facts of the case, first fictionalizing the crime—imagining the early life of the killer, or telling the story of the investigation and trial from the perspective of a fictional local journalist—and then venturing further out into different genres. The forensic specialist whose evidence proves decisive recalls an encounter with the supernatural during his war service. A journalist finds herself stumbling into a completely different mystery. A figure out of Scottish folklore tells his own version of the crime. And a grown up version of the victim lives her life haunted by her killer. The result is a meditation on the disruptive force of murder, the utility (or lack thereof) of writing about it, and the way that fiction changes the world. (review)
Nicked by M.T. Anderson (2024)
In his first novel for adults, Anderson preserves both the sharp storytelling instincts, and the deep emotion, that have made him such a well-regarded children's author. A fictionalization of the eleventh century theft of the remains (or perhaps "remains") of Saint Nicholas, the novel follows a well-meaning, naïve monk and the amoral treasure hunter he employs to carry out the theft. As the two make their way across the Mediterranean, they trade barbs and life philosophies, get each other into jams and out of them, and debate whether the remains of the saint, and the miraculous powers attributed to them, are even real (and whether this matters). Told in a wry tone reminiscent of Megan Whalen Turner's Queen's Thief novels, the book effortlessly carries the reader along a twisty plot full of rich historical detail, nonstop double- and triple-crosses, and a surprising, deeply compelling romance.
Burning Chrome by William Gibson (1986)
It feels a bit perverse to single out this collection by Gibson, a writer best known for novels, not short stories. Nevertheless, Burning Chrome is one of the perfect short story collections of the twentieth century, and I am slightly ashamed that it has taken me this long to discover it. From the effortlessly cool, endlessly quotable "Johnny Mnemonic", to the manifesto-like "The Gernsback Continuum", to the surprisingly effective space story "Hinterlands", every story here is finely-turned and impactful, and many of them condense the ideas that would underpin the rest of Gibson's career into a few dozen pages. 2025 was a year in which I was reminded (thanks to the excellent podcast Shelved by Genre) of what a fantastic, prescient writer Gibson was. Burning Chrome is a powerful showcase of his abilities, and a great place to start for anyone who wants to get an idea of what he's about.
Stainless by Todd Grimson (1996, reissued 2025)
Part LA noir, part vampire tale, Stainless was first published in the 90s and then forgotten about. It was reissued by McNally Editions this year, and more than deserves to find a new audience. A washed up musician finds purpose, and perhaps even love, as the familiar of a despondent vampire who believes the world holds no more surprises for her. As the two negotiate their relationship—from scouting for victims in clubs to going on a double date—another vampire emerges in the city, quickly surrounding himself with victims-slash-cultists. The time hopping narrative takes us to Old Hollywood and the seedy seventies before depositing us back in 90s LA, where the last fumes of this sometimes-glamorous, sometimes-depraved past are burning themselves out—but not before leaving their mark on the novel's heroes. Scary, seductive, gross, and romantic, Stainless is a vampire novel like no other. It should not be forgotten again.
Luminous by Silvia Park (2025)
Recalling the classics of cyberpunk as well as novels like Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Park's debut takes place in a future, unified Korea in which the line dividing human from machine is both arbitrary and harshly enforced. Jun, a detective who investigates robot crimes, is more than half cyborg himself, and still shattered by the loss of his robot brother, the prototype for generations of artificial children and companions. His sister Morgan designs these robots, taking a coolly clinical attitude to her creations even as she crafts herself a boyfriend, whom she expects to be both independent and subservient. And in a junkyard where children explore and play, a child-like robot with impossible abilities is discovered by a girl dying of a degenerative disease. Chock full of thought-provoking ideas and stunning worldbuilding details, Luminous takes a familiar trope—the uncertain role and future of artificial life in a world where humans are themselves barely hanging on—and does something rich and deeply moving with it. (review)
The West Passage by Jared Pechaček (2024)
With more than a little of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast in its DNA, Pechaček's delightful phantasmagoria of a novel takes us on a guided tour of a castle that is also a world. Ruled by ironclad tradition, and by the Ladies—creatures who are half-alien and half-monster—the castle has functioned, in its own irrational way, for centuries. But now the order is breaking down, and as two young people set out to repair it, Pechaček lets loose the wildest flights of his imagination. A kitchen where every day lavish feasts are prepared, then discarded because the nobles who might have eaten them have been gone for years. An apiary where honey is excreted by large, camel-like animals. A room-sized calendar with a prisoner at its center who can change the weather at the behest of her jailers. Even as our heroes reiterate that the system they've dedicated themselves to is both logical and worth preserving, their actions begin having unexpected, delightful effects, building up to a crescendo that will remake their world. A magnificent debut fantasy (which rightly won the Crawford award earlier this year), The West Passage is like nothing else I've read in years.
Big Time by Jordan Prosser (2024, US publication 2025)
Crossing a drug novel, a musical biopic, a time travel story, and 1984, Prosser's debut is utterly original and utterly unique. In an alternate Australia ruled by a fascistic, white supremacist regime, life as a musician is still possible, so long as you produce cheerful bubblegum pop and don't challenge the regime. Our hero plans to do just this, but exposure to the drug F, which causes its users to experience visions of the future, sends him on a completely different path. Questions of both a political and philosophical nature immediately arise. Are F visions inevitable, or can they be avoided? If the fall of fascism is experienced in a vision, does that mean it must happen? Can art defeat totalitarianism? And what is the responsibility of the artist in times of repression? Prosser's approach to these questions is deliberately irreverent, lathering his narrative with raucous humor and gonzo inventiveness, and refusing to take seriously either the self-importance of the characters who decide to fight the regime, or the self-justifications of those who go along with it. But underpinning all this good fun is an awareness of the horror of the situation he's created, and the impossibility of living well within it. (review)
Sympathy Tower Tokyo by Rie Qudan, translated by Jesse Kirkwood (2024, English translation 2025)
In this tricky, remarkably assured novel, an architect is charged with designing the titular tower, a beautiful, peaceful place where criminals—who have been reclassed as victims of society—can experience the happiness they were denied in their lives outside. Criminal reform, however, is not actually the topic of Qudan's novel; language is. Can you change what a thing is by changing the language you use to describe it? Can you make people more sympathetic and inclusive by using sympathetic and inclusive terms? As various characters in the novel discuss and regard the tower, sometimes with the help of AI text generators, they contemplate a world in which language has been detached from meaning. In which words are mere signifiers, the use of which obviates the need for true understanding—for a meaningful engagement with the causes of crime, the experience of victims, and the difficult process of rehabilitation. The result is a canny reversal of the story of the Tower of Babel, in which the standardization of language, not its proliferation, is what causes separation between people. The tower, we eventually realize, is just another type of prison.
North Sun: Or, The Voyage of the Whaleship Esther by Ethan Rutherford (2025)
A delightful cross between Moby Dick, Heart of Darkness, and The Terror, Rutherford's novel follows the course of a single whaling voyage. It is the late nineteenth century, and a down on his luck captain has been offered one last chance at leading an expedition, if he agrees to travel to the North Pole to retrieve his financer's son-in-law, who abandoned his own voyage and cargo. Or, failing that, the totem he stole, a talisman that grants influence and power even in the face of dwindling whale populations. The novel alternates between thrilling, minutely-described scenes of sea voyaging and whale hunts, and a profound sense of the uncanny. The captain's calm professionalism is mask concealing a roiling sense of inadequacy and failed ambitions. Whole populations of sea creatures are slaughtered, less for the money they will bring in as out of a desire to assert mastery over every part of the world. Two cabin boys, abused by the older sailors, find a protector in a creature who is part man, part sea bird, who reveals to them that nature is about to take its revenge on the ship—and perhaps on all of humanity. At once a throwback to nineteenth century adventure novels and a quintessentially modern deconstruction of them, North Sun is an experience like no other.
The Incandescent by Emily Tesh (2025)
Turning the magical school story on its head, Tesh's follow-up to the Hugo-winning Some Desperate Glory places its focus not on the students but on the teacher, an overworked, overqualified deputy head at a prestigious magical private school. Juggling, on the one hand, demons who threaten to devour her students, and on the other hand, an interfering board of directors and groaning heating system, Saffy Walden is content with her life and position—until a youthful misadventure returns to haunt her and threaten her students. It's an upheaval that forces Saffy to reexamine her life and choices, and to take a longer look at the system she's dedicated her life to—a system in which studying magic is valuable less for itself as for being a marker of class and privilege, and where the real danger might not be demons, but capitalism. Dark Academia is taking over more and more of the fantasy genre, and yet there are vanishingly few novels that manage, as The Incandescent does, to engage with what makes this subgenre relevant and interesting. (review)
The Book of Records by Madeleine Thien (2025)
Fleeing government persecution in China, a young girl and her father arrive at The Sea, a floating structure that seems to exist outside of reality. There they encounter three figures from history who also experienced dispossession and refugeeism: chronicler of totalitarianism Hannah Arendt, religious iconoclast Baruch Spinoza, and poet Du Fu. As the three neighbors tell their life stories, relating their escapes from war and persecution, past and present begin to interpenetrate, and the universality of their very different experiences grows more obvious. A deeply moving meditation on the refugee experience throughout history (as well as in the present day, as the story of the novel's main characters reveals), The Book of Records returns, again and again, to the power of individuals to reach out to those in need, and help them to find safety and a new home. (review)
Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood (2024)
Gentle and sparely told, Wood's Booker-nominated novel is the story of a lay nun in a small, faltering convent in rural Australia. A former environmental activist, the narrator retreated to the convent partly out of spiritual need, and partly out of despair at the futility of her work. Her tenuous serenity is interrupted by two arrivals at the convent: the remains of a murdered sister, and a world-famous activist nun whom the narrator knew as a troubled, abused schoolfellow. This convergence raises questions about what it means to live a good, worthy life. Is it the job of nuns to agitate for justice and help the needy, or do they serve god through dedicating themselves to prayer and worship? Is the renunciation of worldly connections godly, or selfish? And can you let go of the pain and guilt of your past by dedicating yourself to something greater than you? Wood has no answers, obviously, but she draws a fine, affecting portrait of a community, and individuals, who will spend their lives struggling with these dilemmas. (review)
Honorable Mentions
Meet Me at the Crossroads by Megan Giddings (2025) - In her third novel, Giddings continues to blend social realism and surreal fantasy. Two sisters walk through a door to another world; only one returns. In a world where the incredible is commonplace and where the rules of reality are often hard to parse, the survivor must find a way to come to terms with the presence of the numinous in her life, and the finality of loss. (review)
The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson (2025) - Narrated by a flock of supercilious ravens, this meaty, satisfying secondary world fantasy sees a socially excluded, not entirely sympathetic egghead heroine drafted into a contest to the death for the throne, along the way exposing a conspiracy and solving a murder.
Here by Richard Maguire (2014) - Robert Zemeckis's film adaptation of this graphic novel was universally derided, but it did reveal to me that "Here", a six-page comic that I've been seeing online for years, had been expanded into a book-length work in 2014. Like the shorter comic, this book is a moving, visually inventive meditation on the smallness of our most profound and most mundane experiences in the face of the grand sweep of time.
Dengue Boy by Michel Nieva, translated by Rahul Bery (2023, English translation 2025) - A raucous and rude insect odyssey set in a drowned, hot, disease-ridden future world, this short, inimitable novel follows its title character, a part-human, part-mosquito child, as they discover their identity and purpose in a world that seems designed for plagues, not people. (review)
Aerth by Deborah Tomkins (2025) - On an alternate Earth that is both emptier and gentler than ours, a young man, raised to believe that his purpose is to contribute to his community, instead follows his dreams of exploring space. Arriving on a world that is more like ours—more selfish and driven by money—he tries to teach them his ways, but proves an imperfect teacher. Riffing on The Dispossessed and Stranger in a Strange Land, this quiet novella is a mediation on how our home shapes us, and how we can nevertheless leave it behind. (review)
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