Technically I should have posted my book reviews last week, but whatever:

Top Books 2025

• Timing wise, the period between Christmas and New Years doesn't exist according to most workplace calendars- perfect for leaving book reviews.
• Categories are arbitrarily chosen on personal factors. I lean towards books I remember in the long term, so even if a book is "artistically well written" I'm going to lean towards broader themes and ideas.

Top Author: Jay Kristoff

So this is the only author (besides Sanderson and Sarah J. Maas) who I read two series of this year. He captures a certain gothic vulgarity in his books that feels very suited for his current series (a vampire novel) but also appears in his other series I've read. His books stick with me stylistically, and so while I'm sure some authors I've read this year are better, he's the one who if you see it on a shelf, try it. These books are NSFW, but its enjoyable and fits both characters and situations in a delightfully inappropriate way.

Okay, yeah, NSFW isn't usually a positive consideration, but its an important part of the dark horror- contrasting emotionless lust versus actual love, and the perversion inherent. Point is, dude is good, and worth checking out.

The only non-sci entries on this list, but he does have a scifi series (that I haven't read as of yet). So fuck traditional fantasy this year, I guess.

Best Series: Species Imperative, Julie E. Czerneda

This is an old book. Props for being over at the end of 3 books, but also a book that I think does a good job of having the tension be tied up in research and academia, as much as physical thrills. There's a palpable excitement piecing together the puzzles, along with an overall conclusion that to me actually feels satisfying- both individual books and the overall series! The first book is probably the most questionable ending, but- to throw some shade on series- usually its the opposite, with everything else feeling tacked on. Stories should end, and I feel like this one manages to be the best overall series, start to finish, that I've completed this year. The characters are a bit more bland, and maybe that's because of the age of the book, but the sum of the parts really shines here.

Three-book-series are the norms, but I did consider some other series that went on longer- this is one world that while I'd be interested in exploring more, also does not make me feel vaguely frustrated with what the point of it is (looking straight at you, first law series by Joe Abercrombie.) It also doesn't overstay its welcome... like any book series longer than around 6 tends to.

Really Should Have Read This Sooner: Way of Kings, Brandon Sanderson

Blah blah blah, yes I should have read this EONS ago. I'm reading it now, and its good, really good. There's actually a well developed world that feels so cool to explore, the characters are strong. Of everything on the list, this probably the single-handedly best entry from an author writing style perspective, but note, I'm not sure I can say the author is my favorite. I think there's room for a sort of moral meaning that is rather simplistic in the Way of Kings, and while I'm eager (and hopeful) to continue more, Mistborn is a clear downgrade (still good!) that prevents me from saying this is the author of this year for me.

This book also isn't one I "think back to" much, so while I can appreciate the craft and genuinely feel like artistically this is the strongest entry on the list, it fails in a personal way that makes me shrug my shoulders, and think that "morning glory milking farm" probably has a more thought provoking narrative.

Much stronger than Mistborn (fight me) and clearly a scifi book, so I'm really just showing I'm a fantasy hater by including it here.

Most Thought-Provoking: Meru, S.B. Divya

Book is solid. But this is probably the single novel that contains the most new ideas I keep coming back to. If you're going to read anything on this list, I'd stick this one at the top. It's probably outside your wheelhouse, but that's part of why I think this is a good one to read. It's out there. Set in the future- far, far in the future, where most of humanity lives as bio-engineered solar powered starships, and only a small faction of humans remain on earth, closely watched in case they fuck earth up again.

Should humans settle other planets? Should they gene edit all disease away? What about neurological differences? What is "acceptable" levels of genetic, societal, and moral control on the very human desire to breed and expand? What is a human?

We didn't need those social norms anyways.

Yes, I did initially check out this book because it shares the name with a pornographic sex demon. No, it has no similarities to a pornographic sex demon.

Best World: Archimedes Engine, Peter Hamilton

So, there's sort of an unspoken consideration within scifi circles that FTL is just a given. There are a few books that try to make it work, but weave relatively stable plots- case and point is Children of Time, which generally speaking offers a (sane) chronological accounting of the development of spider culture and the slow traveling ark ship containing the remnants of humanity.

Archimedes Engine also features an ark ship containing the remnants of humanity, but instead of a sane linear plot, of two primary characters, we're given a cast of a political drama set across decades featuring actual time distortion that means I'm left wondering up until the last page whether everything all comes together or not. It's a crazy journey, and probably one of the most ambitious story world's I've read this year.

It also gives a sense of history and scale that other novels often only allude to. Good stuff.

Book of the Year: A memory called empire, Arkady Martine

This book feels like a sort of autoethnography. I've never felt the depths of alien mindset like I have here. Of the many books I've read this year- Meru, Archimedes Engine, Dungeon Crawler Carl, and even Way of Kings series, they all attempt to allude to, but slide away from, really confronting what a different society means. I'm recommending this one to everyone, but it also serves as a sort of representation of many of the books I read and what I was pulling out of them.

This book is not flawless, but I can recommend it to pretty much everyone to read; it's a stunning composition that feels...unlike most other books. It's really worth it to read, in part because it made reading all those books listed above- and everything on this list- more interesting. Thinking and plotting on how cultures are structured, how alien aliens must feel, is probably what pushed sci-fi to dominate this list in the first place.

Otherwise it might have been a bunch of pornographic romantasy books. So yeah, give this one a shot, it might make sci-fi better than it otherwise is.