My Year in Reading 2025

EricMesa

- 3 minutes read - 568 words

When 2025 started, I had 2 goals - to get caught up with the October Daye series and to read my Science Fiction and Fantasy magazines more regularly. I was able to finish October Daye, but things fell off a give on the magazine front. I read many, many more October Daye short stories than are listed here. Many of them were not on Goodreads, so I couldn’t track them. As I got to the second half of the year, my reading fell off as I spent a lot of my free time planning for various TTRPG campaigns that I was running. I did just about finish my re-read of my Discworld books. I just have Snuff and Unseen Academicals left, but I wasn’t a huge fan of them so I don’t think I’ll read those.

At this point I don’t think there’s any particular October Daye book that I can name as my favorite, but I did like the series as a whole. It seems to be coming to a close pretty soon based on what’s happening plot-wise, but I could also see how Seanan McGuire could keep things going a bit longer. After the first two books, I was surprised that I really didn’t enjoy Onyx Storm. I felt like the plot really fell flat. It might just be because it is in the middle of the overall series, but I was quite disappointed. Surprising myself, I think I would name Mickey7 my book of the year for 2025. It was darkly humorous in a way that I could really appreciate and that I really needed in 2025. I think the movie was complete garbage, but the book was great.

For 2026 I’m not quite sure what to predict. I don’t see my TTRPG campaign prep lessening, but I would like to read more of my books. We’ll have to see what twists and turns the new year brings.

A few Goodreads stats:

  • Most popular book: Onyx Storm
  • Least popular: Zobeck the Clockwork City Collector’s Edition
  • Average rating: 3.6

I might be leaving Goodreads for Storygraph in 2026. I’m not sure and might use both for the year to see which works best for me.

Started year with following books in progress

  • Thud!
  • Little Town of Deathlehem
  • The Mercy of Gods
  • Lightspeed Issue 116
  • Midgard Worldbook
  • A City on Mars
  • The Rust programming language
  • Command-line Rust
  • Owls to Athens

Books I finished in 2025

Most of these reviews can be found on this blog.

  1. Lightspeed 116
  2. Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear
  3. In Sea-Salt Tears
  4. Ashes of Honor
  5. Chimes at Midnight
  6. Forbid the Sea
  7. Never Shines the Sun
  8. Dungeon Master’s Guide (2024)
  9. The Winter Long
  10. The Fixed Stars
  11. No Sooner Met
  12. A Red-Rose Chain
  13. Heaps of Pearl
  14. Full of Briars
  15. Onyx Storm
  16. Clarkesworld Magazine 145
  17. Once Broken Faith
  18. Lightspeed Magazine 117
  19. Cook’s Illustrated 2021
  20. The Brightest Fell
  21. Of Things Unknown
  22. Thud!
  23. Night and Silence
  24. Suffer a Sea-Change
  25. Cold Iron Task
  26. Mickey7
  27. The Unkindest Tide
  28. A Killing Frost
  29. I’d Rather We Got Casinos: And Other Black Thoughts
  30. When Sorrows Come
  31. Critical Role: Vox Machina Origins: Series I and II Collection
  32. Be the Serpent
  33. Sleep No More
  34. The Innocent Sleep
  35. A City on Mars
  36. Think Julia
  37. Antimatter Blues
  38. Isles of the Emberdark
  39. Brown Sugar Kitchen
  40. Stormlight World Guide
  41. The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
  42. Termination Shock
  43. Silver and Lead
  44. Zobeck the Clockwork City Collector’s Edition
  45. Making Money