Last post of the year! We present ARB's Notable Criticism of 2025—ten articles that highlight the vitality and possibilities of speculative criticism:

It's a tradition in these parts, and I stick to it despite all adversity, apathy, alacrity or indeed ability: naming my personal top five albums of the last year, the Hartland Half-Ten. Here's 2025's edition, with bonus meditation on the "pop music is dead" meme (spoiler warning: probably isn't).

My 2025 reading roundup is now up! Come for the stats and graphs, stay for the silly awards (or possibly vice versa).

There are 5.5 hours left in 2025, but nevertheless I'm going to take the chance that my year's reading is concluded. Here are my best reads of 2025, an idiosyncratic bunch of choices in a year that did not seem to have many big, zeitgeisty books. wrongquestions.blogspot.com/2025/12/2025...

I am not sure how I managed to omit When There Are Wolves Again from the books picture...

Reading, listening, watching and doing in 2025. Onwards.

Andrea Hairston celebrates the work that gave her pleasure in 2025. "Storytellers saved my life every day this year! Imagination sustained us all as we cruised on this death-defying rollercoaster ride, hurtling into 2026." aqueductpress.blogspot.com/2025/12/the-...

The Wolf and His King by Finn Longman: Review by Liz Bourke locusmag.com/review/...

the 30th December is a very betwixt and between date. Enliven it with a discussion of The Female Man, with four passionate enthusiasts for Joanna Russ's strange little book. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1697987549... Link goes out on the day.

#SFinTranslation in 2025 by the numbers: www.sfintranslation.com?p=15931 In other words...SFT stats!!!🤤

This is a fine discussion, and next year it should be a round table with more reviews editors

Orlanda by Jacqueline Harpman: Review by Abigail Nussbaum locusmag.com/review/...

Lesley Hall writes about books she's enjoyed this year. Particular standouts are two lengthy romans fleuve--the famous Dance to the Music of Time series by Anthony Powell, and the more obscure Lanny Budd series by Upton Sinclair. aqueductpress.blogspot.com/2025/12/the-...

Gwynne Garfinkle's favorite reads of 2025 ranges from the second-wave feminism classic Bear by Marian Engel to John Wiswell's Wearing the Lion, from Nisi Shawl's The Day and Night Books of Mardou Fox to Charlie Jane Anders' Lessons in Magic and Disaster. aqueductpress.blogspot.com/2025/12/the-...

I could swear that I contributed to a discussion about these back in the Torque Control days, but I haven't been able to track anything down. I did find @abigailnussbaum.bsky.social linking to a bunch of review discussions in 2008: wrongquestions.blogspot.com/2008/03/revi...

Paul Kincaid on John Updike's rules for reviewing: ttdlabyrinth.wordpress.com/2025/12/24/r...

Thanks to LitHub Magazine for hosting this roundtable conversation in support of our new book, Climate Imagination: Dispatches from Hopeful Futures. Read more at: lithub.com/on-the-urgen...

The Coode Street Advent Calendar 2025 - Day 21 Today Gary and Jonathan talk to Francis Spufford about what he's been reading, what he'd recommend, and his new novel, Nonesuch. www.podbean.com/eas/pb-2c8t3...

Two reviews drafted today, and it was one of those exciting days where I learned through writing that I don't think quite what I thought I thought about either book.

In an essay for Aqueduct's 2025 Pleasures series, Nancy Jane Moore recounts her experimentation with a new reading practice as well as her reading for LitHub's 100 Notable Small Press books list. aqueductpress.blogspot.com/2025/12/the-...

I've been following the "annual pleasures" roundups on the Aqueduct Press blog since they started, almost twenty years ago now (!!!), so it was a treat to be asked to contribute an entry this year: aqueductpress.blogspot.com/2025/12/the-...

Niall Harrison discusses a selection of a couple dozen titles from his wide-ranging reading this year, ranging from Madeleine Thien to Eva Meijer to Jacek Dukaj. aqueductpress.blogspot.com/2025/12/the-...

I'm reading a book that I want to describe as "gentle". Is that the same thing (in book-categorisation parlance) as "cosy"? Why, or why not?

I've been following the "annual pleasures" roundups on the Aqueduct Press blog since they started, almost twenty years ago now (!!!), so it was a treat to be asked to contribute an entry this year: aqueductpress.blogspot.com/2025/12/the-...

Read Nisi's Shawl's "Where and When the Livin is Easy," their love letter to Gershwin's Porgy and Bess. aqueductpress.blogspot.com/2025/12/the-...

Interesting thread/discussion

The picks in here would make for a pretty interesting Clarke shortlist

Looks like quite a few genre and genre-adjacent contenders in next years Tournament of Books www.tournamentofbooks.com/the-2026-sho...

Check out @niallharrison’s review of BETWEEN WORLDS edited by Gautam Bhatia, which includes: “stories touching on issues around labour, social development, and personal autonomy.”

What Sarah Tolmie's been reading. "Conrad. Weird, eh? Why read Conrad in this day and age? Inexcusable old white guy? Well, it’s because, in my mind, Conrad is a weird writer." aqueductpress.blogspot.com/2025/12/the-...

Current review book is so good that I find myself resenting having to read it fast enough to make deadline, and also I don't want to jinx things by naming it in case something goes awry in the second half.

A review of an anthology with several really great stories, and a novella I could not fathom locusmag.com/review/betwe...

A review of an anthology with several really great stories, and a novella I could not fathom locusmag.com/review/betwe...

I've read 4/5 of these, and all of them are good, so I guess I should get around to the fifth www.theguardian.com/books/2025/d...

Nice to see Nisi Shawl's Making Amends on this list. The list is rich with an abundance of interesting titles flying well under the hype-cycle radar. & some of it is science fiction! lithub.com/100-notable-...

In which I am allowed to go on at somewhat more than normal length about Ice by Jacek Dukaj

Eva Meijer and Anne Thompson Melo in conversation about Sea Now at Toppings, Edinburgh

Eva Meijer and Anne Thompson Melo in conversation about Sea Now at Toppings, Edinburgh

Really liked this one; I'm assuming Kerr is going to keep exploring his alt-North and I'm keen to see where he goes next locusmag.com/review/the-w...

I keep my annual reading goal relatively conservative, because I really don't want to find myself rushing books at the end of the year to make up a number, but I am still slightly surprised to find I have just hit my goal. Everything I read in December is a bonus book!

Really liked this one; I'm assuming Kerr is going to keep exploring his alt-North and I'm keen to see where he goes next locusmag.com/review/the-w...

Please share: I am delighted to release the programme for the July 11 2026, Symposium on the work of Frances Hardinge, at Kings College, London. We can't manage virtual attendance but we do offer cheap conference proceedings. Tickets at Eventbrite: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-one-day-...

This was a fun first novel, and I think that view is mostly independent of the fact that it's the only novel I'm aware of whose climactic set piece takes place ten minutes from my front door: locusmag.com/review/its-n...

Mark your calendars! We are kicking off our End of Year fundraiser on the 2nd, Giving Tuesday! Donate at bwc.io/locus2025 (link in bio) through December and see your gift doubled via a $100,000 match challenge. The campaign is live now if you just can't wait.

This was a fun first novel, and I think that view is mostly independent of the fact that it's the only novel I'm aware of whose climactic set piece takes place ten minutes from my front door: locusmag.com/review/its-n...

Not to start my "variant @clarkeaward.bsky.social shortlists" schtick too early, but I've realised it would be possible for the 2026 shortlist to consist almost entirely of books that have already won major awards. At least, I've got five out of six (see following post), can anyone think of a sixth?

Never-Ebbing Story: @casella.bsky.social reviews Eva Meijer's SEA NOW, translated by Anne Thompson Melo (@catransitnerd.bsky.social) ancillaryreviewofbooks.org/2025/11/26/n...

Good news: First review of the week! Even better news: It’s @thehubble101.bsky.social on Alix E. Harrow! “The dismissal of fantasy is compounded by the strategy of rhetorical containment in which novels in the genre by women are singled out.”

“SEA NOW is not a novel without hope, but it is a novel in which hope is tempered.” @niallharrison reviews new work from Eva Meijer