Once again, honored to be included here!

My second article in as many weeks on #StrangerThings is up at @reactorsff.bsky.social ! reactormag.com/the-best-mom...

Hunting for FESTIVENESS? Trying to fit an ENTIRE FIR TREE in your MOUTH? We're collecting all holiday-themed articles and reruns into one jolly tag: reactormag.com/tag/holiday-...

There are many Brainiacs, and not all are created equally:

We asked you to vote for your favorite books, movies, TV shows, short fiction, video games, and more of 2025...and now, Reactor is excited to present the results! Congratulations to all the winners! #booksky

Nine years. Five seasons. Tyler Dean breaks down the best moments of Stranger Things!

What's the Reactor team doing over the holidays? What are YOU doing over the holidays???

Some polar/Arctic Horror recs to send a chill down your spine this December 🧊

Sinners! Pluribus! Ladyknight books! Matt Murdock praying to the patron saint of lawyers! Aspect ratios! Yves from LOONA! The wedding music in Andor! It's a weird, nerdy world. Here were some of our favorite examples from 2025:

Can’t believe enough people submitted my booktube channel for me to make the list! Truly made my day 💜

Here are 22 wintery book recommendations for maximizing cozy vibes:

Absolutely tickled pink to see Starship Alexandria as one of the winners! Thank you so much to those who voted for the show. I am having so much fun making it with @aptshadow.bsky.social ! A lovely surprise in the last days of a very tough year x

We asked you to vote for your favorite books, movies, TV shows, short fiction, video games, and more of 2025...and now, Reactor is excited to present the results! Congratulations to all the winners! #booksky

my favorite pieces from 2025

The Marvel Cinematic Universe wants to know if we remember this guy? We all like this guy right? We'll promise go to the theaters and see a movie if he's there right?

Round out your end of the year with some excellent short fiction curated by @bookjockeyalex.bsky.social, including gardeners on Mars and demonic serial killers:

tbh my favorite moment in mainstream media this whole year is still yelena belova forgiving herself 😭

@mollytempleton.com addresses the most difficult question for The Holiday Season: How do you buy books for other people??

We're excited to share Reactor Original Short Fiction Highlights 2025!! This free bundle (available in PDF/EPUB) gathers a few of our excellent short stories from the year into one place, including works by @wenyilee.bsky.social, @lateonsetgirl.bsky.social, @tadethompson.bsky.social, & @isabel.kim!

Every year, no matter how bad the year, we at Reactor find at least a little joy, and then it's a joy to share it with all of y'all. Joyception!

this is my favorite thing we do every year - nerdy joy is so precious to me. this year i went off about: - @dimension20.bsky.social live at MSG!!! - the kpop demon hunter girls finding success after years of shitty idol training! - and of course, CANADIAN GOVERNMENT FUNDED HOCKEY GAYS!!!!!

Sinners! Pluribus! Ladyknight books! Matt Murdock praying to the patron saint of lawyers! Aspect ratios! Yves from LOONA! The wedding music in Andor! It's a weird, nerdy world. Here were some of our favorite examples from 2025:

The Younger Russell to continue the family tradition, starring in a show about unknowable Creatures and Cold War tensions:

From Bloody Mary to "there was a hook on the handle of the door!", urban legends carve out permanent space in our collective psyche. Here are five short horror stories that capture the feeling of classic urban legends 👻

"Here, the humans cause the haunting. The objects hold the memory." @mollytempleton.com reviews Midnight Timetable, Bora Chung's new short story collection about a research center for haunted objects:

Join us for the last Martha Wells Book Club of the year! @bookjockeyalex.bsky.social takes us through Network Effect, the fifth entry and first full-length novel in the Murderbot series. Hope you're ready for a lot of corpses?

Celebrate the 550th entry of Reading the Weird by WATCHING the Weird instead, by which we mean a deep dive into season two, episode two of American Horror Story: "Aura"

the annual tordotcom / now reactormag original story collections are one of my fave things to read in the new year! and it's FREE!!

You are traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity... It is an area which we call the Twilight Zone Christmas Episodes:

this fantasy dark academia story is one of my favourites i've ever written and you can read it here with a lot of other writers i love!!

Thrilled to see what is probably my favorite piece of writing this year (other than my novel) on his lovely list: reactormag.com/discovering-...

1964's "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" is an incredibly stupid, delightful movie. Join the Sci Fi Film Club as we discuss murderous Martian hijinks, misfit toys, and Santa's enthusiasm for child labor! 🎅

delighted to see my article on TV's Angel and its weird, weird, weird relationship with sex on this list!

ALL HITS NO SKIPS

Okay yes we love books at Reactor but we ALSO love movies, TV, and witches. Here are some of our favorite nonfiction articles from 2025, featuring David Lynch, folk horror, Kpop Demon Hunters, and Master & Commander:

We're excited to share Reactor Original Short Fiction Highlights 2025!! This free bundle (available in PDF/EPUB) gathers a few of our excellent short stories from the year into one place, including works by @wenyilee.bsky.social, @lateonsetgirl.bsky.social, @tadethompson.bsky.social, & @isabel.kim!

"I missed this book when I finished it." Maura Krause reviews Caskey Russell's The Door on the Sea, a Tlingit response to Tolkien within the classic quest narrative of The Hobbit:

Who would pass up a chance to talk with your favorite animals and find out what they really think? What could go wrong?! @jdnicoll.bsky.social on five books in which humans and animals can communicate with one another!

"Is a River Alive?" is a gorgeous, thought-provoking exploration of the Rights of Nature movement framed around trips to three threatened rivers, as well as a rich potential source for speculative ideas and discussion

Who's doing the deep dive into why all the alien languages are clicky now??!?

Look, I made a joke about it before, but I'm back with receipts this time, and my logic is unassailable...

What if The Muppets Christmas Carol is about something else:

Approximately THREE HUNDRED (300)! new sci-fi, fantasy, and horror young adult books came out this year. Thankfully, @bookjockeyalex.bsky.social is here to tell us the top 30!

Reactor is proud to continue our history of genre-focused literary criticism. Here's some of our favorite essays on reading, writing, and fiction from the year:

Violet Thistlewaite is turning her life around. She's retiring from the Thornwitch, assistant to a dark lord, and settling down to a cute little shop with absolutely NO destruction. Or so she hopes. @readingtheend.bsky.social reviews how that goes...

"The central mystery of Dust Bunny on its face would seem to be: Is the monster real or a metaphor for one little girl’s trauma? And because it’s Bryan Fuller, that question will not be answered the way you expect." @use-theforce-em.bsky.social reviews Bryan Fuller's first movie!

The season finale of IT: Welcome to Derry smashes ghosts, a funeral, and a terrifying school assembly together while ALSO addressing what didn't work about IT: Chapter II. Take my hand. Float with me towards the review:

Had a great time interviewing Pluribus costume designer Jennifer Bryan! Some fun details below...

The trailer for Hokum puts Adam Scott into witchy situations and predicaments: