Things I enjoyed in 2026 (Part 1)

Short Stories

“Why one small American town won’t stop stoning its residents to death” by Charlotte Stant (2025): On-point Shirley Jackson fanfic.

Novellas

The Carrying Capacity of Paradise by Deborah L. Davitt (2025): If you told me before reading that I would find the lead characters (an ex-cop and ex-hard-partying-trust-fund-celebrity) sympathetic before reading, I might have believed you. More surprising was finding the murder victim, by virtue of remaining in the background but with flaws fully centered, a touch more than a caricature of a billionaire with a God complex. But Davitt pulls it off. (Also, I love the idea of tigers playing in low gravity.)

The Drowned Heir by Jennifer R. Donohue (2022): The premise is straight-up horror: a society that downs excess offspring to offer a host body for more important dead. Donohue matter-of-factly embeds this in a place that feels real, inhabited by regular people with normal relationships; this isn’t played to up the horror ante, but grounds the story. There’s also an imprisoned sea monster, a secret child, and an inhuman lover to move the plot along and offer a sketch of the world beyond the narrator’s home village.

Media

28 Years Later (2025): That was a movie. On the one hand, I was pretty convinced by the small island community’s success. I was less keen when Army of the Dead broke out (or were they going for I Am Legend? Either way, thumbs down). Not too keen on some of the Jacksonesque decisions, like Temu Aragorn and the Dark Skinned Savage™. And it’s ironic that the original movie was pretty progressive, but this one was just a Madonna/Whore retread.

Wonder Man (2026): I mostly ignore MCU stuff by default nowadays, but I checked this one out because people said it was a fun, small-scale story. It is, I enjoyed it, and I loved that everyone involved was clearly having a fantastic time.

Things I enjoyed in 2025 (Part 7)

Short Stories

“Mary Marrow” by Margaret Killjoy (2025): A nicely creepy tale dancing the line between magic and obsession.

Novels

The Crooked Medium’s Guide to Murder by Stephen Cox (2025): A mystery with supernatural elements that feel entirely natural, as lived-in as the central relationship between Mrs. Ashton and Mrs. Bradshaw, con artist and radical, respectively.

The Reformatory by Tananarive Due (2023): Excellent Jim Crow horror. Elsewhere, I called it a sort of anti-Totoro, with children sensitive to the supernatural (but haints, not helpful nature spirits) and surrounded by a close-knit community (embedded in a larger close-knit community that wants them dead) with a father doing what’s best for his family (leaving).

Media

Weapons (2025): The whole was not greater than the sum of its parts (much like Barbarian), but in this case I liked the individual parts (unlike Barbarian, which had a great extended opening, a chilling embedded short film, and a monster trope I dislike). The kid-I-want-to-hug and Amy Madigan did a great job in the latter segment, though that felt like a straightforward short film that didn’t connect well to the ambiguously creepy preceding material. Anyway, I like both of those movies, despite the muddling of message and title.

The Substance (2024): I thought this one was pretty strong until the final twist on monstrousness. It felt silly and indulgent, coming on the heels of an examination of youthful antics impacting later functionality, losing prime years to the demands of work, how the female gaze (even when turned on oneself) can mimic the male gaze, and so on.

ETA: Whoops, that’ll teach me to take unfinished posts out of draft. I’ll just chuck stuff I didn’t include into my next post.

#recommended #recommended2025

Things I enjoyed in 2025 (Part 6)

Short Stories

“Ink Reviews” by Rachel Gutin (2025): I’m not a fountain pen person, but i respect those who are. This brief story charts the colorful path of someone becoming a different person.

Novellas

A Place of Refuge by Victoria Janssen (2023): A series of novellas about guerillas after their rebellion fails, and their adventures settling down to enjoy fully-automated gay space communism and pastries. (I kid, but it’s not wholly inaccurate and I do like that, viewed from a safe distance, the evil empire is kind of shoddy and technologically inferior to the aptly-named Refuge.) The characters feel nicely rounded and their relationships lived-in; the supporting cast members are decent without being excessively saccharine. In these cozies, the conflict is primarily woman-versus-PTSD, with progress measured in significant conversations, non-traumatic dreams, and personal intimacy.

Novels

Queen Demon by Martha Wells (2025): I like this world and I’m happy to spend more time in it (both in the present timeline and the ~sixty-years-earlier timeline). Many of the characters still really need a hug. This one feels like a middle book (the first felt “first or standalone,” in a good way) and the present timeline is more backward-looking than expected, based on the end of the previous volume. So maybe less formally satisfying, but nonetheless a good series entry.

Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera (2024): I want to say that this book is wonderfully bonkers, but it’s also so damn assured that all the bonkers aspects fall into the right place (even if the “right place” differs greatly throughout the book, if that makes sense). Anyway, this is a great read (possibly a Great Read, but we won’t know that for another fifty or a hundred years, will we?) and also a fun read.

Copper Script by K. J. Charles (2025): 1920s mystery, with side orders of fantasy graphology, kissing and fucking, and Indian food.

Media

Lajok: The Night Dancer (2025): Dilman Dila’s latest short film is a supernatural revenge story. (CW for rape, though the scene ends just beforehand. And disclosure that I offered a small bit of backing, and plan to do so for future films.) As implied by the title, dance plays a central role, and it’s creepy as hell. Dolls are naturally creepy, and moving dolls moreso; but even the human movements are…not impossible, obviously, but unnatural and uncomfortable-looking. Hani Mulungi’s face is gloriously expressive, whether she’s offering an unwanted suitor the side-eye or terrified by the loss of control over her own body. In just a few essentially wordless minutes Dila’s able to flesh out the protagonist’s place in her community (in sharp contrast to the antagonist’s solitary movements and reliance upon impersonal technology). Use of murderous juju feels less like induction into a criminal sorority and more like offering a friend a ride home.

#recommended #recommended2025

Things I enjoyed in 2025 (Part 5)

Novellas

Flight & Anchor by Nicole Kornher-Stace (2023): I enjoy Kornher-Stace’s work, and part of what I love about this series is that it’s just so incorrectly executed. Leaving aside short stories in magazines (which are always going to be a bit disjointed in terms of publication/release/audience), Latchkey is a direct sequel to Archivist Wasp, from a different publisher but with the same cover artist, and I think they were both marketed as YA; Firebreak is a standalone marketed to adults but feels more than a bit YA; Jillian vs Parasite Planet is middle grade but with looong chapters (not an issue for my then-MG reader; we both enjoyed it as bedtime reading); this one is (reasonably) marketed as “a Firebreak story” but released by the publisher of Jillian, not Firebreak; and the setting spans thousands of years and multiple genres. I love that “fuck it, lemme write this thing in my head and throw it out there and maybe somebody’ll publish it and maybe somebody’ll read it” aesthetic. This novella works because it’s a tight character study and the references to events that appear on-page in different stories only serve to make this story more assuredly itself.

Novels

Burn Up in Victory by Jennifer R. Donohue (2025): Who among us does not enjoy a good sword-centric enemies-to-lovers tale? I love the subtle, omnipresent weirdness of the city (how and why does it keep the score? Why does this city have fountains?) and would love seeing additional stories set here (there’s already one, “Mistempered Weapons”)…but don’t necessarily need answers to my questions about the city.

Dweller on the Threshold by Skyla Dawn Cameron (2022): The house is haunted, but it’s the only housing option during the early months of COVID-19. I appreciated the slice-of-lockdown-life aspects of the story (particularly as someone who’s still masking); it’s just something that’s always there, always has to be accounted for (and yes, taking all the toilet paper is a boss breakup move). I also like the cats who are cats: they have personalities, but they’re not cutesy supernaturally-sensitive plot drivers, just (“just”) pets the protagonist cares about deeply and believably.

A Reluctant Spy by David Goodman (2024): Squeezed in some non-speculative fiction, which I should really do more often. This is a fun read (despite making me feel old), and while it’s not that tough to see some of the twists/reveals or roll the eyes where competence porn slides into wish fulfillment, that’s okay. I’m reading to watch people having a bad day at the office. And feel hungry for street food.

Bitter Medicine by Mia Tsai (2023): This is an adorable paranormal. I was grateful for the author’s Afterword, explaining choices about transliteration and other representations of code-switching in a multi-lingual world, particularly since I was reading the ebook and not all of those choices were properly rendered. (I can read neither simplified nor traditional characters, but can tell the difference between them, so now I wonder if I’d have noticed the difference and sussed out the significance. I noticed but sort of skipped over the guillemets; I assumed they were there to indicate psychic communication, not French.)

#recommended #recommended2025

Things I enjoyed in 2025 (Part 4)

Short Stories

“Through the Machine” by P.A. Cornell (2025): AI in the film industry. It’s a good character study, but also a story that can potentially serve as a time capsule of this moment. I can definitely see this in future anthologies dedicated to SF authors’ takes on real-world “AI.”

“My Gallery Granddaughter” by Gretchen Tessmer (2025): Read this one when you need a palate cleanser.

“Because I Held His Name Like a Key” by Aimee Odgen (2025): The Alan Turing in fairyland story you didn’t realize you needed.

“Two’s Company, Three Might Be a Sign of Demonic Possession” by Audrey Zhou (2025): Disturbingly good use of second person.

Novelettes

“When He Calls Your Name” by Catherynne M. Valente (2025): It’s not the gimmick, it’s the execution that matters.

“Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy” by Martha Wells (2025): ART has an emotion. (I like Wells best at novella length or longer and this is by no means an essential read; but if you’re a fan of the book series, it’s fun.)

Novels

Wearing the Lion by John Wiswell (2025): This sophomore outing features themes and characters unsurprising to anyone familiar with Wiswell’s work and they’re very well done. The making-friends-with-monsters schtick is funny, but also heartfelt, and I appreciate a retelling that doesn’t focus on romantic ships. Hera is an equal player in this version of Heracles and, as snarky as the book is, Wiswell plays the central question straight: What could make the personified deity of Family destroy a family—and what would that do to her?

Ancient as the Stars by Maya Darjani (2024): This book somehow manages to be a light read while also dealing with the effects of emotional abuse, mass casualty events, and temporal dislocation. Also fun to see a space opera, set on spaceships, with a focus on spy networks and staff meetings rather than ship-to-ship engagements.

Media

Murderbot (2025): I really enjoy the books (I actually re-read them, and I’m not a big re-reader). I do not feel as strongly about the show, and there are things I miss (the lack of drones, inhuman multitasking abilities). But overall, it’s a great way to spend 22 minutes. Everybody is having a blast. Martha Wells seems to approve, and I hope she’s making bank as well as getting her flowers because just look at that decades-long bibliography.

North of North (2025): If you need something to round out the hour after watching an episode of Murderbot, this sitcom may be for you. It’s set in Nunavet, with significant indigenous involvement on- and offscreen, and while there’s some cringe comedy it’s not overwhelming. (I appreciated a show that balances a sometimes-incompetent lead who nonetheless is fundamentally a competent person, just a person in her twenties.)

Jet Lag: The Game (2022 –): I’ve only watched more recent episodes, due to the spouse having them on, and much like cooking competitions I’ve found myself getting sucked in. Few things sound more douchey than three white dudes making a web series about how they travel around the world chasing or racing each other, experiencing very little of the places they visit. And yet! These shows manage to be charming, highlighting the transit geekiness involved in challenges like playing hide-and-seek in Switzerland.

The Eternaut (2025): This is a slow-burn show, which is a good choice because there are a lot of things going on (killing snow! Alternate realities! Visions! Giant alien bugs! Mind control!) and the slower pace makes them feel layered. (No idea if I’ll like where future seasons go, but I will keep watching.) I can’t decide if the early episodes fall into the annoying “preppers are right, society will break down in the apocalypse” category or if it’s going for a “men suck and mess everything up” kind of vibe. Nice to see non-US centric stuff (the setting is Argentina), and every so often I’d have the realization that the juxtaposition of snow and Christmas decorations was supposed to look wrong. Never mind. Apparently, this is the first Netflix show with scenes cobbled together using generative AI. (Could I tell when watching? No. Is that the point? Also no.) Netflix is very proud; I am unimpressed. (Sufficiently unimpressed that I wanted to include a flag, not just remove the recommendation I drafted a few weeks ago.)

The Old Guard (2020): I rewatched this recently. Nicely acted, and the action scenes are fun and tell us about the characters; the competence porn is uncanny but not inhuman. Too bad they never made a sequel.

Revenant (2023): A K-drama (by the same writer as Kingdom) about possession and both natural and supernatural detection. While there are a few B-plot cases spanning an episode or two, it’s nice to watch a series that wraps up its main plot nicely. (Take the content warnings seriously: watching this, one could easily form the impression that 90% of deaths in South Korea are due to suicide, supernaturally motivated or otherwise.)

#recommended #recommended2025

Things I enjoyed in 2025 (Part 3)

Short Stories

“Spandex, Sporks, and Space Vampires” by Marie Vibbert (2025): Quite delightfully what it says on the tin.

“Laser Eyes Ain’t Everything” by Effie Seiberg (2025): This story manages to be fluffy and angry at the same time. Do we know where it’s going? Yes. Do we have a lot of fun going along for the ride? Also yes. Do we learn something about the comparative safety of traffic circles versus intersections? Why yes, we do.

“Where Are They Now?” by Meg Elison (2025): If they’re going to keep making progressively less fucked-up Willy Wonka movies, then we all deserve this quick reminder of just how fucked-up Roald Dahl actually is.

“Mistempered Weapons” by Jennifer R. Donohue (2022): If you are in the mood for authors Doing A Shakespeare, here is an author Doing A Shakespeare.

Novella

Disgraced Return of the Kap’s Needle by Renan Bernardo (2025): An expedition discovers the planet they’ve been sent to is really shitty. The return journey is even shittier. If that sounds like a weirdly cathartic read, pick this book up. If it feels like a bit much at the moment, maybe wait until the actual world is a bit less shitty. (Hey, I can dream.)

Media

Andor (season 2, 2025): No surprise that I really enjoyed Andor; everybody did, and it’s nice to see acknowledgement of good writing (and performances and sets and everything, but without the writing it all falls flat). Perfect? No. Well-executed while under significant constraints? Yes. Really good, really timely? Absolutely.

Sinners (2025): Everyone says this movie is fantastic; everyone is correct. It takes its time building the setting and the characters who inhabit it and the action and character choices emerge as consistent inevitabilities.

KPop Demon Hunters (2025): Also quite delightfully what it says on the tin. This was especially fun viewing since I’ve absorbed a lot of K-pop knowledge lately, courtesy of Kid # 1 (so I frankly don’t know why the demon boy band bothered with any sort of disguise: that seems like a perfectly plausible concept).

#recommended #recommended2025

Things I enjoyed in 2025 (Part 2)

Short Stories

“Black Matter” by Vivian Shaw (2019): Necromancy at the NTSB. I am a sucker for stories about the practical applications of supernatural powers.

“Echo Syndrome” by Jennifer Hudak (2025): An excellent (and terrifying) story about being a parent.

“Cliff’s Notes for Surviving a Blockbuster Disaster Film” by Gretchen Tessmer (2025): What it says on the tin.

“Everyone Keeps Saying Probably” by Premee Mohamed (2025): Almost, but not quite, the end of the world.

Novella

Countess by Suzan Palumbo (2024): Anti-colonialism in space. I particularly appreciated the connection to actual historical realities; centuries of oppression don’t disappear once you’re out of the gravity well. I think it starts stronger than it ends (but there’s an argument for the reverse opinion) but the narrative shift away from the soap operatic revenge of The Count of Monte Cristo is intentional and I respect the decision. I also got hungry reading (even if my palate begins registering “spicy” as painful rather than simply flavorful much earlier than I’d like).

Novels

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson (1959): It occurred to me this year that I had not actually read any Shirley Jackson and I decided that could not stand. Hill House is excellent, and the second stolen reference to a cup full of stars gave me more of a frisson than any banging on doors.

Blackheart Man by Nalo Hopkinson (2024): I began filling my long form Hopkinson lacuna. This book works as anti-colonialist literature and bildungsroman of a flawed manchild, but I found it most enjoyable as a languid (not the same as slow) exploration of the Caribbean-esque island Chynchin and its creole culture.

Ammonite by Nicola Griffith (1993): More lacuna-filling. The distance between this solid anthropological SF novel and the Hild books is not so very wide.

Point of Hearts by Melissa Scott (2025): I like the Astreiant books mostly for the worldbuilding; the city feels very lived in. And since it’s a secondary world fantasy, I can get a police procedural fix without feeling dirty. The description “incorrect fantasy writing” (complimentary) really does nail the vibe.

Media

The Wild Robot (2024): I read books one and two to Kid # 2 and we both enjoyed them. The movie has definitely been rejiggered in the course of its adaptation and some nuance stripped away; but the core of parenting, community, and self-definition remain. I liked the quiet evidence of a climate apocalypse, but based on a survey of my household a drowned Golden Gate Bridge may not register with younger viewers.

The Gorge (2025): This is not a good movie, but it has some good bits: the romance, the competence porn, and the weird horror landscape are fun, embedded in a movie firmament of general action film mediocrity.

Paradise (2025): A post-apocalyptic political thriller, making profuse use of flashbacks. (I am a sucker for shows that use interlaced timelines to good effect.)

Severence (season 2, 2025): The second season did a good job of maintaining the inherent creepiness of Lumon while also implicating characters we care about and confronting the complexity of two people in one body, and the basic question of who gets to be a person. Tramell Tillman and Gwendoline Christie are particular delights, with appearances that are weirdly grounded and entirely surreal, respectively.

Flow (2024): This is a very pretty movie. It definitely feels like watching someone else play a video game, but that’s okay, I was happy to go along for the ride and explore the environment.

Heretic (2024): This is worth watching if you want to see Hugh Grant continue to delight in his career’s second act heel-turn. (I remain charmed; he’s clearly having a blast. This is a better vehicle than Honor Among Thieves, but not a better movie.) Otherwise, meh; I’m not entirely sure the screenwriters avoid the villain’s error of assuming he’s the smartest person in the room.

Companion (2025): Ex Machina, but make it trashy. Gotta love a criminal conspiracy involving Bradford Boimler, Aneesa Qureshi, and Guillermo de la Cruz. (Though those three characters would be significantly more competent in their conspiring.)

#recommended #recommended2025

Things I enjoyed in 2025 (Part 1)

Short Stories

“Ten Minutes” by Marie Brennan (2024): A flash piece filled with subtle anxiety about what the narrator isn’t saying that nonetheless provides a convincing argument for the power and beauty of meditation.

Novels

Club Contango by Eliane Boey (2024): Feral capitalism, second-third-fourth chances, single parenting, murder, and an unreliable narrator on an oppressively classist asteroid.

The Ragpicker by Joel Dane (2024): A weirdly cozy adventure set in a post-apocalyptic landscape. The apocalypse in question is a digital rapture, with the planet healing from human damage and the remaining humans creating new societies under the shadow of old, dying threats. (And while it’s worth wondering if the entire world was somehow truly culturally unified, or whether there were more survivors in, say, the developing world than the book would lead one to expect—that’s okay. Despite the roadtrip elements, it’s a very tightly focused novel with plenty of unreliable narration to go around.)

The Traveling Triple-C Incorporeal Circus by Alanna McFall (2019): Two ghosts and a mime go on a cross-country road trip. It’s one of those books where the twists aren’t twisty, because they’ve already been set up so thoroughly that they simply make sense. Unsurprisingly, for a book where a large chunk of the cast is dead, there are themes of grief and loss (and joy!) and the impressive range of coping mechanisms deployed by humans pre- and postmortem.

Media

Uprising (2024): Historical K-drama, very Not Subtle with many of the shots as well as the script, but entertaining. Bonus points for the translator translating trash talk between duelists. (Netflix’s English subtitles didn’t visually distinguish between Korean and Japanese, but it’s still highly amusing.)

#recommended #recommended2025