Books read in 2025

Welcome to the first official "reading" post of 2026! As mentioned in my previous post, I wanted to split up development and reading topics into their own posts so I can focus on each a little more. This way I have something more targeted to write and ramble about rather than combining what is usually two somewhat disjointed topics. I of course do more than code and read, but in regards to actually writing about it and shoving it onto the internet, I think these two topics are good targets and worth writing about and hopefully worth reading!

Books read in 2025

Due to writing this months later I'll provide the raw list and a general summary of each. In the future I think I'll write a more dedicated focused summary as I read them. Mostly as a way to review it, and to buff out how much content is in this blog so it doesn't look as dead help pass along what I felt.

Here's the list of books I grinded read in 2025, roughly in order of reading (or at least based on my good reads list haha):

• "The Far Reaches Collection" (5 short sci-fi stories):
  • "Just Out of Jupiter's Reach" by Nnedi Okorafor
  • "The Long Game" by Ann Leckie
  • "How It Unfolds" by James S.A. Corey
  • "Void" by Veronica Roth
  • "Falling Bodies" by Rebecca Roanhorse
• "The Disturbance" by Brandon Q. Morris
• "The Disturbance 2: The Answer" by Brandon Q. Morris
• "The Disturbance 3: The Truth" by Brandon Q. Morris
• "Kosa" by John Durgin
• "Red Mars" by Kim Stanley Robinson
• "The Circle" by Dave Eggers
• "The Every" by Dave Eggers
• "Artemis" by Andy Weir
• "Forever Peace" by Joe Haldeman
• "Forever Free" by Joe Haldeman

The Far Reaches Collection

Being one of the first things I read last year, I have a tough time recollecting my exact review for this collection. Overall it was nice to dive into a book you can complete in essentially 1 sitting. Each had their own ideas and fleshed out stories all in a short snippet. I grew up reading Ray Bradbury short stories and compilations such as the "Illustrated man", so this was a nice way to go back to this format without diving, or grinding out longer books.

The Disturbance Series

I've found I go back to Brandon Q. Morris pretty often. His stories are on the "leaner" side of sci-fi, with some core science concepts, but the stories are largely character driven and carry a consistent pace. His books are also all reasonably priced, but the stories are almost always drawn out over multiple books. It is interesting to see some characters mention or pop up in other stories, but each series is largely self contained. The Disturbance trilogy was no different, but I did realize part way through I "skipped" a series earlier, which I'll have to possibly go back and read.

Kosa

I don't often read non-sci-fi, but Kosa was an exception mostly because I read the summary and it sounded like the Disney movie Tangled, so I bought it on a whim.

It was a fun and somewhat brutal read. If it was a movie it would be the sort of film that ropes you in with that same premise of sounding like something Disney would make, but then start the book off with some brutal rated R violence.

It was a pallette cleanser from all the usual sci-fi I usually read, but of course after reading this one I went right back to sci-fi, with a modern day classic.

Red Mars

I've heard about the Red Mars trilogy for years, but never got around to reading it as its one of the newer sci-fi books that was famous enough I've kept it on my wish list for a few months before pulling the trigger and getting it.

This was unfortunately the "slog" book for this year. It seemed to run on for a while, and felt like a long and unfocused read. The characters were interesting but due to the changing nature of the book, which spanned decades(?) I think it lost me about mid-way through afterward, which I eventually finished but more out of obligation than interest.

There's 2 more books in the trilogy but I'll probably hold off on them until I find another gap in my reading schedule.

The Circle & The Every

Another newer sci-fi pick.

I only picked these up because I saw the movie recommendations (another possible blog topic!)

The Circle was an interesting read that was fun to read and talk about. It was satire, but not so outrageously so it had a slight edge to it I feel like. The ideas it went over seemed semi-reasonable and that made it somewhat scary to be honest.

The Every doubled down on this premise but felt more like outright satire built out of the pandemic. Both felt like a continuation of the same story, but the characters in the second book weren't as interesting in my opinion. There was also a few open threads that were only implied from the first book so it wasn't that much of a direction continuation, but rather an extension placed in the same universe.

Artemis

I like Andy Weir, full stop. But, it seems likes he can only really write one protagonist, based upon The Martian, and one of my most favorite books, Project Hail Mary. I left Artemis for last because I knew it was the worst of the three, but I wanted to read it anyway as a way to hopefully fill some time until the Project Hail Mary movie comes out, which I'm very hyped for.

Artemis, like the other books, was an easy fun read, but you can see the "Mark Watney" character all over the place. The plot also didn't really lean into such a witty character. The environment and world building were interesting and fun, but yea I agree its the weakest of the three. I didn't not enjoy it, it just made some very odd choices I feel like and Weir's insistence on writing essentially the same primary character in all his books didn't help.

Either way, I'm still far from Project Hail Mary coming out on the big screen, so I might swing back to that book and write about it again before then!

Forever Peace & Forever Free

Fun fact, one of the first novels I read, and why I got into sci-fi in the first place, was I read the Forever War by Joe Haldeman in back in middle school. My English teacher had a small library in her classroom and offered to loan out books to any student interested in reading (she was really cool like that). I picked up Forever War, specifically because the cover had a really cool soldier dude, the title sounded cool, and the book was brand new.

I've read it a few times now, and finally got around to picking up the semi-sequel and direct sequel.

I consider neither as good as the original, with Forever Peace introducing a number of interesting aspects, but like Forever War, coming to a somewhat abrupt, almost out of nowhere end.

Forever Free continued the story of Forever War and went into some interesting places, but it too fell to what I felt like was a huge weight of expectations to essentially pull a complete "deus ex machina" ending that felt mostly insane.

Either way felt good to wrap up that long open series.