It’s that time of year again!  Last year, I surveyed a sampling of the years’ greatest sci-fi, fantasy, and horror.  You can read that post here – all of those books still come highly recommended.  Now the time has come to do the same for the new releases of 2025.  The same caveat from last year applies: I’m only one person, I can only read so many books in a year.  Therefore I couldn’t possibly include every amazing new speculative fiction release from the past year, no matter how much I might like to.  I’d also be remiss if I didn’t point out that 2025 has been an absolute banner year for horror, and this list leans a lot more towards that genre than last years’.  With the preamble out of the way, let’s get started!

The Works of Vermin by Hiron Ennes

In the city of Tilliard, opera is bloodsport, perfume is politics, and one person can have many names over the course of a life.  We view this city through the eyes of Guy Moulène, one of the rank and file of Tilliard’s pest control companies.  On a routine job, Guy discovers an insect the size of a dragon – one that may be even more dangerous after it’s slain.  Guy’s story entwines with that of Asteritha Vost, perfumer to Tilliard’s elite.  When Aster becomes entangled with Mallory vont Passant, a newcomer to Tilliard with a past shrouded in mystery, she unearths secrets that may shake the city to its core – that touch upon the past of her ruthless employer, Grand Marshal Maximian Sorav.  As a work of horror fantasy, The Works of Vermin is no less than the total package.  Tilliard’s atmosphere of rotten beauty is pitch-perfect, calling to mind Jeff Vandermeer’s Ambergris and China Miéville’s New Crobuzon.  Innes also delivers on pacing and plot – there’s a sequence of plot twists about three quarters of the way through that literally made my jaw drop.  Prospective readers should definitely exercise discretion about content, as this story goes to some extremely dark places.  That said, it’s also suffused with some welcome macabre humor: when things get that bad, sometimes there’s nothing to do but laugh.  The Works of Vermin was a privilege to read, a book over four-hundred pages that I wish was longer.  If Ennes ever wants to return to the Tilliard setting, I’ll happily come along, bugs and all.

The Lady, the Tiger and the Girl Who Loved Death by Helen Marshall

The Lady, the Tiger, and the Girl Who Loved Death tells the story of two women, grandmother and granddaughter, and their lives in the war-torn country of Strana.  When Sara Sidorova is on the brink of death, she is taken to a place out of time to observe the life of her granddaughter, Sara Irenda Lubchen.  Irenda will grow up to be a celebrated circus performer and have the ear of the most powerful man in Strana – at a terrible cost.  Linking the two is the tiger god Amba, a terribly destructive force reflected in the tiger who accompanies Irenda’s circus act.  Strana is a masterfully created setting, at once surreal and an all too resonant portrayal of authoritarianism.  That being said, I think the real star of this book is the characterization.  Towards the middle of the book, Irenda makes a snap decision that would probably render her a villain or at best an object of pity in most other fantasy novels.  But Marshall does something most authors wouldn’t do – she leaves Irenda the space to claw her way back from that terrible choice.  If you’re a fan of Erin Morgenstern, Catherynne M. Valente or Angela Carter, The Lady, the Tiger and the Girl Who Loved Death absolutely deserves a spot on your reading list.

The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones

In 2012, a struggling academic discovers a lost document written by her ancestor, Lutheran priest Arthur Beaucarne.  Arthur’s diary details the portentous testimony of Good Stab, a vampire of the Blackfeet Nation who has come to expose the crimes of Arthur’s past – and to settle the score.  I’m in awe of this book. It’s a masterclass in structure and character voice – the layered narratives create the feeling that the reader is actually discovering forgotten histories, and Good Stab and Beaucarne are expertly characterized, feeling like real people who might actually have lived.  As a vampiric revenge thriller, the plot is as haunting as one could hope for.  But perhaps most important is the way Stephen Graham Jones incorporates real history into the book, shedding light on a horrific chapter of the past too often forgotten.  It’s a cliche to call something an “instant classic”, but I’d be hard pressed to call The Buffalo Hunter Hunter anything else.  I think it’s safe to say that horror fiction as a whole will likely be responding to this book for years to come.