Reading Recap 2025

Well, as January came and went, I’ve barely done any progress on the recaps I should have done for the year! There’s a lot on my schedule lately and I can’t quite write as much as I hoped.

Last year was pretty good when it comes to books, I managed to make a lot of progress and even started a new series—even if I hadn’t finished the previous one, but whatever.

Books I read in 2025

I reviewed almost every book I read, so feel free to check out my separate thoughts on each, linked in the titles here. However, I have a few more words about them—as well as some mini-reviews for some books that I didn’t actually review on my website at all! Let’s start from the beginning.

Abbadon’s Gate by James S.A. Corey

Start: 2025-01-04 End: 2025-01-15 Series: The Expanse #3

I love all of the Expanse books, and this one was an amazing conclusion to the first trilogy of the series. Featuring quite a few characters with different points of views that I really enjoyed. A few of them are a bit forgettable, but the overall product was great!

This one explored quite a bit of how faith and religion have changed in this future, it features themes of revenge and redemption, with some chapters being done from the point of view of the main “antagonist” that causes the conflict of the whole thing.

The science at hand and the catastrophes that go one during this finale are just awesome, lots of great scenes and revelations that completely change the status quo of Human society until then, as interstellar colonization becomes available to Humanity for the first time.

The Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie

Start: 2025-01-02 End: 2025-01-28

This was an amazing read full of twists and turns, where Poirot has to solve yet another murder mystery.

Featuring a fun Sherlock Holmes parody, a romantic subplot and many many twists and turns that made me unable to follow up on who had done it.

I loved the contrast between Poirot’s methods and the ones his rival does, looking for fingerprints and the like, and of course, reading along with @isa was super fun.

Cibola Burn by James S.A. Corey

Start: 2025-03-17 End: 2025-05-05 Series: The Expanse #4

Before any paperwork or treaties can be made to control who gets to visits the new worlds, a rogue ship has decided to colonize one of the new planets Humanity has access to.

After a company gets permission to get into the same planet and sent a ship to mine its resources and claim them as their own, conflict ensues, and Holden is tasked to step in and resolve them.

Of course, things don’t go very well when alien technology starts to show up. I loved the build-up of this one, the absolutely catastrophe and implications of how the plot unfolds. Really awesome start to this trilogy.

The Space Merchants by C.M. Kornbluth & Frederik Pohl

Start: 2025-02-17 End: 2025-05-09

This was a fantastic one! A classic piece of science fiction satire where we follow the life of a copysmith workin in the marketing industry, tasked with convincing the world to colonize Venus. Mitchell Courtenay is on its way to the top of the company, but he ends up betrayed by a rival, his identity is lost and he’s sent to prison, I mean, to work and live the life of a consumer, enslaved by contracts and debt.

Our protagonist will try everything to get back on track, even joining a resistance to the consumerist propaganda machine, all to get back to his rightful place. A lot of facets of society are explored in this dystopian future—that isn’t far from reality at this point—and I absolutely loved it once it got going.

There are certainly some dated aspects about it, but the story is tight and entertaining and rather thought-provoking, one of the highlights of the year!

The Big Time by Fritz Leiber

Start: 2025-05-09 End: 2025-06-17

This was definitely the weirdest read of the year, featuring a super strange cast of characters in a rather unique setting. It is the weirdest, most mixed book of the bunch I read this year.

Featuring a cast of characters from different time periods and species, during a war across time between the Spiders and the Snakes—two factions that we know very little about. The war stays in the background, as the actual story happens in a pocket of time where soldiers go to rest and recover. The protagonist works providing that relief, as a friend, a nurse, an escort and the like. Suddenly, this pocket of time gets “stuck”, and the device that controls this is stolen, as an atomic bomb starts ticking. And now we are in a detective story!

Honestly, this was fun, but a pain to read, the style and prose is absolutely painful and dated, every character speaks according to their time period and stuff, it was bizarre, but not bad.

Nemesis Games by James S.A. Corey

Start: 2025-06-17 End: 2025-09-03 Series: The Expanse #5

The story continues and this time all of our protagonists are split apart! Everyone goes on to their own adventures and journeys, facing different problems that will eventually bring them all back together.

As Humanity is eager to embark on to new planets and reach new frontiers, lots of different events begin to unfold, a plot against Holden, against Earth, against Mars and the OPA, that plans to shake the very foundations of mankind.

I absolutely love the political intrigue and the family drama that happens on this one, I was on the edge of my seat as the dangers faced by each and everyone of the Rocinante’s crew grew bigger every second. This was a terrifying entry in the series, and genuinely intense. Lovely stuff.

All Systems Red by Martha Wells

Start: 2025-08-28 End: 2025-09-04 Series: The Murderbot Diaries #1

As I waited for my Book Club friends to finish up reading The Expanse, I got the Martha Wells Humble Bundle which came with all the Murderbot books. As I saw most are novellas, I decided to give them a go.

This was a lovely action thriller science fiction story introducing us to Murderbot, an android tasked with protecting humans, that managed to jailbreak himself and become free to do whatever he wants. However, he keeps pretending to be just a “SecUnit” and just sticks to watching TV Shows and other media on his free time, interacting as little as possible with his human clients.

At some points things go wrong and he ends up having to save humans who actually care about him as a person, which makes it so he has mixed feelings about life now! A fun read with lots some good actions moments, but more of an introduction to be honest.

Artificial Condition by Martha Wells

Start: 2025-09-05 End: 2025-09-09 Series: The Murderbot Diaries #2

The second book with Murderbot details how he escapes from the humans that liked it because it’s insecure about himself or something.

There’s also the introduction of ART, a super cool smart AI that helpes Murderbot to blend in as a regular-looking human, even causing hair growth and stuff with some advanced code stuff.

Anyway I actually forgot what the exact plot of this one is, but I remember the relationship between Murderbot and ART being absolutely hilarious to read. I think there was not as much action on this one, I may be incorrect, good short story.

Hollow Knight - Wanderer’s Journal by Ryan Novak & Kari Fry

Start: 2025-09-16 End: 2025-09-16

In the middle of my reading, there was an obsession with Hollow Knight brewing within me, so I had to order this super neat physical book that featured a lot of art of the game and some nice tidbits of lore. I read the whole thing from start to finish in one day, since there was not a lot of text, featuring more drawings, maps and the like.

I can’t really say much more, there is not a lot of new lore that you can’t find from the wiki page or from YouTube videos, but the finish and the design of the book itself is top notch and it was absolutely worth the purchase given the quality of the materials and printing. An absolutely lovely collector’s item, in my opinion.

Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells

Start: 2025-09-09 End: 2025-09-19 Series: The Murderbot Diaries

After meeting ART and continuing his escape from his human friends. Murderbot decides to infiltrate somewhere and actually maybe help his human friends who got in trouble because of his escape.

So he ends up infiltrating as a Security Consultant for an interesting group, featuring a Robot “pet” who is actually the friend of a human who treats her with respect and as an equal. There’s quite an interesting contrast going on here that makes for both wholesome and very funny moments.

The action goes up a notch as well! Which I really enjoyed.

Babylon’s Ashes by James S.A. Corey

Start: 2025-09-25 End: 2025-10-17 Series: The Expanse #6

And at last, the last Expanse book I read in the year, and the conclusion to the second trilogy of the series. Once again, the conflict continues to focus on Humanity and how everything the series has built upon thus far is changing the way society works.

After a new military power arises, old enemies have to become allies and work together for once. Holden and the crew will also face their own difficulties, with old enemies joining in as well.

This book picks up with a mystery setup since the previous one, and it does so masterfully. I really enjoyed the new character dynamics and how it set everything in place while giving closure to many characters as well. It was fantastic, even if I could already tell how it would end like 10 chapters in advance.

Overscan by Nicholas Bernard

Start: 2025-09-02, End: 2025-10-20

This was an amazing collaborative effort between multiple authors who worked together to make a small collection of short stories. The whole anthology, whose subtitle is Stories from Beyond the Screen’s Edge, was simply a joy to read. I read half of them in one day, and I would have done them all in one sitting if it wasn’t because I’m a professional procrastinator. I will actually read it again and write a proper review soon, because this book deserves it.

I got it physically as a chapbook, and despite some quality issues, the book is just cozy to have in such a state. Definitely worth a read. Not just because it’s a small indie publisher, but because it’s a genuinely thought-provoking collection of human stories, standing up against the AI dystopia we live in today.

Reading per month

Looking at a table of these stats is quite eye opening to be honest, you can easily see how badly I fell during many months, but at the same time, I don’t feel terrible about it, when combined with the manga and the videogames I enjoyed as well! I could have finished at least three more books if I had procrastinated less, but such is life sometimes.

From worst to best

These would be my picks from least to most favorite books, by the way! You should keep in mind I absolutely enjoyed each and every one of these reads, except for maybe the very last one that I actually listened to instead.

In any case, here’s my ranking!

• The Big Time was just too convoluted and weird and difficult to read even if it’s interesting.
• All Systems Red is a good entry to the series but not that good on its own.
• Wanderer’s Journal was a beautiful physical book with great art with not a lot of value as a text.
• Rogue Protocol great continuation but it doesn’t feature ART in it. Enjoyable tho
• The Murder on the Links was just a fun page turner and really entertaining, but not as good as the next stuff.
• Artificial Condition is incredibly fun, featuring the best side character, ART, who made me actually laugh many times. Can’t help but love it.
• Cibola Burn felt like the weakest Expanse for me, the scale of everything going on felt too low, but it’s the start of a new trilogy, so it’s understandable. Also too many characters.
• Babylon’s Ashes was fantastic but I could easily tell how things would get solved, it was nice and exciting in the moment though, and the tension and drama were still top notch.
• Overscan may be short, but it sure is awesome, I am even rereading it right now for my proper review.
• The Space Merchants is my favourite standalone book this year, and an incredible satire that deserves a read even today, more than 70 years later.
• Abaddon’s Gate was a wonderful conclusion to the first trilogy, I just loved the tension at every moment! The Expanse kept getting better and better.
• Nemesis Games was simply fantastic, how everything built up and came together, the scale of the event even when it was a purely human conflict, absolutely thrilling, definitely my favorite of the year and maybe the series too.

Books left unfinished

I started a few pages of the following books, and I did enjoy some of them, but for one reason or another I dropped them I didn’t read more than a couple chapters on each, so I’ll happily resume some of them if I have the time, I just need to get over my reading slump.

• Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi - I acquired the Humble Bundle, and I know the author is rather active on the Fediverse, I remember hearing about this one a while back on a video from HexDSL, when he still did content from time to time. I enjoyed what I read, some day I’ll return.
• Perelandra by C.S. Lewis - I completely adored Out of the Silent Planet back in the day, and I thought I’d continue the series, but adding a third series to my agenda proved too much for me.
• The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle - This was the choice for a book club I joined, one I was interested on, but
• A Short History of the World by H.G. Wells - I listened to the audiobook of this in the Boring Books for Bedtime podcast, it wasn’t boring at all, but the voice was easy to sleep to.
• The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald - A book mentioned by Amin a while back, it seemed interesting and the prose was nice, but I just read other things and forgot about it.

Physical Books

I grew my physical collection quite a bit this year, even though I didn’t add many of them to my reading list online, I had pics to remind myself I got them, so here’s a list of all the books I acquired in 2025.

• Abbadon’s Gate by James S.A. Corey
• Hunter x Hunter Vol 38 by Yoshihiro Togashi
• The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
• Animal Farm by George Orwell
• Overscan by Nicholas Bernard
• Father’s Day by Sefton Eisenhart
• Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
• Foundation by Isaac Asimov
• Foundation & Empire by Isaac Asimov
• Second Foundation by Isaac Asimov
• Robot Dreams by Isaac Asimov

Finishing thoughts

Overall, I’m happy with all I’ve managed when it comes to reading, given my focus ended up being somewhere else for most of the year. I want to improve during 2026, even though January was kind of a weak start, especially compared to how nicely I did early last year.

This recap has a bit of everything, it wasn’t as well planned and I kept adding sections I thought were fun, but well, it’s all kinda interesting, I’d say!

In any case, I enjoyed all of what I read, fantastic books and series so far, I had a good time, even if it wasn’t as much.

This is day 12 of #100DaysToOffload