Briardene Books

REVIEWS

1. Locus reviews, January 2025 (issue 768)
   1. Private Rites by Julia Armfield (online)
   2. Under the Eye of the Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami (online)
   3. Gliff by Ali Smith (online)
   4. Mechanize My Hands to War by Erin K. Wagner (online)
2. Locus reviews, February 2025 (issue 769)
   1. The Year in Review 2024 (online)
3. Locus reviews, March 2025 (issue 770)
   1. The Mune by Sue Dawes and The Hampdenshire Wonder by JD Beresford (online)
   2. A Thousand Blues by Cheon Seon-ran (online)
4. Locus reviews, April 2025 (issue 771)
   1. Where the Axe is Buried by Ray Nayler (online)
   2. Vanishing World by Sayaka Murata (online)
   3. A Granite Silence by Nina Allan (online)
5. Locus reviews, May 2025 (issue 772)
   1. Metallic Realms by Lincoln Michel (online)
   2. Portalmania by Debbie Urbanski (online)
   3. City of All Seasons by Oliver K. Langmead and Aliya Whiteley (online)
   4. Red Sword by Bora Chung (online)
6. Locus reviews, June 2025 (issue 773)
   1. This Is Not a Ghost Story by Amerie (online)
   2. The Book of Records by Madeleine Thien (online)
7. “Salt revisited” (On Briardene, 20 June 2025)
8. Locus reviews, July 2025 (issue 774)
   1. Minds in Transit by Joan Slonczewski (online)
   2. Moderation by Elaine Castillo (online)
   3. Animals by Geoff Ryman (online)
9. Review of Some Body Like Me by Lucy Lapinska (On Briardene, 11 July 2025)
10. Locus reviews, August 2025 (issue 775)
    1. The Island of Last Things by Emma Sloley (online)
    2. Moon Songs by Carol Emshwiller (online)
    3. These Memories Do Not Belong To Us by Yiming Ma (online)
11. Locus reviews, September 2025 (issue 776)
    1. Everything Will Swallow You by Tom Cox (online)
    2. Saltcrop by Yume Kitasei (online)
    3. The First Thousand Trees by Premee Mohamed (online)
    4. When There Are Wolves Again by E.J. Swift (online)
    5. The Creator by Aliya Whiteley (short take) (online)
12. Locus reviews, October 2025 (issue 777)
    1. The Other Shore by Rebecca Campbell (online)
    2. Archipelago of the Sun by Yoko Tawada (online)
    3. Sea Now by Eva Meijer (online)
    4. It’s Not A Cult by Joey Batey (online)
    5. The Wolf of Whindale by Jacob Kerr (online)
13. Locus reviews, November 2025 (issue 778)
    1. Between Worlds ed. Gautam Bhatia (online)
    2. The Works of Vermin by Hiron Ennes (online)
    3. The King Must Die by Kemi Ashing-Giwa (online)
    4. Helm by Sarah Hall
14. Locus reviews, December 2025 (issue 779)
    1. Ice by Jacek Dukaj
    2. Pedro the Vast by Simón López Trujillo
15. “The Pleasures of Reading, Viewing and Listening in 2025”, at Ambling Along the Aqueduct (18 December 2025)

STATS

I read 88 books in 2025, down one from last year, and I wrote about 50 (up from 29; note that there are reviews not listed above that have been written for the January and February issues of Locus). I think that was probably slightly too much writing, particularly given that a decent chunk of the other 38 books were background reading to support the reviews; I’d like a little more time to wander in 2026. I think I am settling into the column format a bit more, however, and was particularly happy with the April, September and October columns; also grateful that Locus allowed me to bust through their usual word counts in a couple of places (The Mune/Hampdenshire Wonder piece from March, and the review of Ice in the December issue). As individual reviews, I was also quite happy with the pieces on Private Rites, Gliff, Portalmania, and Moon Songs. As ever, some of my favourite books of the year were the hardest to write about, but hopefully the review of e.g. When There Are Wolves Again gets across my enthusiasm for it, if nothing else. I’m reasonably happy with the variety of books covered; I would like to cover more anthologies and short story collections, and maybe a bit more fantasy, but demographically I think then mix is about right. Maybe a few more different countries.

In the list below, the first percentage is for books-read, while the second is for books written-about right; take with a grain of salt given the fuzziness of identities and the imperfect precision of author biographies.

• Not by cis men: 55.1% / 67%
• By people of colour: 34.1% / 36.2%
• In translation: 17.0% / 19.1%
• Number of countries: 15 / 11
• Works published in 2025: 48.0% / 52.0% (counting translations as original year of publication)
• Nonfiction: 8% / 0%
• SF: 86% / 100% (roughly two-thirds science fiction)
• Graphic novels: 7% / 0%