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2025 Year In Review

It's time for a 2025 Year in Review! The immediacy of social media means important posts are quickly forgotten in favor of the Next New Thing, and I think it's important to pause every now and then and celebrate the many good things that happened as the year flew by.

I published 2 novels: THE UNIVERSE WITHIN (wrapping up the Cosmic Shores trilogy of stand-alone sci-fi adventure novels) and LIMINAL SPACE (the first book in the final trilogy of the Amaranthe universe).

THE THIEF was a rock-star of a novel this year, winning the Indie Author Project Sci-Fi Book of the Year and being named one of the best Alien Sci-Fi Novels of the Year by Discover Sci-Fi. (Yes, yes, and there was a tiny kerfuffle around the SPSFC in which The Thief was thrust into a semi-starring role. Let me tell you, going viral on X is not for the faint of heart....)

Five of my short stories landed on the moon! Thanks to the incredible Lunar Codex project and Firefly Aerospace and Intuitive Machines' groundbreaking missions, "Apogee," "Solatium," "Venatoris," "Re/Genesis" and "Chrysalis" will reside forever in the stars.

I was a Pro at Dragon Con again this year, speaking on some fascinating panels, selling books and meeting awesome readers and authors at what is seriously the craziest geek con on the planet. I also attended Lilac City Comicon and the Local Author Celebration by the Community Library Network, fulfilling a promise to myself to put down roots in my new Inland Northwest home by getting involved in the regional author community.

Oh, and I sold my 700,000th story. Thank you, all of you, for enabling me to do what I love!

Favorite book I read this year? House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds; I deeply love that book. But it was a reread, so favorite first-time read of the year? Probably Ancilliary Justice by Ann Leckie; it deserves all the accolades it received. Favorite non-fiction? The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos by Brian Greene; the prospect of multiverses is real science, guys.

Favorite video game? Baldur's Gate 3, again. It should be Clair Obscur, but I disliked the narrative rug-pull at the end. Also, Kingdoms Reborn turned out to be a delightful city-builder of a game!

What about 2026? THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING will definitely release, and I'll start writing NAKED SINGULARITY, the final novel in the 25-book Amaranthe saga (* sobs *). More regional author events are on tap, including my first time appearing at Emerald City Comicon in Seattle. I believe there's another lunar landing or two (or...four??) on the schedule, too.

I'm genuinely happy with the year 2025 shaped up to be, and excited for the opportunities waiting to ambush me in 2026.

How about you? What were the highlights of your 2025?

Forge of God

Wow. This book. (Forgive the ratty, beat-up mass-market paperback, but used bookstores are awesome.) Yes, it took me until now to read it, and I regret that delay.

Haunting, at times grim and depressing (so be warned - this is not high action/adventure), but also an achingly beautiful love letter to our precious blue marble and the equally precious humans who inhabit it.

Nostalgia Portal

Amen to this! I bought literally hundreds, if not a thousand or more, books at Waldenbooks from the ages of 5 to 17 (or rather my wonderfully indulgent and supportive parents did)! And when Waldenbooks didn't have what I wanted, I went downstairs to B. Dalton - because my local mall had BOTH OF THEM.

Those were truly the salad days...

Source Tweet

“Heading to the mall today with my wife and many daughters.

I know they won’t be there, but I’d like to imagine that if I searched hard enough, I just might find a portal, or a secret door that leads to an area in the mall that has stores like this:”
— @EpicSoloGames

Mission Critical: Thoughts

I don't post about other books often, mostly because I fully appreciate that readers are a finnicky lot. You like what you like, and just because you like my books doesn't mean you'll like the books I choose to read. Go forth and make your own book choices!

But I'm going to mention the anthology I just finished, "MISSION CRITICAL," edited by Jonathan Strahan, for two reasons. One, I figure there's at least 1 or 2 stories in it that each of you will enjoy; two, a couple of the stories genuinely stoked my imagination.

The premise of the anthology is an exploration of what people will (or won't) do when everything goes wrong (in space), and their actions in the next seconds or minutes or hours will determine who lives and who dies.

I won't comment on the stories I didn't enjoy or were meh/forgettable, because, again, you may disagree. The ones I DID enjoy:

"The Empty Gun" by Yoon Ha Lee. It features an unlikable protagonist and a dark, doom-upon-the-world mood, yet it nonetheless struck a strong chord with me. While I've long been aware of Lee's acclaimed Machineries of Empire books, I've never read them - but when I finished this story I immediately went and purchased Ninefox Gambit.

"Something in the Air" by Carolyn Ives Gilman. This story takes a concept near and dear to my writer heart, our (limited) understanding of quantum indeterminacy and entanglement, and turns it right on its head. In the early pages I thought I saw clear as day where the story was going, and I was wrong. I do feel like it would work better as a novella, as the story was thin in several places, felt rushed and ultimately left so much on the table. But damn if it didn't get me thinking!

"Genesong" by Peter F. Hamilton. Everyone here knows I'm a Hamilton fan, but the interesting thing about this story is how un-Hamilton it is. He's known for his impressive worldbuilding and the epic scale of his stories - not for his stories' emotional depth or resonance. The technological premise did borrow a bit from his Edenists in The Night's Dawn trilogy, but the story was poignant and soulful, even downright heartbreaking. I know how tough it is to stray outside your writing comfort zone, so props to Mr. Hamilton.

"Lost in Splendor" by John Meaney. This one maybe wasn't as unique as the other three, but the GenGs reminded me a lot of the Prevos in Renegades, and Shep was a notably likeable protagonist. Also, silver spiders and golden monkeys....😵

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Originally posted on Facebook.