I don’t read much science fiction these days, but this (if it really is SciFi) drew me in and hooked me almost immediately with its alternate universe and truly original storyline.
It’s funny that even though I don’t read much science fiction, my two top picks for 2025 are both SciFi. As with my first pick, I was totally pulled me in to the alternate universe. But I’m always drawn to compelling characters, and he may have been a bot, but the main character was delightfully human!
“Science fiction satire in the Vonnegut mold.”—Cory Doctorow
*SET TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE DIRECTED BY EDGAR WRIGHT (SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD)*
‘A beautiful, funny, heartfelt analysis of what it means to be human.’—Simon Pegg
‘One of the most unique books ever crafted.’—Mike Chen, author of A Beginning at the End
Set in a 2054 where humans have locked themselves out of the internet and Elon Musk has incinerated the moon, Set My Heart to Five is the hilarious yet profoundly moving story of one android’s emotional awakening.
I’m a big fan of Richard Russo. His characters always feel absolutely human, so much so that it’s easy to imagine meeting them in real life, assuming there is such a thing as real life! I could have chosen any of his books as one of my best of 2025, as I’ve read several this past year. But this was the most recent, so this became my choice.
One beautiful September day, three sixty-six-year-old men convene on Martha's Vineyard, friends ever since meeting in college in the 1960s. They couldn't have been more different then, or even today - Lincoln's a commercial real estate broker, Teddy a tiny-press publisher and Mickey an ageing musician. But each man holds his own secrets, in addition to the monumental mystery that none of them has ever stopped puzzling over since 1971: the disappearance of their friend Jacy. Now, decades later, the distant past interrupts the present as the truth about what happened to Jacy finally emerges, forcing the men to reconsider…
Esther and Sarah share a single passion: to be the best they can be – on an epic scale. That's easier dreamed than done in Jewish Montreal on the eve of World War II.
Fifty years later when death takes Esther, her son and her oldest friend must each decide whether Esther's abandoned dreams will defeat them or spur them on to triumphs of their own.
