#180 The ten best SF books I read in 2025

It's time for the final episode of 2025! Find out which were the top 10 science fiction books I read over the course of the year, along with five honourable mentions. Plus, a brief reflection on how the year has gone, some plans for 2026, and a thank you to everyone who has listened, shared, and got in touch over the last 12 months. And: corny sound effects!

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Transcript

It has been a successful year for Classic SF with Andy Johnson. I was able to publish 42 podcast episodes over the year, most of them audio versions of published articles. Without getting too inside baseball about it, podcast downloads doubled in 2025, and website visits more than doubled. Reaching more people who are interested in classic science fiction is a good thing in itself and these numbers are a good foundation to build on. With that being said, really connecting with others is more important and I want to go much further in that during 2026 - more on that, later.

I read at a very similar rate to last year, and got through about the same number of books. As planned, I explored more deeply into the work of writers like Bob Shaw, Robert Silverberg, and Liu Cixin. I continued to broaden my familiarity with classic SF by women, focusing particularly on Margaret St. Clair and also having first encounters with the work of Connie Willis, Joan D. Vinge, and Justina Robson.

While I will conclude with some rough plans for next year, what follows is the main event: my top ten SF reads of 2025 in no particular order, with an intermission consisting of five honourable mentions.

Pavane (1968) by Keith Roberts

In an alternate 20th century, Britain is dominated from Rome by the Catholic Church and technological progress is forbidden by papal edict.

Pavane is one of the most acclaimed British SF books of the 1960s and deservedly so. Like two other books on this list, it is not a true novel but rather a collection of linked stories in a shared setting. Editor and critic David Pringle aptly described the stories as “masterpieces in miniature”. Of the six stories, five were originally published in Impulse during 1966 and proved highly popular with readers. All set in a brilliantly imagined alternate Dorset, the stories have a striking intensity and a moving mix of struggle, tragedy, and hope

Roberts’ vividly realised characters struggle to survive in a society frozen by religious dogma, and some even strive to change it. Collectively, the Pavane stories depict a very gradual thawing in the frozen edifice of religious stricture, and it is handled very gracefully. The divisive coda exposes Roberts’ deeply conservative view of the world, perhaps to the book’s detriment, but few writers in the genre have written prose at this level. Hear lots more detail about these stories in episode 139.

Dreamsnake (1978) by Vonda N. McIntyre

In a desolate post-nuclear world, a healer struggles to replace an alien snake which forms  an essential part of her medical practice.

Can it be that a novel which won the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Awards for Best Novel can go under-recognised? The example of Dreamsnake suggests that it can. A lengthy period spent out of print will not have helped McIntyre’s excellent second novel, which shares a post-apocalyptic setting with her debut, The Exile Waiting (1975).

What I think makes Dreamsnake special is that rich post-nuclear setting, and the very human interactions and entanglements that drive its plot. The healer, named Snake, is a likeable presence but not a perfect or infallible one. Her quest to replace her enigmatic alien dreamsnake engagingly encompasses several discoveries about the nature of her fallen world. Dreamsnake stands comparison with the best work of Ursula K. Le Guin - who praised the novel - and that is no mean feat. This novel was covered in episode 142.

Icehenge (1984) by Kim Stanley Robinson

Hundreds of years in the future, humans have colonised much of the solar system and can live for up to three centuries. A strange structure on Pluto is at the centre of a mystery.

This fairly early book by KSR is a collection - it comprises three dense, well-realised novellas, two of which had been published previously. One of the novellas was read and edited by Le Guin, who led a workshop that Robinson attended in 1977. Linked in intriguing ways, the stories are rich with themes of revolution, the struggle for historical truth, and the implications of greatly increased human lifespans. Robinson’s characters struggle to understand and improve the world, and meet resistance from entrenched bureaucracies, jealously guarding their power over the narrative.

What struck me most about Icehenge is the contested nature of truth, a theme which runs through all of the stories and which feels particularly relevant now, in a scrambled era of misinformation driven by political cynicism and corporate greed. While it deals with big philosophical ideas, Icehenge consistently feels human and is a good introduction to Robinson for those who might find his sprawling Mars trilogy a bit too imposing. I covered Icehenge in episode 146.

Flowers for Algernon (1966) by Daniel Keyes

A young man is recruited into a scientific project which massively increases his intelligence to genius levels - and reshapes his view of himself and the world.

Daniel Keyes wrote very few novels, but his one science fiction book remains an enduring classic which has been adapted to the screen multiple times. Inspired by his time working as a teacher, Flowers for Algernon is a moving exploration of the theme of intelligence. Through the life of test subject Charlie Gordon, Keyes invites readers to consider what value intelligence really has, especially when weighed against compassion. Charlie is an intensely sympathetic character, even as his transformation causes him to treat others poorly. 

With its down-to-Earth contemporary setting, the novel is a good introduction for new readers of SF, and a fine example of its imaginative and emotive potential. Keyes cleverly constructs the novel in the form of a diary written by Charlie, and his style of writing shifts with his rise in intelligence and changing perspective on life.  I covered the genesis and themes of this novel more thoroughly in episode 148.

Crash (1973) by J. G. Ballard 

In West London in the early 1970s, James Ballard becomes entangled with a loose group of damaged individuals who establish a bizarre new sexuality focused on car crashes.

A truly extraordinary novel, Crash is a harrowing odyssey into the “inner space” of people whose minds and sex lives have been warped by road traffic accidents. While a character named after Ballard is the protagonist, the real centre of the story is Vaughn, the “nightmare angel of the expressways”, who longs to die in a head-on collision with Elizabeth Taylor. Crash can be readily claimed for science fiction, dealing as it does with the way technology can alter human perceptions and corrupt our sense of self. 

The novel is not conventionally “believable”, but like a nightmare it does not need to be in order to thoroughly disturb. A violent conflagration of all of Ballard’s personal obsessions and with prose as sharp as broken glass, Crash is a truly transgressive and legitimately shocking book. If anything, it is even more powerful today, as our lives are even more thoroughly mediated by technology than they were in 1973. A deeper look at this world of automotive perversion can be heard in episode 149.

Honourable mentions

In 2025 I continued my stately journey through Iain M. Banks’ Culture series by tackling Look to Windward (2000), the sixth novel. Set largely on Masaq’ orbital, it represents a close look at the Culture through the eyes of outsiders - including members of the Homomdan and Chelgrian species. It’s a vivid, moving space opera written as only Banks could.

The Cloud Walker (1978) by Edmund Cooper is an interesting counterpoint to Pavane - it is also set in a world of religious strictures against technology, but Cooper crafts a stirring adventure which is a far cry from Roberts’ more subtle approach. Technology runs riot in The Reproductive System (1968), the debut novel by the largely UK-based US writer John Sladek and my first experience with his anarchic, comic work. Two other 1960s novels nearly made the top ten this year. Way Station (1963) by Clifford D. Simak is a warmly humane fable, in which an immortal veteran of the Civil War holds Earth’s future in his hands. Finally, I thoroughly enjoyed Alexei Panshin’s debut novel Rite of Passage (1968), a coming-of-age story which is rich with allusions about colonial exploitation still relevant today.

The Shadow Hunter (1982) by Pat Murphy

A wealthy mogul who has funded the development of a time machine accidentally scoops a Neanderthal into the 21st century. 

Pat Murphy’s The Falling Woman (1986) is a fantasy novel so good that I included it on my top ten list for 2024, which otherwise consisted only of SF books. The Shadow Hunter is science fiction through and through, and may be even better. This is a “timescoop” novel, in which a time machine is not used to travel in time, but rather to force others to do so. A Neanderthal boy, called Sam by his relatively benign captors, is brought forwards instead of the formidable bear he was hunting. 

In the hands of other writers, Sam would likely gradually come to terms with the 21st century world, and meekly offer some of his prehistoric wisdom in exchange. Instead, Murphy’s novel uses the boy’s presence as an indictment of a wasteful, ruinous future society, which has largely obliterated nature in the pursuit of comfort and profit. Sam remains in the preserve created for the extinct animals his benefactors were searching for - there is no place for him in a world of glass and steel. Episode 157 is a deeper dive into Murphy’s excellent debut novel.

Non-Stop (1958) by Brian Aldiss

A primitive community eke out a living in a structure dominated by vigorous, encroaching plants. Gradually, they begin to uncover the mystery of where they really are.

Easily one of the most auspicious debut novels in British science fiction, Non-Stop put Brian Aldiss on the map immediately. As the US title Starship made abundantly clear, this is a generation ship novel - specifically, the type in which the characters learn to their shock that they are, and have always been, living aboard a spacecraft. Aldiss’ protagonist, Roy Complain, is no saint but we are readily drawn along with him as he unravels the various mysteries of his environment, including the endlessly propagating plants that choke the corridors, and the giants that stalk his people.

Non-Stop is a chain of archetypal conceptual breakthroughs, each revelation shifting and expanding Roy’s view of his world - and of his place in it. This is a good demonstration of what makes print SF so special. I got into the weeds of Non-Stop in episode 164.

The Three-Body Problem (2008) by Liu Cixin (trans. Ken Liu)

During the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, an astrophysicist makes contact with an alien species. Decades later, others realise an interstellar conflict is inevitable.

One of China’s most prominent SF writers, Liu Cixin last published a novel in 2010. Since then he has enjoyed huge retroactive success as his novels and stories have been widely translated, awarded, and adapted for the screen. Liu has been called China’s answer to Arthur C. Clarke, and with good reason. His characters are many but thin, and what his plots lack in pace they make up for in vast scale and bold ideas that grasp at old-school “sensawunda”. Quite cleverly adapted by Netflix, The Three-Body Problem is a case in point. 

This is easily the most flawed novel here - its science is dubious, for example, and the virtual reality sections are tiresome - but Liu’s story rattles along at a satisfying pace and he frequently delivers brash setpieces, twists and turns. Liu’s short fiction delivers his strengths in more concentrated bursts, but this novel became an unlikely best-seller for good reasons. 

Swastika Night (1937) by Murray Constantine (Katharine Burdekin)

Seven centuries ago, Nazi Germany triumphed in a world war. Now, society is a hollowed-out husk without joy or culture - but a tiny shred of hope is maintained.

The story of the publication of Swastika Night is easily more interesting than the plot of the novel itself. Written in 1935 and published in 1937, this startlingly unique book predicted a world war with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, and foresaw a version of the atrocities perpetrated by Hitler and his acolytes. Credited to the pseudonym “Murray Constantine”, it was actually written by the British writer Katharine Burdekin, a fact which was revealed only in 1985, two decades after her death.

While it is hardly a page-turner, and is intensely depressing, Swastika Night is fascinating in its own, grim way. It depicts a Germany which represents the logical endpoint of fascism - a totally corrupt society without creativity, compassion, or any kind of future. In its depiction of a sickeningly misogynist scenario, this is also a key work of feminist science fiction, an early precursor to better known books by Margaret Atwood and Suzette Haden Elgin. It is also a sadly timely reminder of why fascism must be smashed, wherever it rears its head. This chilling novel is the subject of episode 174.

The World Inside (1971) by Robert Silverberg

In 2381, procreation is prized above all. Immense “urbmons” house 800,000 citizens each. Under this population pressure, a small number of individuals begin to crack.

One of my aims for 2025 was to read more Silverberg, and over the course of the year I have tackled six of his books. Of those, I have covered three - The Masks of Time (1968), The Second Trip (1971), and the one which I found most interesting, The World Inside (1971). This is another set of linked stories, all set in the vastly overpopulated world of the 24th century. The massive, claustrophobic “urban monads” or “urbmons” are a clear precursor for the teeming blocks of Mega-City One, and Silverberg explores some themes later confronted by Judge Dredd - albeit in a very different way.

The World Inside does not linger on how a society obsessed with population growth came to be, but rather focuses on what such a world does to the people who live in it. The stories emerge at the margins, hinging on characters who - gradually or suddenly - begin to find life in this pressure cooker of overcrowding intolerable. One in particular, an engineer with access to critical systems, gets a glimpse of another way of living which is a finely wrought conceptual breakthrough. I took a closer look at The World Inside in episode 156.

Plans for 2026

The big thing for me in early 2026 is that I will be publishing a book. It is not about science fiction, but has been a lengthy project - some parts of the text, now heavily revised, were originally written in 2013. While it may be of interest to few people who follow Classic SF, be warned that you will be hearing about it. If you find it interesting, I’d be very grateful if you could help spread the word nearer the time.

In terms of Classic SF with Andy Johnson, I hope to maintain an almost-weekly schedule of new articles and podcast episodes next year. I have few specific plans, but will continue my coverage of the Culture series with Matter (2008). My main goal for 2026 is to connect with other fans of classic science fiction. The rapid, sad degradation of online spaces makes this kind of connection more challenging than ever, but I will be doing what I can. What I will say is that hearing from readers via comments on the site, or via email, YouTube, or text, is always a pleasure and I hope you will be in touch next year.

Lastly, a heartfelt thank you to everyone who read the site, listened to the podcast, shared things on Bluesky, or got in touch during 2025. It is much appreciated and I look forward to connecting with you in 2026!