2025 looked, on the surface of it, like a quiet year for me. Less Tordotcom work and no new anthologies. In truth, I completed three anthologies, and two that were scheduled for October are now coming out in 2026.
Still it was a year when I edited two Subterranean Press novellas, two Tordotcom novellas, ten short stories for Reactor and Subterranean, and acted as reviews editor for Locus for the 23rd consecutive year. As a podcaster, I co-hosted and produced all of the 2025 episodes of The Coode Street Podcast.
Fiction edited in 2025
Novellas
- The Orb of Corraido, Katherine Addison, Subterranean Press, 2025
- At the Fount of Creation, Tobi Ogundiran, Tordotcom, 2025
- Making History, K.J. Parker, Tordotcom, 2025
- The Dagger in Vichy, Alastair Reynolds, Subterranean Press, 2025
Short fiction
- What I Saw Before the War, Alaya Dawn Johnson (Reactor, January 22, 2025)
- The Witch and the Wyrm, Elizabeth Bear (Reactor, February 26, 2025)
- After the Invasion of the Bug-Eyed Aliens, Rachel Swirsky (Reactor, March 19, 2025)
- Liberation, Tade Thompson (Reactor, April 16, 2025)
- Shorted, Alex Irvine (Reactor, July 30, 2025)
- Every Ghost Story, Natalia Theodoridou (Reactor, August 6, 2025)
- If a Digitized Tree Falls, Caroline M. Yoachim and Ken Liu (Reactor, September 10, 2025)
- Phantom View, John Wiswell (Reactor, October 22, 2025)
- Regarding the Childhood of Morrigan, Who Was Chosen to Open the Way, Benjamin Rosenbaum (Reactor, November 19, 2025)
- The Heart of the Reproach, Adrian Tchaikovsky (Subterranean, July 20, 2025)
Editor, Short-Form (Hugos)/Professional Achievement (WFA)
Best Fancast/Podcast
I hope you’ll consider supporting the talented people that I’ve worked with during the year.
the-king-must-die.jpgOur guest this week is the remarkable Kemi Ashing-Giwa, whose new novel The King Must Die is out in November. We talk about science fantasy—or whether genre labels mean much at all to the new generation of writers—her own influences, her well-received first novel, the space opera The Splinter in the Sky, and even her current scientific work on mass extinctions and the loss of her family home in the California wildfires earlier this year.
As always, our thanks to Kemi for making time to talk to us today, and we hope you enjoy the episode.
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Cover of All That We See or SeemThis week we have a lively conversation with the remarkable Ken Liu, whose new thriller All That We See or Seem introduces a new protagonist, the gifted hacker Julia Z, in a tale that explores the growing role of AI, the possibility of a technology of shared dreams, a variety of near-future surveillance tech, and some pretty fearful players with even more fearful schemes. A dramatic shift from his epic fantasy/historical world of the Dandelion Dynasty series or the earlier classic short stories, it seems to represent an exciting new dimension in Ken’s career.
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In a rare shorter episode, we chat about the late and much missed Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, with whom Jonathan and Gary had strangely similar encounters some years ago, and her early career as an SF writer before her decades-long success with her Saint-Germain series of vampire novels. That leads, briefly, to considering midlist vs. niche authors, before we get into some of the odd features of American copyright law as revealed by the recent Anthropic AI settlement.
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With Gary recently returned from Worldcon in Seattle, we chat a bit about the Hugos (mostly avoiding second-guessing the results), which leads to some discussion of the differences between Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards.
Jonathan raises an intriguing question about the novella category, with its rather reductive word-length definition of the form. But what, other than length, really distinguishes a novella from a short story or a novel?
We talk a bit about favorite novellas, and specifically a 2013 Locus survey in which readers voted on the best novellas from 2000-2010. Which of those would still make the list today, and how has Tordotcom’s program of standalone novellas affected our view of the form?
Of course, we ramble a bit about other matters and some interesting new and forthcoming books we’re excited about. Then, finally, we shut up.
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