2025 is the year that I didn’t write any stories nor poems. Fiction is difficult when reality has been stranger for quite some time. The news are increasingly depressing, and true class solidarity is nowhere in sight. Hope is scarce; I had to scrape every inch of it from the floor of Pandora’s box. Still, I find asylum in fiction and reading.

The fiction I read in 2025 is definitely more colorful than the year before. Nothing in this list has a similar country of origin. Beyond the list, even more so.

5. Termush by Sven Holm

This Danish science fiction reminds me of the bleakness of Northern-Eastern European writing that I found in works like Disco Elysium (Estonian game written by Robert Kurvitz) and Genanse og verdighet (Norwegian novel written by Dag Solstad). Maybe it’s the lack of sun, the cold weather, and the state of humanity observed from such a place.

This book follows the post-apocalyptic refugees who shelter at a luxury hotel called Termush. Control is the theme here. Termush’s staffs working overtime to ensure the experience despite the setting, and the ‘guests’ feel entitled to safety solely due to their wealth. This Cold War parable feels increasingly relevant with the current ever-increasing wealth gap phenomenon.

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4. Rumah dan Dunia by Rabindranath Tagore

I am always a fan of Bentang Budaya’s books. I treat the books like a treasure, since it is a treasure—they are particularly difficult books to find. Collectors or someone who deals with old books know their worth. Yet, sometimes, I found them at a thrift store for pennies! Lucky me! Through Bentang Budaya, I was introduced to Rabindranath Tagore.

It’s been almost four years since the last time I read Tagore. Every time I read one, it’s an instant favorite of mine for the whole month, if not the year. Rumah dan Dunia is truly a work of early post-colonization. The book depicts the rot of values, from either colonization or nation-building itself. The setting is not as grand nor as epic as the story follows a traditional Indian household at the early 20th century. Though it serves as a parable of the clashing ideologies at the time.

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3. Far Sector by Nora Keita Jemisin (Art by Jamal Campbell)

I thank Octavia Butler and Ursula Le Guin for introducing me to the spectrum of femme science fiction. If not for Butler, I wouldn’t know the ensnaring beauty of Afro-futurism. The writers who grew up with the genre now work in various media, including comics.

It is refreshing to be able to read the Far Sector story. This book reminds me of how tired the IP storytelling model of American comics is; it is still capable of churning out good stories with the right author. Far Sector is a murder-mystery/conspiracy story on a planet where three species had been living in harmony due to a post-war trauma and emotion-suppressing drugs. The story involves…everything; from trafficking to memes. It’s fairly unique compared to the other books I read this year, which includes Fables by Bill Willingham.

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2. Saha by Cho Nam-Joo

Along with Termush and the nonfiction I read in 2025, I think inequality has become the theme. Saha is an Orwellian story that hits too close to home, with a mega corporation dictating the lives of it’s denizens. Written by Cho Nam-joo, who also wrote Kim Ji-young, Born 1982, which help propels the 4B movement in South Korea.

This book is a great entry to a story about inequality that doesn’t come from drugged-out white men. It paints the nuance, the anxiety, and the sliver of silver lining of class solidarity well against the dystopian background.

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1. Notes of A Crocodile by Qiu Miaojin

I mourn the loss of life who can perceive human experience this beautifully. Notes of A Crocodile set after thirty eight years of martial law in Taiwan. The story follows a group of queer misfits living precariously through a transitional political setting. The prose here is an art, mixing self-inquiry through diary entry, a bunch of aphorisms, and satires to paint a queer coming-of-age story.

I thank the clerk (I forgot his name) at Post Santa for recommending such a blue and somber read. Aptly read at the end of the year, in the week before my birthday. Somehow, finding out that Miaojin took her life at such a young age, it aches my heart some more.

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I am grateful that 2025 was more colorful. 2026 needs to be more, maybe I should put up a map or something.