Starting off 2026

…with think­ing about some high­lights of 2025!

I real­ize it’s been over three years since I’ve post­ed here. Like any per­son­al site, it’s not that noth­ing of note has hap­pened. Rather, that so much has hap­pened I just haven’t got­ten around to writ­ing here. With­out any fur­ther lin­ger­ing on that, here are a few of my favorite things from 2025.

Music

• Rivers of Nihil — self-titled fifth album. I got the chance to see this band live back in June as well as meet them before the show. A real­ly great bunch of guys and such a tight show. Yes, this is the met­al band that also has sax­o­phone. Sounds crazy but it real­ly works. This album was more prog-met­al and the sax­o­phone real­ly just fits.
• Die Close by Blood Vul­ture — I heard about this group from Gina Glea­son of Baroness, who sings some back­ground on the album. The band is the brain­child of Jor­dan Olds, who hots the met­al show Two Min­utes to Late Night. It’s the­atri­cal and weird and shows off Olds’ love of all kinds of metal.
• Some­thing to Con­sume by Die Sptiz — This all-female band from Austin, TX has a mas­sive, pow­er­house sound. Com­bin­ing met­al and punk this album was released by Third Man Records, which is prob­a­bly where I heard about them. Their per­for­mance on KEXP is amazing.
• The Bes­tiary by Cas­tle Rat — A band who appar­ent­ly decid­ed to make a Frank Franzetta paint­ing come to life as their live show. But it’s not all just chain mail biki­nis; these guys also chan­nel some clas­sic Black Sab­bath sound for some great pow­er metal.
• AVTT/PTTN by The Avett Broth­ers and Mike Pat­ton — See, it’s not all met­al! I have no idea why these guys decid­ed to get togeth­er to make an album. But Mike Pat­ton’s crazy vocal and musi­cal range appar­ent­ly extends to alt. coun­try, as this just works. The first sin­gle they releas­es, “Heav­en’s Breath,” just dug into me and stuck.

Reading

I got my 36 books for the year on Goodreads done just yes­ter­day, so down to the wire. But there were some great things out this year.

• Dun­geon Crawler Carl by Matt Din­ni­man — Yes, this was all over every nerd’s read­ing list in the past cou­ple of years. I lis­tened to sev­en (yes, sev­en!) audio­books in the series between May and Sep­tem­ber. Hon­est­ly, it should­n’t work. It’s a goofy con­cept. But it does work and it’s a hel­lu­va lot of fun.
• A Drop of Cor­rup­tion by Robert Jack­son Ben­nett — This is the sec­ond in a new series and I love the char­ac­ters of Ana Dolabra and Din­ios Kol. They’re cer­tain­ly a weird fan­ta­sy ver­sion of Sher­lock and Wat­son but the world RJB has them liv­ing in is high fan­ta­sy that dips into The New Weird.
• Shroud by Adri­an Tchaikovsky — I just don’t know how Tchaikovsky does it. He keeps writ­ing amaz­ing new alien worlds each weird­er than the last and some­how makes it even more intrigu­ing than before. He is def­i­nite­ly one of this gen­er­a­tion’s greats. 
• The Adven­ture of the Demon­ic Ox and Tes­ti­mo­ny of Mute Things by Lois McMas­ter Bujold — Speak­ing of this gen­er­a­tion’s greats, get­ting two new Pen­ric and Des­de­mona novel­las with­in just a few months of one anoth­er was a real treat. Bujold remains my favorite liv­ing writer.
• Nine Gob­lins by T. King­fish­er — Anoth­er pro­lif­ic author who seems to write across the gen­res of fan­ta­sy and hor­ror, this was an excel­lent novel­la and a unique take on some fan­ta­sy tropes of gob­lins, trolls, elves, and wizards.

Movies and TV

• Super­man — James Gunn saw the poten­tial for how a sto­ry about a ide­al­is­tic Boy Scout and immi­grant try­ing to fight a mega­lo­ma­ni­ac bil­lion­aire would res­onate and he made it work. Gunn kept true to his punk rock roots and remind­ed us all what punk is real­ly all about.
• Wake Up Dead Man — Rian John­son is a mas­tery of mod­ern mys­tery and crime (I’m more crit­i­cal of his abil­i­ty to make a Star Wars movie, but Brick remains an amaz­ing film). This movie is of course an alle­go­ry for our cur­rent polit­i­cal state. Just as impor­tant­ly, though, the sto­ry pro­vides an irrev­er­ent take on what it tru­ly means to be a Chris­t­ian today. 
• Preda­tor: Bad­lands — Dan Tra­cht­en­berg con­tin­ues his streak of amaz­ing Preda­tor films. What’s impor­tant to note: his movies would be great even if the preda­tor was replaced by a per­son (or, in the case of Prey, maybe a bear). Because he tells a com­pelling sto­ry and mix­es gen­res. This is just a great bud­dy adven­ture movie where nei­ther of the bud­dies are human.
• KPop Demon Hunters — Much like Preda­tor: Bad­lands, this works because the cre­ator earnest­ly want­ed to tell a sto­ry and took the work seri­ous­ly, with­out tak­ing them­selves too seri­ous­ly. Some amaz­ing songs, so many Kore­an cul­tur­al East­er eggs, and a heart-warm­ing sto­ry. Watch it and you’ll be hum­ming “Gold­en” over-and-over.
• Alien Earth — Yes, we got two amaz­ing Preda­tor and Alien works in the same year. This show was weird and awe­some. It took some very unex­pect­ed turns and I’m so glad it’s com­ing back for at least anoth­er sea­son (at least, as of now it is). 
• Mur­der­bot — Martha Wells’ awe­some books (can hard­ly wait for the next one this year!) had a pitch-per­fect TV adap­tion. I hat­ed that it was only 30-minute episodes, but each packed a lot and I guess that’s what you have to do with the rel­a­tive­ly short source mate­r­i­al (at least, if one book equates to one sea­son as it was only a novella).
• Andor — I think any best-of-2025 list would have to include this show; no mat­ter what genre or even medi­um. Andor was sim­ply one of the most amaz­ing pieces of art avail­able in the past year. It was a stun­ning and rel­e­vant polit­i­cal dra­ma. The cast, direc­tors, and writ­ers were sim­ply amaz­ing in every episode.
• The Res­i­dence was great and I hate that it’s not com­ing back. Uzo Adu­ba is ter­rif­ic in this role. We did lose Julian McMa­hon and more recent­ly, Isi­ah Whit­lock, Jr. in 2025 so maybe it’s fit­ting the show end­ed after just one season.

Some addi­tion­al men­tions: I sus­pect I can add Plur1bus and Stranger Things Sea­son 5 to this list, but I haven’t actu­al­ly fin­ished them yet so it would­n’t be fair for me to do so. How­ev­er, so far they’ve been top-notch. Sim­i­lar­ly, The Amer­i­can Rev­o­lu­tion is a mas­ters-lev­el class in his­to­ry for all of us, but I haven’t fin­ished and am def­i­nite­ly not ready for the final exam! Last­ly, Fall­out is shap­ing up to have anoth­er great sea­son and be prob­a­bly the sin­gle best adap­tion of a video game to film ever. 

We live in a gold­en age for tele­vi­sion sto­ry telling, for sure.

Closing

2025 was­n’t all ros­es, for sure. It’s not been enjoy­able at all to watch my coun­try walk itself into a fas­cist dic­ta­tor­ship. It’s real­ly touch to watch the fall­out this has for so many peo­ple in this coun­try. I real­ized long ago there’s a high cor­re­la­tion between “tough times” and escapist enter­tain­ment. So despite hav­ing real­ly enjoyed the above music, books, film, and tele­vi­sion, I guess I’d be ok if 2026 was more bor­ing in those depart­ments if it meant get­ting back to a bet­ter place to live.