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Finished creating a list of books from Reactor Magazine Reviewers’ Choice: The Best Books of 2025. There's some pretty good stuff here, including this book.

On SFBA.club, the list can be found here, and I made sure the books have high-res covers and descriptions. YMMV on other servers. However, a lot of the books hadn't been added anywhere yet, so there's a decent chance the data I entered is copied to servers where accounts follow me.

@BEZORP whoa I didn't know this existed! audio-only! from 2020!! I love MRK's work, so very intrigued

This novel absolutely broke my heart, and it's so perfect for that. I feel like every Gatsby retelling I read, the more I love the guy and all is quirky charms. I'm not sure what's not to love about queer, cyberpunk Gatsby, so like, just read the book.

In all seriousness, I wrote a full review on my website because I got this book for review from NetGalley. Check that out for more coherence. It's linked in my profile.

@j12i@wyrms.de I really like this idea of separating out empires vs emperors; I feel like this is not something that I consider very much when reading and I think it's something for me to keep in mind.

(that said, I suspect Goblin Emperor will probably do quite a good job on this front)

@Tak@reading.taks.garden such a truth

(also thank you as always for all the quotes! they're always fun to see)

This is the final book in the first Foreigner trilogy, and to me is the most solid of the three in a lot of ways.

My favorite part of this book is that Jase from the ship has landed and is trying to fit into the Atevi world. When the series starts, we are already past the point where Bren has trained his entire life to be the paidhi but the language and culture is entirely new to Jase. Bren tries to acculturate Jase, but they are at such a disconnect socially and emotionally for most of the book. Jase wants some "humanity" from Bren, and there's some question of "how far" Bren has mentally adopted being Atevi and doesn't express emotions or even uses Atevi phrase constructions in English. The disconnect and Jase's anger dovetails so well with Jase having his own secrets and ship politics happening off page that it's quite effective.

My second favorite part of this book is probably the development of Bren's relationship with Jago, such as it is. Despite being such an Atevi communicator, there's still a large cultural gap about what this means to Jago, and she is also not willing to fill Bren or discuss it either. It's a nice parallel to the pitfalls that Bren falls in considering Atevi as "friends" or "liking" them. I complained about this a little in my review of the first book, in that I feel like this isn't a series about gender or biology, and I am always a little disappointed when "I am having an emotional and sexual relationship with an alien" gets glossed over when there should be so many rough edges. It feels a little too human with too much unsaid and too much working too easily.

Finally, I do feel a little here that this is another book where Bren does not have much agency. His role is to try to smooth tensions, get Jase up to speed, and to negotiate complicated nuanced politics with old school Tatiseigi who hates the way humans have corrupted Atevi. In the end, Bren pushes for a fishing trip that he has promised Jase, but it turns out that even this wasn't of his own design.

This is the second book in the first Foreigner trilogy, and one where Bren gets a little bit more agency than the first, where he is mostly kept in the dark.

It's a classic Foreigner book where the bulk of the book is careful, slowly building politics--internal Atevi ones, external mainland ones with Deana Hanks the temporary paidhi, and ones from the ship with its people imminently landing--all of which come together in a satisfying action sequence. I think this book is where the first trilogy really starts going, and sets up the third book which is probably my favorite of the three. It's the book where Bren starts to realize that his loyalty is truly more towards keeping the treaty and its peace than with the institute of his own state department that technically gives him the authority to do what he is doing.

I like the tension here with Bren's fiance Barb and the increasing romantic tension between Bren and Jago. Barb is absolutely incredibly emotionally immature, both pushing Bren away because the relationship is (understandably) not working for her but also asking for him back (because her new relationship isn't working either); I think it is a little over the top but it works because it's such a contrast with Atevi mindsets.

I said this in the first book, but I feel like this entire first trilogy is one where Illisidi is an independent wild card, where she has her own agenda and politics and Bren (and the reader) can never fully depend on her support and where her loyalties will lie.

Also extremely minor, but as touchpoints for future books, we also get our first pizza party, our first trip to the Taiben hunting lodge, and our first meeting with Tabini's fiancee Damiri.