A quick glance at some books coming in 2026. Every year ends up surprising and there are always books you expect to read but never get to, and books you planned to read that disappoint.

This list is simply a few books I’ve seen scheduled that I think could be interesting:

1. A Trace of Blood, Robert Jackson Bennett
2. To Ride a Rising Storm, Moniquill Blackgoose
3. The Subtle Art of Folding Space, John Chu
4. The Faith of Beasts, James S.A. Corey
5. Seasons of Glass and Iron, Amal El-Mohtar
6. She is Here, Nicola Griffith
7. Traitors’ Nest, Frances Hardinge
8. The Language of Liars, S.L. Huang
9. The Book of Bots, James Patrick Kelly
10. Sublimation, Isabel J Kim
11. Intergalactic Feast, Lavanya Lakshminarayan
12. Radiant Star, Ann Leckie
13. The Last Contract of Isako, Fonda Lee
14. Code and Codex, Yoon Ha Lee
15. The Passing of the Dragon and Other Stories, Ken Liu
16. Prescribed Burn, Arkady Martine
17. Loss Protocol, Paul McAuley
18. Boy, with Accidental Dinosaur, Ian McDonald
19. The Rouse, China Mieville
20. Wickhills, Premee Mohamed
21. Palaces of the Crow, Ray Nayler
22. Massif, Garth Nix
23. Season of the Serpent, Suyi Davies Okungbowa
24. Sister Svangerd and the Not Quite Dead, K.J. Parker
25. River of Bones and Other Sto­ries, Rebecca Roahorse
26. Frankenstein Rex, Adam Roberts
27. The Iron Garden Sutra, A.D. Sui
28. A Forest, Darkly, A.G. Slatter
29. Nonesuch, Francis Spufford
30. The Universe Box, Michael Swanwick
31. The Fist of Memory, Wole Talabi
32. Pretenders to the Throne of God, Adrian Tchaikovsky
33. The Best of Adrian Tchaikovsky, Adrian Tchaikovsky
34. A Long and Speaking Silence, Nghi Vo
35. Everybody’s Perfect, Jo Walton
36. Trade Elements, Jo Walton & Ada Palmer
37. Platform Decay, Martha Wells
38. The Misheard World, Aliya Whiteley
39. The Dragon Has Some Complaints, John Wiswell

Christmas Eve 2025. A completely different affair than last year, should you look back at the entry. We were coming off a stinking hot day of 44.3C and the weather was turning mild. Today, by comparison, it got up into the high 30s and tomorrow should be 40 with maybe a thunderstorm. We’ll see.

The day started with Gary and I releasing the last two episodes of Coode Street for 2025, and making plans for the next few weeks. Sophie and I then went out at about 7am to do some errands – collect the mail from two post offices (one of my pieces of offical merch went astray), get some groceries, have some breakfast and so on. Then back to the house for tidying and prep for the big day. I ended up going out on another trip to get groceries and such and then spent time to laying out my tasks for tomorrow morning. All of the usual stuff.

Along the way, I spent a little time wth my favourite new podcast (Bill Nighy’s Ill-Considered), read a bit of Ben Aaronovitch’s Moon Over Soho, and felt slightly stressed about being not prepared enough. We then had Chinese for dinner and watched Miracle on 34th Street. A nice day, with no car accidents, for busy and not super Christmassy.

Tomorrow will be up early to see if Santa’s been, some family gifts, then breakfast, cooking and final tidying. The family are due about noon, and the turkey should be coming out of the oven aaround then. We’re sitting inside, so it’s a little cramped, but it’s also well air conditioned, so you have to pick what’s important to you. We’ll share gifts, no doubt, and then food and games and such for the rest of the afternoon. At some point, I’ll eventually slip into a mild food coma, and then watch something or other and crash.

As to Boxing Day – cricket, reviews editing, and year-in-review column writing. I owe Locus a review column after all these years, so that’s on the to do list. All in all, a busy few days.