News What to Watch What to Watch and Read for the Rest of 2025: The Books, Movies, Games, and Shows on the Reactor Staff’s Backlogs The holidays offer us a rare chance to watch, read, and play some of the things we’ve been meaning to get to By Molly Templeton | Published on December 19, 2025 Photo: Kepler Interactive, AMC Studios, Neon Comment 0 Share New Share Photo: Kepler Interactive, AMC Studios, Neon It is not quite the end of the year for publishing and its related industries, but it is close, and so this is the last What to Read and Watch post for 2025. What will Reactor’s staff be doing until the ball drops and the calendar ticks over? Well, watching stuff, and reading stuff, and playing stuff, and also maybe doing a little staring at the wall in absolute silence. You know. Decompressing! And also vegging out. May your solstice be hopeful, your holidays be bright, and whatever celebrations you engage with bring you all the joy you can handle.  We’re Playing New Games and Older Ones Bailey is going to play Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, a game I would very much like to play—it just won a nice big award!—but I am only allowed to have one gaming console, as I get obsessive and play games for eight hours straight. But Clair Obscur sounds fantastic. “Lead the members of Expedition 33 on their quest to destroy the Paintress so that she can never paint death again” is one hell of a description. I don’t know what it means, but I want to. Meanwhile I will still be trucking about Hyrule, in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, only occasionally helping those whiny little koroks and/or the sign guy. I have turned on all the lightroots, which is the best part of the game, and now must decide whether to re-engage with the plot or not. I have put [redacted] hours into a different playthrough of this game and never beaten it. I hate boss battles. So I’ll just run around some more. We’re Watching So… Many… Movies Everybody is going to movies. We are going to first-run movies (Dust Bunny, multiple times between multiple people) and second-run movies (Pan’s Labyrinth) and movies that are on Netflix, sure, but why not go to them in a theater (Wake Up Dead Man). We are going to Norwegian family dramas (Sentimental Value) and anything Paolo Sorrentino directs (La Grazia) and the movie that nobody will shut up about (One Battle After Another). We are going to historical films starring actresses with very modern faces (The Testament of Ann Lee). We would like to be going to Morvern Callar but the random screening at Portland’s classic indie theater is already sold out despite happening in January. (We—and this time I mean I—clearly screwed up.) If Resurrection comes to Portland, I will be seated. The New Yorkers will go to No Other Choice, and I will wait patiently for that one, too.  We are also watching movies at home, of course. Emmet will be indulging in their traditional Shane Black appreciation moment and watching Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (and maybe The Long Kiss Goodnight). I may finally get to Frankenstein. I may finally indulge in a Kelly Reichardt marathon and catch up to all her films, including The Mastermind, which Matt will also be watching.  Pretend You’re Alone on Earth and Watch an Entire Series at Once The Pluribus finale is coming, and if anyone I work with is not watching, I don’t want to know about it. Bailey will also be watching Heated Rivalry, a show I have learned an astonishing amount about just from being a person who goes online. Bless you, hockey romance fans, every one. Leah plans to watch Interview with the Vampire, and so do I; I started it but got behind and now I have hours and hours to spend with those beautiful fuckups. I can’t wait. Emmet will also be hanging out with beautiful fuckups, but the ones in Harley Quinn. Have we talked about how the version of Bane in Harley Quinn is the most wonderful version of Bane imaginable? Never thought I could feel such affection for that character of all characters. But I love him. You could also anniversary-binge The Magicians or Mr. Robot or The Expanse, all of which turned 10 this year. (The Expanse snuck past me, but it just hit the 10-year mark this week! A day before The Magicians! I wish anything like either of those shows was on TV now.) The incredibly funny Australian mystery show Deadloch returns in February, and if you haven’t watched it, I cannot recommend it enough. If the opening scene, in which two teenagers have very believable reactions to finding a dead body, doesn’t win you over, I don’t even know what to tell you. No One Is Finishing Their TBR Stack Before the End of the Year But we’re gonna try, dammit. Leah intends to read Daniel Kehlmann’s The Director, which is inspired by the life of director G.W. Pabst. Bailey has her eye on Blood Over Bright Haven by M.L. Wang, which sounds dark and mysterious and has a nice pop of red on its cover, making it festive, however unintentionally. Matt is reading Matching Minds with Sondheim: The Puzzles and Games of the Broadway Legend, a book that he bought for someone else. This is how book people roll. Stefan reads Hogfather every year, and will continue to do so. I am debating whether I want to reread the previous two Book of Dust novels before picking up Philip Pullman’s final book about Lyra Silvertongue, The Rose Field. I also want to reread Bethany Jacobs’ first two Kindom Trilogy books before starting This Brutal Moon, but let’s be real: there are only so many hours in the day and days in the week, and I need to know what happens there. Kehlmann’s There are a lot of crows in Portland, and I really love them, and yet I still have not read Hollow Kingdom, which is set in Seattle (close enough!) and stars a “foul-mouthed” crow. It may be time. I may pair this with Caskey Russell’s The Door on the Sea, which involves an “endlessly vulgar” raven. Everything about this book appeals to me. (I must also note that it is a year for mouthy birds. I’m in favor. More, please?) However you spend your last few weeks of 2025, Emmet suggests that you wind down with one of their annual traditions: Listening to the Bing Crosby and David Bowie duet on “Peace on Earth / Little Drummer Boy.” The sketch is so awkward that I could not watch it. My colleagues are truly made of stronger stuff than I. Happy holidays, everyone! [end-mark] The post What to Watch and Read for the Rest of 2025: The Books, Movies, Games, and Shows on the Reactor Staff’s Backlogs appeared first on Reactor.

Lists Best of 2025 Readers Pick Their Favorite SFF of 2025 What an excellent year for speculative fiction — in all its many forms! By Reactor | Published on December 19, 2025 Comment 0 Share New Share What an excellent year for science fiction, fantasy, and horror! For the first time, we asked for your favorite genre books, TV shows, movies, video games, and more from 2025. A book cover that caught your eye. A short story you couldn’t get out of your head. That movie you saw two, three, maybe even four times in theaters!  We received over 600 responses, even beating out our previous readers’ poll on the Most Iconic Speculative Fiction of the 21st Century. Among your responses, we recognized some stories and media the Reactor team already adores, and found a few new ones as well.  At the end of the day, we love celebrating genre fiction. But we love it more when you celebrate it with us! Favorite Books of 2025 The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson (Orbit) A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett (Del Rey) The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow (Tor Books) Favorite Movies of 2025 Sinners dir. by Ryan Coogler (Warner Bros. Pictures) KPop Demon Hunters dir. by Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans (Sony Pictures Animation / Netflix) Superman dir. by James Gunn (Warner Bros. Pictures) Favorite TV Series of 2025 Murderbot (Apple TV) Andor Season Two (Disney+) Pluribus (Apple TV) Favorite Short Stories of 2025 “Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy” by Martha Wells (Reactor) “The Emergency Contact” by Arendse Lund (Analog) “The Girl That My Mother Is Leaving Me For” by Cameron Reed (Reactor) “The Knight and the Butcherbird” by Alix E. Harrow (Amazon Original Stories) Favorite Video Games of 2025 Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive) Hades II (Supergiant Games) Hollow Knight: Silksong (Team Cherry) Favorite SFF Podcasts of 2025 Eight Days of Diana Wynne Jones by Emily Tesh and Rebecca Fraimow Starship Alexandria by Emma Newman and Adrian Tchaikovsky Worlds Beyond Number by Erika Ishii, Aabria Iyengar, Taylor Moore, Brennan Lee Mulligan, and Lou Wilson Favorite Video Creator/Channels of 2025 Critical Role NewlyNova BooksandLala Elliot Brooks  Jacob Geller Literature Science Alliance My Name is Marines Quinn’s Ideas Favorite Book Covers of 2025 Katabasis by RF Kuang (Harper Voyager; cover art by Patrick Arrasmith) Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz (Tordotcom Publishing; cover art by Eric Nyquist) The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling (Harper Voyager; cover design by Owen Corrigan) The post Readers Pick Their Favorite SFF of 2025 appeared first on Reactor.

News Avengers: Doomsday Steve Rogers Will Be Daddy in Avengers: Doomsday You can see him yourself in the Avengers: Doomsday trailer if you get to your screening of Avatar: Fire and Ash a bit early… By Vanessa Armstrong | Published on December 18, 2025 Photo: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Comment 0 Share New Share Photo: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures He’s baaaack. No, I’m not talking about James Cameron and his latest film, Avatar: Fire and Ash. I’m talking about the teaser before that film for Avengers: Doomsday, which reveals that a certain someone will be returning to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. That someone is none other than the first Captain America, Steve Rogers, played once again by Chris Evans. When we last saw Steve, he abandoned all those he knew and loved in our present day to live in the past with Peggy Carter. The teaser, according to Variety, shows Steve riding a motorcycle up to his home on a farm (because of course he lives on a farm). He stops, admires his helmet, which looks not unlike Cap’s helmet, and also admires a baby that, we assume, is his and Peggy’s. The Avengers theme is played on a piano over all of this, and the clip ends with a countdown timer to the premiere date of Avengers: Doomsday, which is just under a year away. The teaser is reportedly just one of several that Marvel will be releasing in the upcoming weeks, with each one focused on a different character. For this one with Steve Rogers, the questions are many: Where and when is this farm, including what timeline in the multiverse? Where is Peggy? Where is this baby in our present time, assuming this teaser is a flashback? Is this the Steve Rogers we know from previous films, or is this another Steve Rogers from the aforementioned multiverse? And what is time, really? The answers to these are still elusive, but we have 364 days to mull over them: Avengers: Doomsday premieres in theaters on December 18, 2026. [end-mark] The post Steve Rogers Will Be Daddy in <i>Avengers: Doomsday</i> appeared first on Reactor.

News Stranger Things Here’s What Brought Frank Darabont Out of Retirement to Direct Stranger Things Season 5 The Shawshank Redemption director was happily enjoying time away from Hollywood before the Duffer Brothers started calling… By Vanessa Armstrong | Published on December 18, 2025 Courtesy of Netflix Comment 0 Share New Share Courtesy of Netflix Frank Darabont, who directed films like The Shawshank Redemption, The Blob, The Green Mile, and developed AMC’s The Walking Dead, came out of retirement to direct two episodes of Stranger Things 5: “The Turnbow Trap,” which was in the first tranche of the season release, and “Shock Jock,” which will come out on Netflix on Christmas Day. (Easter egg alert: apparently there’s a nod to one of Darabont’s movies in “Shock Jock”; no confirmation as to which one but I’d place money on Nightmare on Elm Street 3 or The Blob.) Darabont and his wife, it turns out, are “obsessed fans” of the series, so when the Duffers asked if he would be interested in directing an episode (which turned into two episodes when Dan Trachtenberg had to drop off due to scheduling), he said yes. “I was so familiar with the show, I watched all four seasons with my wife. I think we’d seen those four seasons about four or five times before this invitation arrived to come direct, because we just loved it so much,” he told IndieWire. Darabont expanded on why Stranger Things appealed to him and his wife so much. “It really does have a moral compass,” he said. “This thing, you have a found family—some actual family—this group of people have been brought together by these circumstances, and they are always trying to do the right thing. There’s tremendous positivity in that group. There’s tremendous loyalty. They will sacrifice for one another. And you don’t see that kind of heart in a lot of our entertainment. There’s a lot of dour… There’s a lot of greed.” Darabont also shared that, years ago, he actually turned down adapting Stephen King’s The Dark Tower (something that Mike Flanagan is currently taking a stab at), and explained why. “I was very flattered and very honored that [Stephen King] asked me,” he told IndieWire. “But man, so much of that story is so internalized. It’s so in the heads of the characters, and it’s this massive, endless story as well. I thought, oh my god, this could be the next ten years of my life and miss the mark, because it is a diabolically difficult thing to adapt. And at that point, I was just exhausted anyway.” You can see Darabont’s first Stranger Things episode now on Netflix, with the second one dropping on December 25, 2025. [end-mark] The post Here’s What Brought Frank Darabont Out of Retirement to Direct <i>Stranger Things</i> Season 5 appeared first on Reactor.

Books Short Fiction Spotlight Must Read Short Speculative Fiction: November 2025 Add some of the best new short fiction stories to your end of year reading lists! By Alex Brown | Published on December 18, 2025 Comment 0 Share New Share As I was looking over this list of stories, I realized most of them were by authors who were new to me. I love it when I encounter voices I’ve never heard before. I also have a new publication on the reading list, and one of their stories is featured here. Let’s bow out the hell that was 2025 with at least a little excitement and joy, shall we? Here are the ten short science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories I enjoyed reading in November. “Beneath the Umdlebe Tree; or, A Vegetable Love Story” by Modupeoluwa Shelle Our narrator addresses Orhija, who is returning to Earth after a while away. The story blends science fiction and Yoruba cosmology in a way I’ve never seen before. Shelle opts for large paragraphs that give the story a tense yet sprawling feel. “You always blamed the gods for everything we did out of our own free will. Are you going to blame them now for the war your kind wages on mine out of an agelong resentment? Did you even blame them for the reason my kind are doing this to the Earth?” (Lightspeed—November 2025; issue 186) “Coin Flip” by Aeryn Rudel The narrator of this story tracks down several humans being held hostage by a demon-possessed serial killer and gets killed in the process. Good thing that this isn’t his first death. He is resurrected in time to save the day. But who is this man? That you’ll have to read the story to find out. The twist isn’t just a silly little reference but one loaded with layers of meaning, especially if you were raised in the Christian church. (Flashpoint SF—November 14, 2025) “The Fire Burns Anyway” by Kemi Ashing-Giwa The protagonist here is a dreamweaver, someone who can use a neural scanner to create “imaginary settings” and “realistic worlds” you can enter in your dreams. This felt like a metaphor for trying to be creative in the age of generative AI. Everything being concentrated in the hands of the wealthy at the expense of everyone else, turning creativity and passion into commodities and resources to be extracted, and trying to hold onto the joy of creating art in the face of the capitalist machine. (Clarkesworld—November 2025; issue 230) “For When the Night is Behind You and the Depths are Ahead” by Corey Farrenkopf Coincidentally, I had just read the excellent eco-horror short story collection The Writhing, Verdant End by Corey Farrenkopf, Eric Raglin, and Tiffany Morris when I came across this story by Farrenkopf. Of course I had to read it, and of course it exceeded my expectations. Our narrator’s older brother Dave is one of many who die during the nationwide release events for a videogame, Castles Underground III. They become obsessed with beating the game, and soon we realize the game is more real than Dave let on. (Three-Lobed Burning Eye—November 2025” by issue 46) “If You Can’t Make Your Own Regret, Store-Bought Is Fine” by RJ Aurand Val is a membalmer, someone who preserves memories by extracting them from the dead. Those memories are given to the survivors as they process their feelings toward the recently deceased. This story follows Val as she extracts regret from Mr. Jensen to give to his daughter, who wants as little of him as possible. Aurand wrote in the author’s note that this story was inspired by a video of someone finding cremains at a Goodwill and what kind of person would donate those. What do you do when you’re expected to honor the memory of someone who didn’t care for you the way you deserved? (Inner Worlds—November 2025; issue 9) “The Last Two Gardeners of Mars” by Irene W. Collins Years ago, Anara and Mireille were part of a crew of scientists sent to terraform Mars. Now, they’re the only two left in a collapsing dome. The terraforming project was abandoned, and they didn’t want to leave the garden behind untended. “Fifty years of this. Not quite lovers, never merely friends. Something more ferocious, more faithful. A queerplatonic tether forged in the red dust and sealed in chlorophyll.” Their time is done and they’re preparing to go out together. A different kind of love story, but a nevertheless beautiful and bittersweet one. (Heartlines Spec—Winter 2025; issue 9) “Occupational Hazards” by Nicole M. Babb Welcome to the spotlight, Foofaraw! This was such an unsettling and distressing story. It starts off fine before descending into horror territory. A detective shows up at Pinnacle Ergonomics to interview the coworkers of a man who died after being crushed to death in a prototype of a new technology. “Blood, brain matter, and Gary’s shirt aside, the room was an unrelenting white. Sunshine streamed through floor-to-ceiling windows, baking Gary like a ham surprise casserole.” By the time the detective figures out who the culprit is…well, I’ll let you find out what happens. (Foofaraw—November 27, 2025) “Pink Witches” by Melissa Jornd A child is at the reception after her Grandma’s funeral. Bree misses her Grandma so much and would give anything to see her again. When she escapes to the bathroom, she steps into a room filled with flowers…and the spirit of her grandmother. They do a little magic together to help Bree’s mother in her grief. It was a wonderful story about honoring your ancestors and being compassionate. Bree taps into power she could wield for any purpose, and her first thought is to do something kind for someone without expecting any reciprocation or appreciation in return. (Small Wonders—November 2025; issue 29) “Waterways” by Diana Dima David inherits his father’s boat after his death and becomes a fisherman. He had a fraught relationship with his father, unable to please him but always trying to anyway. David has a surreal experience with several other fishermen, then something in him snaps. This story is dark and creepy; it has the feel of a nightmare, with things spiraling out of control. (PodCastle—November 18, 2025; #918) “When Eve Chose Us” by Tia Tashiro In the years after an alien species arrives on Earth, peace has finally been declared. Part of the treaty included the option for humans to join the alien hivemind. Those that do still look mostly human, and are jokingly called “drones” by other humans. Liza’s best friend Eve decides to join, and Liza has a hard time understanding why. Eve has her reasons, reasons she isn’t inclined to share with Liza, leaving Liza feeling adrift and like she lost something she never really had in the first place. This is a really interesting way to explore an alien invasion. In this situation, the aliens offer troubled humans the chance to let go of what ails them. The hive isn’t submission but freedom. (Diabolical Plots—November 3, 2025; #129A) [end-mark] The post Must Read Short Speculative Fiction: November 2025 appeared first on Reactor.