This year’s best science fiction was more earthbound than cosmic. There were coming-of-age sagas, miserable women on missions to save the Earth, Patton Oswalt playing a Vulcan, and Lee Pace looking more and more like Jesus. They also reflected many of our recent anxieties back at us: the dangers of A.I. and surveillance, the rise of authoritarianism, and the need for hope and resistance in the face of both.
By deadline, a couple of this year’s biggest sci-fi titles haven’t yet been released, like the final season of Stranger Things and Avatar: Fire and Ash. (We’ll see you soon, Payakan.) But that only reinforces how much there was to discover in 2025.
