Ho ho ho, happy holidays! I’m about ready to sign off for the year, so it’s time for a quick flurry of well-wishing, reflections and plans for the year to come.

But first, wishing you the very best for the holiday season, wherever you may be; there’s a lot going on out there and it can feel hard right now, so I hope you’ll find some time for rest in the weeks to come, and that 2026 will bring you good things.

At the least, I’ll be enjoying the pretty lights…

Looking Back on 2025

It’s been a year of ups and downs, with the general decline of society rather hindering book sales, but I’ve had some definite positives along the way, three main points of note being:

• Oksy, Come Home reached the finals of SFINCS – this little Blood Scouts novella found a new audience with this great honour; not bad for a book I intended as a newsletter exclusive!
• A Winter’s Mercy was released to a very positive reception – the third entry in the Blood Scouts series arrived just in time for October’s end, getting some wonderful reviews (and praise, not least, for another tremendous cover from Stefan Koidl)
• The Syndicate made its inaugural live appearance – our sneaky band of indie authors put together a bumper table of books in Brighton for World Fantasy Con; we had somewhat limited foot traffic, but we certainly looked the part, and hopefully it’s the start of good things to come.
• Realm Raiders was released as a serial – I got together with a heap of talented writers to produce a multi-author serial, spearheaded admirably by Phil Parker and released in its entirety online, free. A wild undertaking!

The big unseen bit of progress for me is that I’ve been quietly learning some things about 3D modelling and computer game design, which I intend to use to up my storytelling game in the near future.

Top Reads of 2025

Reading-wise, I’ve got through a ton of books, as always, but admittedly have been struggling this year with longer form content, partly through reading burnout. I won’t be producing a fully curated best-of list for now, though I’ll possibly circle back to it in January.

To mitigate my waning concentration (and enthusiasm) I have been leaning into graphic novels and particularly found some comfort diving deep into the world of Judge Dredd, helped in no small part by discovering how many comics I could get through the library.

I have still found some marvellous reads, though, including (in more or less the order I read them):

• As Born to Rule the Storm by Cate Baumer
• Echoes of the Imperium by Nicholas and Olivia Atwater
• Cackle by Rachel Harrison
• Maeve Fly by CJ Leede
• The Grip of It by Jac Jeng
• Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor
• Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
• Diavola by Jennifer Thorne
• Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle
• Illuminations by T Kingfisher
• Detonation Boulevard by Craig Schaefer
• R is for Ricochet and S is for Silence by Sue Grafton
• House of Psychotic Women by Kier-La Janisse
• The New Pollution by Travis Riddle
• Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor
• Bigger than Biggs by Danie Ware
• Cuckoo by Gretchen Felker-Martin
• Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi

There were definitely more but hey ho. As for comics and graphic novels, besides all the Judge Dredd (and especially Judge Anderson, which is wonderful), these were some of my top reads: 

• The Silver Coin by various authors
• Something is Killing the Children Omnibus 2, The Nice House by the Sea, and all of The Ministry of Truth by James Tynion IV
• A Guest in the House by EM Carrol
• Ducks by Kate Beaton
• Laguardia by Nnedi Okorafor (my most praised author of the year I’m guessing?)
• Beautiful Darkness by Fabien Vehlman
• It’s Lonely at the Centre of the Earth by Zoe Thorogood
• Harrow County Omnibus 2 by Cullen Bunn
• All of Poison Ivy by G. Willow Wilson
• A bunch of Tillie Walden books

My 2000AD reads have been heavily skewing my reading towards male authors but I just about managed to keep an even mix overall. It’s not so easy to find spec-fic comics written by women.

Looking Forward to 2026

As always, I’ve got all sorts of plans for the new year, but I’ll need to take stock before properly committing to them. I have my usual three unpublished novels which I’m really determined to finally release next year, but I’m sure I’ve mentioned them before a few times.

I have two new novels in mind for the immediate future (writing-wise; fingers crossed they’ll both see a release in 2026). One is the next Blood Scouts book, and it’s set to be a big one. We’ve had two lowkey adventures, so the time’s come for something that much more epic, giving an idea of the war at large.

The other project is a return to contemporary fantasy/horror, with a thriller in the same vein as the Ordshaw books. Currently expected to feature artists, duelling vagrants, demonic uprisings and dance.

Before all that, though, the main thing I hope to share is a mild foray into computer game design, with an interactive fiction adventure from the world of the Blood Scouts. I’ve got the pieces in place for a game set to bridge the story for a character who’s been missing between However Many Must Die and Book 4, through the medium of a puzzle-based visual novel… More on that soon.

Finally, I’m hoping (nay, needing) to get out more next year, so I’m looking to book onto as many cons and events as I can. This will need more thorough planning, but I’ve got a great pile of physical books to move and a bunch of stuff to spew at panels, so fingers crossed I’ll be around more in person.

That’s all for now, and essentially for this year from me, so have a great holiday season however you choose to enjoy it, and all the best for 2026!