The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2025

 

The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2025 is a well curated anthology curated and edited by Dr. Nnedi Okorafor. Released 21st Oct 2025 by HarperCollins on their Mariner imprint, it's 416 pages and is available in paperback, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links.

There are 21 stories by my count and they're from authors both familiar and new to me. The stories are varied, there were (as always) some which didn't grab me personally, but all were well written and competently plotted. They were mostly in the 3.5-4 star range with a a decent smattering of really standout stories. This is a well done anthology. The book also features an interesting and erudite foreword by series editor John Joseph Adams, as well as an introduction from Dr. Okorafor. It includes a lot of additional resource lists and top choices for genre publishing which will provide many hours of further reading list building.

One reason I like collections and anthologies is that short fiction is really challenging.  It's spare and the author doesn't have a wealth of wordage to develop characters or the plotting.  Well written short fiction is a delight. I also love collections because if one story doesn't really grab me, there's another story just a few pages away. The guest editor for this volume provides a well written intro and commentary and, as always, the background comments are interesting and informative. I enjoyed and used the honorable mention lists included in the volume for even more good recommendations for further reading. 

Four stars on average. It's a diverting and worthwhile read to be savored like a box of chocolates. This would make a good selection for public library acquisition as well as for home readers looking for a solid anthology of stories which will also likely serve as an introduction to lots of new authors to search out, which is the best part of anthologies; reference hunting the contributors later.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.