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• Critical Role star Sam Riegel didn't know FCG's fate before the moment happened - but he did know it was "a good way to go"
• Avengers and Doctor Who star Karen Gillan is on her way to New York Comic Con 2025 - and Popverse Superfans will have an early chance to connect
• Look out One Piece - the biggest manga of 2026 might be Captain Underpants (and I don't think that's a bad thing) [Future Fest]

And everything happening this week for Future Fest!

It's been a banger year for books, and the year isn't even done yet. Whether you are a committed reader, carefully cataloguing every read in Goodreads or Storygraph, or you're looking to get back into reading genre fiction, then look no further. We've got a gaggle of our favorite reads below, including one non-fiction book.  

Best Books 2025: The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones

If Ryan Coogler’s Sinners has gotten you in the mood for vampires, look no further than The Buffalo Hunter Hunter. Horror maestro Stephen Graham Jones reinvents vampires for his novel about a Lutheran pastor in Montana in 1912 who meets a mysterious Blackfeet man named Good Stab. The story is presented through the pastor’s diary, and Jones captures the period’s vernacular just as deftly as he paints sequences of all-out body horror. This novel made me laugh, cry, gasp, and pump my fist in the air, and it evidences why Jones is in an entire league of his own in contemporary horror fiction. - Jules Chin Greene, Staff Writer

Best Books 2025: The Vast Extent by Lavinia Greenlaw

And now for something completely different: I’ve been reading a lot of non-fiction recently, and this collection of “exploded essays” about seeing, and the way that we see (and don’t see) is one of those books that utterly rewired my brain. The Vast Extent is smart, curious, and lyrical — Greenlaw is a poet traditionally, and her take on what is ostensibly science writing is a wonderful thing as it mixes those mediums — it’s like listening to an impossibly smart friend tell you how the world works. (Technically, this came out in 2024, but the paperback’s from 2025 so I’m including it on the list, darn it.) - Graeme McMillan, Deputy Editor

Best Books 2025: Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito

I don’t want anyone to talk to me about American Psycho and Patrick Bateman anymore when Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito exists. A delectable descent into the mind of a psychopathic governess in Victorian England, Victorian Psycho lampoons upper-class social rituals with a satisfying helping of dark humor. If you found Jake Gyllenhaal’s performance as a sociopath in Nightcrawler compelling, then Victorian Psycho is right up your alley. This book will go down as a femgore classic. -Jules Chin Greene, Staff Writer

Best Books 2025: Bat-Eater And Other Names For Cora Zeng by Kylie Lee Baker

Another femgore book you shouldn’t miss is Bat-Eater And Other Names For Cora Zeng by Kylie Lee Baker. Set in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in Manhattan’s Chinatown, Bat-Eater is about a young Chinese American woman named Cora who works as a crime scene cleaner. Cora is already dealing with the trauma of having witnessed a hate crime where her own sister was pushed in front of a train. Her sister’s killer said “bat eater” before he fled the scene. But to make matters worse, East Asian women in Cora’s community begin turning up dead, with bat carcasses found inside their bodies. Cora suspects that her sister’s murder is part of something more sinister going on in her city, and things spiral from there. I read this book in a single sitting, and want to warn you before reading that it’s a gory but cathartic read. Kylie Lee Baker is a writer to watch. -Jules Chin Greene, Staff Writer

Best Books 2025: Night Watcher by Daphne Woolsoncroft

I had a latent fear when I was a DJ at my college’s radio station: that one day I would be alone in the studio and I would get a creepy phone call from a listener. Night Watcher by Daphne Woolsoncroft is that entire fear extrapolated, and then some. The story centers on a radio host named Nola who receives a disturbing phone call one night during her show where a woman says that a man in a white mask is inside her house. As it turns out, the woman’s description of the man recalls an incident that Nola had survived when she was a child, where her babysitter was murdered by a masked man she called The Hiding Man. If you’re looking for a straightforward thriller that unpacks the true crime phenomenon in today’s culture, look no further than Night Water. It gave me nightmares. -Jules Chin Greene, Staff Writer

Best Book 2025: Angel Down by Daniel Kraus

Sometimes you read a book and you think, “That was amazing, but I will never read this book again,” because you’re so scarred by it. Angel Down by Daniel Kraus is one of those books. It’s set in France during World War I, and tells the story of a group of American soldiers who discover an angel trapped beneath debris in No Man’s Land. What follows is a blistering depiction of The Great War that managed to make me feel worse than the ending of Gallipoli by Peter Weir. At this point, we all know that war is hell, but Kraus’s imagination and depiction of the angel completely re-flavors the war genre into something of cosmic proportions. It’s the first book I’ve read in a long time where I had to tell myself, “It’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not real,” to soothe how upset I was, until I remembered the historical basis behind Kraus’s book. Even if you’re a history nerd like me, you’ll never look at the European Theater of World War I the same way after reading this book. -Jules Chin Greene, Staff Writer

Just like yourself, the Popverse staff spends a whole lot of time with our respective noses in respective books. It's why we've come up with stuff like:

• The hottest upcoming fiction
• Queer romance to add to your reading list
• A genre fiction literary column called If It Bleeds, We Read

...and a whole lot more. Join our metaphorical library, won't you? There are no late fees and you can be as loud as you want, so long as the people you live with are OK with it.