01/02/2025
In 2024, I spent time in Colorado, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, and New York. I rode a steamboat on the mighty Mississippi, explored New Orleans from gator swamps to jazz clubs, and stood atop the 14,000-foot summit of Pike’s Peak to watch fights between bighorn sheep.
My novel Redspace Rising went into space—literally—courtesy of For All Mankind actress Tasha Dixon.
I launched Space Station Squid, my new sci-fi and fantasy podcast with weekly episodes discussing the history and themes of speculative fiction. Season 2 in mid-January!
My friends and I held our third annual Saturnalia with the theme of gods and goddesses (I hosted as Dionysus). I also visited a recreation of a medieval abbey at The Cloisters in New York, and went to a forging class where I made my own knife for slaying goblins or, you know, serving charcuterie.
Friend and super-fan Kathryn Hammond sent me a copy of Redspace Rising with a homemade flight suit and cryonic-suspension chamber.
I signed a contract with Baen Books to write a full-length novel set in the New York Times bestselling Black Tide Rising series. My story “Isle of Masks and Blood” appeared in the United We Stand anthology; “Flawed Evolution” appeared in Weird World War China; “The Eyes of Damocles” appeared in Tales of the U.S. Space Force; “Death on the Nefertem Express” appeared in China’s Science Fiction World and also was featured on StarShipSofa; “The Beasts at the End of the World” was sold to Shapers of Worlds Volume 5; and “Watchman, What of the Night?” won the worldwide SciFidea Dyson Sphere Contest.
For video games, I played Tomb Raider 1-3 Remastered, Half-Life: Alyx, Super Metroid, and Enslaved: Odyssey to the West.
For movies and TV, I binged on Homeland (Claire Danes deserved every award), The Food That Built America, Carry-On, Person of Interest, A Quiet Place: Day One, Six Feet Under, The Offer, The Greatest Night in Pop, Dune Part 2, Sh**un, Barbarians, 1883, Brats, Vienna Blood, Land of Bad, Hit Man, Skywalkers: A Love Story, Deadpool and Wolverine, and a nostalgic rewatch of Ray Harryhausen’s marvelous stop-action flicks.
For books, I read Ancient Egypt: From the Records, The Splendor of Ancient Egypt, The Egyptians, A History of Egypt, Greece and Rome: Builders of our World, The Poison King, A Short History of Nearly Everything, and the collected poems of Wallace Stevens.
I mourned the loss of Carl Weathers, Louis Gossett Jr., Dabney Coleman, Donald Sutherland, Teri Garr, Shelley Duvall, Quincy Jones, Shannen Doherty, Bob Newhart, Maggie Smith, Kris Kristofferson, John Amos, Barry Malzberg, former President Jimmy Carter, my friend Chris Sigetti, fellow sci-fi writer/friend Ray Daley, and the unparalleled James Earl Jones.
Here’s to a better 2025 for everyone.
Happy New Year!
Brian Trent’s speculative fiction appears regularly in the world’s top magazines.
