Joseph Mallozzi's Blog! (SPOILERS For All SG Shows and Dark Matter)

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December 25, 2017

Photos: Fantasy football League, Lulu, Suji


And by all, I mean everyone regardless of political, gaming, or religious affiliation.

And by rejoice I mean celebrate.

And by season, I mean my fantasy football League of Accommodation’s post-season playoffs that culminated yesterday in a win for my Snow Monkeys, thus allowing them to secure their first championship since 2011.

Okay, technically, it’s not an official championship yet but with my Monkeys up 32.16 points heading into a Monday night game with a single player left to play – I’m going to chalk it up. Barring DeAndre Hopkins turning the ball over 17 times, this time tomorrow we’ll be sipping virtual champagne out of our virtual championship trophy.

Last night, we celebrated Christmas with food, family, and the annual early opening of the presents (getting earlier every year in parallel to our respective bedtimes). The highlights for me were the first and last gifts I opened – the first, what appeared to be a box containing a trifle bowl that, thankfully, turned out to actually contain underwear; the second, a box containing absolutely nothing, one of last year’s empty leftovers Akemi accidentally packed with the rest of this year’s haul.

And, of course, the ever appreciated doggy sweaters.

Ho ho ho.

Lulu with her “take another picture and I’ll chew that camera to pieces” look.

Well, hope you’re all enjoying the holidays. Best wishes to all!

Except the scrooges at syfy!

How are you all planning to ring in the new year? Do tell.

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December 26, 2017

Photos: Fantasy football league


Feast your eyes! Aint it glorious? The Snow Monkeys are 2017 League of Accommodations fantasy football champions. Final score…

In all fairness, it’s all thanks to Todd Gurley and the Carolina Panthers D truly stepped up for my Monkeys.

Ah, victory tastes as sweet as a double chocolate mocha!

So, I’m blazing through my final reads of the year in preparation for my annual Best Books of 2017 blog post. This has been my best reading year since 2014 with a lot of great candidates, but I’m vacillating over how extensive I should make the list. When all is said and done, I’ll have read a staggering 250 books on the year, 125 of them 2017 releases. So, I’m thinking a top 25? What do you think?

Since touching down in Montreal, Akemi and I have settled into a nice little routine. Every morning, we wake up at 6:00 a.m. with Suji who, unlike Lulu, is not a sleeper-inner, and then lie in bed, hoping against hope that she eventually drifts off and allows us a few more hours of snooze time (Spoiler alert! She never does!). Then, after taking the dogs out, we hop in the car, laptops in tow, and head over to a quaint little coffee shop in Pointe-Claire Village (Victor Rose, a cafe so quaint that Akemi says it reminds her of something out of Ghibli movie) where we update our online lives over London Fogs (for her) and double chocolate mochas (for me!). Then, back to mom’s for lunch and whatever she has planned (Today, for instance, it’s a double-dose of visits with the relatives). We usually culminate our evenings with dinner with my sister and Daisy, then it’s home for an early bedtime and two hours of reading.

Just between us, you know what I really hate? New Year’s Eve. Growing up, no event was more overrated than the ringing in of the New Year. I hate champagne. And, as I’ve matured, my bedtime has gotten earlier and earlier. Last year, I could barely keep my eyes open. My attempts to observe UK Greenwich Mean Time, just for this single occasion, have been roundly dismissed. This year, I’m going to try setting the house clocks ahead three hours, play a recording of 2016’s New Year’s Even Live and hope nobody notices. Wish me luck!

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December 27, 2017

Photos: Best Comic Book Covers of the Week


My favorites…

Spiderman #793 (cover by Alex Ross)

Black Panther: Long Live the King #2 (cover art by André Lima Araújo)

Captain Marvel #127 (cover art by Phil Noto)

Doomsday Clock #2 (cover art by Brad Anderson and Gary Frank)

Fantomah #4 (cover art by Djibril Morissette-Phan)

Gasolina #4 (cover art by Mat Lopes and Niko Walters)

Hawkman: Found #1 (cover art by Brian Hitch, Liam Sharp and Jason Wright)

North #3 (cover art by Scott Kimmerer)

The Complete Okko (cover art by Hub)

ROM vol. 3: The Road to Ruin (cover art by ?)

Saga vol. 8 (cover art by Fiona Staples)

Sink #4 (cover art by Alex Cormack)

Beauty #18 (cover art by Nick Filardi, Jeremy Haun, Andy Macdonald, and John Rauch)

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December 28, 2017

Videos: Kiss, You're cancelled, Dark Matter

Photos: Dark Matter


Dark Matter‘s season 3 finale marked the 279th episode of original scripted television I produced for the syfy Channel. That’s 279 television hours over 13 years, 4 different shows, and 15 seasons! And, in recognition of our longstanding working relationship, syfy treated me, my show, and its fans like a family…

Yes, it truly felt like famiglia.

Anyway, with the Dark Matter done (for the foreseeable future), I thought it might be nice to look back at the people behind the scenes, and in front of the cameras, who made it happen.

Today, I bring you The Dark Matter Season 3 Awards – Part 1, chosen by yours truly!

BEST COSTUMES

The wardrobe department, lead by Costume Designer Noreen Landry and Asst. Costume Designer Anna Dal Farra, did great work throughout the show’s run. From miners to G.A. troops to our colorful crew, they’ve delivered a wide and wild array. And Dark Matter‘s third season continued that trend. Standout episodes for me included Episodes 303 (“Welcome To The Revolution”) and Episode 312 (“My Final Gift To You”), but my pick for best costumes was…

WINNER: Episode 309, “Isn’t That A Paradox?”. This atypical episode gave us so many memorable looks: TWO’s soccer mom disguise, the Android’s burgundy coat, and, of course, FIVE’s goth chick chic.

BEST HAIR/MAKEUP

Lynda McCormack (Key Makeup) and Renée Chan (Key Hair) were a fantastic one-two punch. There was the contemporary charm of Episode 309 (“Isn’t That A Paradox?”) and resplendence of the royal court in Episode 312 (“My Final Gift To You”), but in Dark Matter‘s final season, I thought their best work was showcased in…

WINNER: Episode 301, “Being Better Is So Much Harder”, where our crew was bruised, battered, but still looked great.

BEST PROPS

Property Master Victoria Klein worked her magic, sourcing everything from guns to gadgets, then altering or completely transforming them with the help of On-Set Key Props Lisa Amaral-Wright. There was all that weaponry in Episode 303 (“Welcome To The Revolution”) and the various tech and trinkets of Episode 305 (“Give It Up, Princess”), but my favorite was…

WINNER: Episode 304, “All The Time In The World”. That time clock was one of my favorite props of the show’s three year run.

BEST STUNTS/STUNT CHOREOGRAPHY

Stunt Coordinator John Stead is the very best at what he does and I trusted him so thoroughly that, as the series progressed, my scripted action descriptions would grow less and less detailed. In the end, I would just tell John where I wanted the characters to end up, then stood back and let him do his thing. Lots of great shoot-outs, sword work, falls and so much more in Dark Matter‘s third season. There was the Ash vs. Solara Shockley throwdown in Episode 304 (“All The Time In The World”), Ryo’s duels with TWO and, later, Misaki in Episode 312 (“My Final Gift To You”), but edging out these two was my favorite…

WINNER: Episode 308, “Hot Chocolate”. There was the shootout, the Android taking out SIX, but top of the list was the battle to end all battles: TWO vs. Ryo in hand to hand combat. In the script, I simply wrote: “They fight. It’s glorious.” And then John did the rest.

BEST SPECIAL EFFECTS

Lights! Camera! Explosion! SPFX Coordinator Dylan Hankinson really let the shocks and sparks fly this season, but my pick for best special effects sequence…

WINNER: Episode 302, “It Doesn’t Have To Be Like This”. TWO, THREE and SIX make their grand entrance, literally blowing away the station security.

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

Production Designer Ian Brock and the art department continued their terrific. collaboration with our construction department to craft some truly phenomenal sets on the year. I loved the munitions facility and Traugott Garrison from Episode 303 (“Welcome to the Revolution”) and the dank, dark and foreboding industrial facility of Episode 312 (“The Dwarf Star Conspiracy”), but my selection for best production design goes to…

WINNER: Episode 302, “It Doesn’t Have To Be Like This”. The Ishida research station was as sleek and clean as Baines’ work room was claustrophobic and chaotic.

BEST SET DEC

Thank you to Set Decorator Andy Loew and his team. It’s the details that make a set come alive, whether it’s the textures of the walls or the dressing that gives them that lived in look, from Sarah’s virtual garden to the utilitarian accoutrements of Episode 303’s (“Welcome To The Revolution”) munition facility. Still, my vote goes to…

WINNER: Episode 312, “My Final Gift To You”. The royal palace never looked so good.

BEST GRAPHICS

I’m a big fan of 1st Assistant Art Director/Graphics Roxanne Borris, and her work on Dark Matter‘s third season simply reinforced the respect and admiration I have for her and her craft. Logos, ID’s, emblems and labels – they all come from her. Her creations are in subtle background display in every episode and occasionally, front and center, but I think she did some of her best work in…

WINNER: Episode 303, “Welcome To The Revolution”. Everything from the Traugott emblems to signage to those scrolling video warnings.

BEST MOTION GRAPHICS/PLAYBACK

1st Assistant Art Director/Motion Graphics Sumeet Vats had some big shoes to fill with the departure of our beloved Kelly Diamond, but he availed himself wonderfully with an assist from 2nd Assistant Art Director Victor Mare. People often overlook graphic and playback’s contribution to the storytelling process, but those onscreen elements do everything from offer a narrative shorthand to an emphatic visual emphasis to the proceedings. Lots of eye candy in season 3, but my favorites…

WINNER: Episode 302, “It Doesn’t Have To Be Like This”, for those gorgeous Zaironesque graphics.

BEST LIGHTING

Director of Photography Craig Wright was the consistent calm in the eye of the various storms, overseeing and ensuring every shot of every scene of every episode looked it’s very best. Notable examples included Episode 303 (“Welcome To The Revolution”), Episode 310 (“Built, Not Born”), and my pick for season best…

WINNER: Episode 311, “The Dwarf Star Conspiracy”. Craig and his team infused every scene with an underlying sense of impending doom. They always made my job so much easier.

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

VFX Supervisor Lawren Bancroft-Wilson continued to work his magic, ensuring that our little show always looked it’s best, expanding our library of beautiful Raza shots and creating stunning new visuals for Dark Matter‘s third season. A couple of instances that readily come to mind are the security drone and space sequences of Episode 301 (“Nowhere To Go”) and the flowing aliens of Episode 311 (“The Dwarf Star Conspiracy”). Still as great as those episodes were, there was no beating…

WINNER: Episode 313, “Nowhere To Go”. Fans were clamoring for a colossal space battle and we gave them one.

And that’s it for the technical awards. Tomorrow, we give it up to the onscreen talent as we recognize the supporting performances that made Dark Matter’s third season so great!

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December 29, 2017

Photos: Dark Matter


Continuing our Dark Matter Season 3 Awards, we move on to the category of Best Supporting Performance By A Recurring Actor in Dark Matter’s Third Season…

JEFF TERAVAINEN (LT. JOHN ANDERS)

Jeff’s role on Dark Matter really blossomed over the show’s three year run. Had we done a fourth season, it would have expanded even further with the crew of The Raza under the employ of The Galactic Authority and Lt. Anders as their point man. Jeff delivers a great turn opposite Anthony Lemke in the season premiere, Episode 301 (“Being Better Is So Much Harder”), but my pick for his best performance of the season is…

WINNER: Episode 307, “I Wish I Could Believe You” in which we are offered a further glimpse into Kal Varrick’s pre-Raza relationship with Anders and the true depth of their friendship. Jeff’s performance in those scenes in which he attempts to lend his buddy, Kal (Roger Cross), emotional support in the face of a crumbling marriage feel wholly earnest and real, and they make the knowledge of how it will eventually play out for SIX all that more heartbreaking.

TORRI HIGGINSON (COMMANDER DELANEY TRUFFAULT)

Torri Higginson’s Commander Truffault had a pretty good run for a character that was originally scripted to die in her second appearance. Through a combination of tricky scheduling and scene-stealing swagger, Truffault lived to see – well, many more days as The Raza crew’s uncertain ally. Of her several appearances in Dark Matter‘s third season, my favorite by far was…

WINNER: Episode 301, “Being Better Is So Much Harder” in which she not only calls the shots but takes the shots, showing a whole other side to Truffault’s cool and in command persona, then conveying surprising empathy in her final conversation with TWO about the weight of leadership.

ENNIS ESMER (MAX WEXLER)

Another character who got a second lease on life was Ennis Esmer’s Max Wexler who was actually killed off back in episode 110, only to be resurrected a season later in Episode 208, (“Stuff To Steal, People To Kill”). Thank goodness for science fiction! This alt version of Wexler was less objectionable and slightly more amiable than the original season 1 version and, had the show gone another season, we would have gotten plenty of opportunity to get to know him as The Raza’s newest crew member. I loved him in Episode 306 (“One Last Card To Play”), but thought his “shiningest” moments were in…

WINNER: Episode 313, “Nowhere To Go”, an episode that took one giant stride in the character’s rehabilitation. It’s a testament to Ennis’s talents that he was able to make a character as reprehensible as Wexler not only likable but downright charming.

NATALIE BROWN (SARAH)

Natalie Brown’s touching portrayal of the doomed Sarah was a prelude to a much bigger arc that would have seen her character go to some dark places in the show’s fourth season. One of the biggest missed opportunities of that season denied was the chance to see what Natalie would have done with her character’s surprise turn. If I had to choose a favorite Sarah episode, it would be…

WINNER: Episode 304, “All The Time In The World” in which she is finally reunited with her lost love, unhappily at first and then, in ensuing do-overs the time loop affords, eventually rediscovers that connection. Natalie never failed to make us feel for Sarah.

ANDREW MOODIE (TEKU FONSEI)

Andrew Moodie joined the show’s third season as Ryo Ishida’s former sensei, a well-intentioned voice for peace and understanding who gets more than he bargained for when he accepts a position in the royal court. Andrew’s standout performances pepper the show’s third season, but if I had choose a single episode to spotlight his talents, I would select…

Episode 312, “My Final Gift To You” in which secrets are revealed as is Teku’s true loyalty – once and forever to Ryo Ishida. Did you ever have any doubt? Andrew’s performance is as subtle as it is elusive, keeping us guessing until the very end.

ELLEN WONG (MISAKI HAN)

The flip side to Andrew Moodie’s pacifist intellectual was Ellen Wong’s calculating Commander of the Royal Guard, and Ryo’s former childhood friend, Misaki Han. Ellen tears it up, imbuing Misaki with ruthless resolve, yet my nod goes to an episode in which she allows us a glimpse of Misaki at her most vulnerable…

WINNER: Episode 301, “Being Better Is So Much Harder” concludes with a powerful scene that sees Ryo confront Misaki with her culpability in the death of Nyx Harper. Rather than deny the accusation, however, Misaki counters with a steadfast defense that conveys an unwavering belief in the rightness of her actions. It’s a powerful performance at turns surprising and altogether convincing.

AYISHA ISSA (SOLARA SHOCKLEY)

Actress Ayisha Issa auditioned for another role back in the show’s second season and, while she didn’t land that part, her audition motivated me to create a character for her in season 3, Solara Shockley. She was, of course, perfect in the role of Adrian Maro’s principled, determined, and somewhat anti-social bodyguard. Lots to love in her all-too-brief four episode arc, but if I had to pick an episode that truly showcased her talents, it would be…

WINNER: Episode 305, “Give It Up, Princess” in which Ayisha flexes her acting chops, showing Solara at her most vulnerable, letting her guard down in a touching conversation with Jodelle Ferland’s FIVE.

MISHKA THEBAUD (ADRIAN MARO)

Like Ayisha Issa’s Solara Shockley, Mishka Thebaud’s Adrian Maro was slated for a recurring return in Dark Matter‘s fourth season. Sadly, it was not to be, but Mishka’s third season performance went a long way toward winning us over to his fish-out-of-water wanna-be-handler. Although a comical character, Mishka made certain that Adrian’s humanity was always present. Maro came a long way in a short, short time, but if I had to choose a single episode favorite it would be…

WINNER: Episode 305, “Give It Up, Princess” neatly encapsulates Adrian Maro, from lovable goofball to sympathetic victim. This was Mishka at his very best.

Tomorrow, we move on to the Dark Matter Season 3 Awards – Part 3 with a focus on our main cast!

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December 30, 2017

Photos: Dark Matter


Concluding our Dark Matter Season 3 Awards with recognition of our amazing main cast and their performances big and small…

MELISSA O’NEIL (TWO)

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

It’s hard to believe Dark Matter was Melissa O’Neil’s first t.v. role, even more surprising if you’d actually seen her amazing audition for TWO. From the moment I watched her self-tape, I vowed I’d go to war to see her cast. Fortunately, there was no need for bloodshed as I was not the only one to take note of her immense talent. With regard to choosing her best supporting role in season 3, this was probably the toughest call I had to make. I could have gone with her double turn in Episode 306, “One Last Card To Play”, in which we she portrays both TWO and alt. Portia with subtle distinction, or her heartfelt performance of Episode 309, “Isn’t That A Paradox”, in which she grasps at a potential refuge for her and her crew. Instead, I have to give it to…

Episode 304, “All The Time In The World”. The comedy stylings of Anthony Lemke and Zoie Palmer are front and center, but the backbone of this episode is Melissa’s dubious and joyously bewildered performance.

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

She again pulls double duty in the revelatory Episode 310 (“Built, Not Born”) and my first instinct was to go with that one but, upon further review, I have to go with…

Episode 301, “Being Better Is So Much Harder”. A great actor’s true talents shine, not so much in scenes of strength but in those instances in which their characters are at their lowest and most vulnerable. Melissa is at her best here as TWO wrestles with self-doubt, guilt, and the true weight of command.

ANTHONY LEMKE (THREE)

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

THREE went from being one of the show’s most hated characters to, over the course of three seasons, one of its most beloved thanks in large part to Anthony Lemke’s portrayal of the incorrigible scoundrel. THREE is generally mercenary, boorish, and comical, making those instances in which we’re offered a glimpse behind that devil-may-care facade all the more delightful. THREE is terrific when he’s driving the action, but he’s equally great when he’s lending genuine support as was the case in…

Episode 310, “Built, Not Born”. Anthony and Natalie Brown play off each other beautifully in their shared scenes, and it’s his later, poignant scene with Zoie Palmer’s Android in the mess that really reminds us what this show is really about: these characters and their bonds of friendship.

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

Like the decision to cast Anthony, this one didn’t require all that much thought…

Episode 304, “All The Time In The World” in which Anthony displays THREE at his funniest (riding the seemingly endless time loop) and most serious (coming to terms with the digital resurrection of the woman he once loved).

ALEX MALLARI JR. (FOUR/RYO ISHIDA)

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

Season 3 saw FOUR complete his transition to Emperor Ryo Ishida, going from steadfast ally to sworn enemy, and the episode that gets my vote for Alex Mallari Jr.’s Best Supporting Performance is…

Episode 308, “Hot Chocolate”, an episode in which he truly gets to play the role of the season’s Big Bad, delivering as a fearsome threat yet, simultaneously, a conflicted former friend who has not forgotten his former ties.

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

Throughout the show’s third season, Alex did a brilliant job of conveying the war his character fought, both without and within, measuring fear against love, leadership against loyalty, and there was no better example of this complex duality than…

Episode 312, “My Final Gift To You” which sees Ryo attempt to have it all, give it all, only to see it all come crashing down. Alex makes us despise Ryo’s actions and yet, at the same time, find compassion and sympathy for that former friend so far gone.

JODELLE FERLAND (FIVE)

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

One of my favorite guest stars back on Stargate: Atlantis was a young (13 year old) Jodelle Ferland who played the role of precocious princess Harmony in the episode to the same name. Fast forward some nine years later and she is impressing in an altogether different role as the ship’s tech monkey and defacto spirited mascot. FIVE plays pivotal roles in episodes like “One Last Card To Play” and “Hot Chocolate”, but my pick for her best supporting performance is…

Episode 309, “Isn’t That A Paradox?”, which reminds us that, even though the crew may no longer refer to her as a “kid”, she is still very much a kid at heart, making friends, playing video games in pajamas, but still finding time to help save the day.

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

My choice for this category is an episode that was intended to open the door to a bigger arc involving the introduction of FIVE’s long lost sister, Karina, a surprising connection to the villainous Alicia Reynaud, and the shocking ascendance of a new Big Bad…

Episode 302, “It Doesn’t Have To Be Like This”, finally allows us insight into FIVE’s backstory, revealing the relationships and critical decisions that impacted her life, putting her on the fateful course that landed her on The Raza. Jodelle is wonderful throughout, but especially in those final, heartbreaking moments of FIVE’s trip down memory lane.

ROGER CROSS (SIX)

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

Back when we were first casting the role of SIX, I felt heart of the character was distilled down to a single line of dialogue, an exchange with FIVE in which he admits that when, inevitably, she chooses to leave their ragtag crew…”I’m going to miss you, kid. I’m going to miss you a lot.” When delivered correctly, this line would encapsulate the very heart of the Big Brother/Little Sister relationship I sought to capture. Almost every actor who auditioned for the part missed the spirit of the line, and then along came Roger Cross…

Some great moments for SIX in season 3, both in a spotlight and supporting role. In terms of supporting performance, I really liked him in Episode 301 (“Being Better Is So Much Harder”) as he attempts to pick up a fallen TWO and of course in Episode 308 (“Hot Chocolate”) as he attempts to juggle his roles as Raza bad-ass and rebel mediator, but my favorite was…

Episode 310, “Built, Not Born” mostly on the strength of a single scene opposite Zoie Palmer in The Marauder that sees SIX attempt to buoy our Android’s fallen spirits. Roger has a natural warmth and nowhere is it more evident on screen that in this wonderful exchange.

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

Sure, the obvious choice would be Episode 303 (“Welcome To The Revolution”) that sees SIX finally walk the walk he’s been talking since season 2, but I would actually give the nod to…

Episode 307, “I Wish I Could Believe You”, which offers a peek at SIX’s backstory, his friendship with John Anders, and the family he left behind. Roger delivers a compelling performance and never have we felt more sympathy for SIX.

ZOIE PALMER (ANDROID)

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

To think I originally envisioned The Android character as male. Three seasons into the show, I can’t imagine anyone BUT Zoie Palmer in the role. And, while the initial plan was to make the character a more supporting role, Zoie’s early portrayal ensured the Android became as important a crew member as everyone else on board The Raza. I was really torn in trying to select an episode for this category. On the one hand, there was Episode 309, “Isn’t That A Paradox?” which sees her drive the action in her inimitable fashion; but on the other hand, there’s…

Episode 304, “All The Time In The World”. She’s at her funniest dealing with an increasingly harried THREE and at her most dramatic jumping through her various flash-forwards. Hell, she even sings and dances!

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

Was there ever any doubt it would be…

Episode 310, “Built, Not Born”, that sees Zoie give a tour-de-force performance as both doomed creator, Dr. Shaw, and conflicted creation. The Android-SIX scene in The Marauder in which he reminds her how special she is, Android’s conversation with FIVE on the merits of smiling, Android’s heart to heart with THREE over whiskey and hot chocolate – some of my favorites of the entire series.

So, those are my votes. What do you all think? What were your favorite Supporting and Lead Performances for each cast member?

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December 31, 2017 - Part 1

Photos: Books


2017 was a banner reading year for me. I read anywhere and everywhere: on set, in bed, at red lights. All told, I blazed through a staggering 265 titles on the year covering a wide variety of genres (science fiction, fantasy, horror, mystery, thrillers, crime, non-fiction, and general fiction). Over half of those were 2017 releases, so when it came time to selecting this year’s top reads, I felt I was in a better position to do so than most.

Of course, narrowing down my selects proved an immense challenge and I truly agonized as I whittled down my initial shortlist from 40 to 34 and, finally, to 30, inevitably abandoning my plan to make it a Top 25. I ignored the critics, the big awards talk, and applied a fairly straightforward criteria to the selection process. I asked myself: Did the book grab me? Was I engrossed in the story? Did I love the characters? Was I compelled to continue reading? Did it touch me, amuse me, surprise me? Was I ultimately satisfied with my reading experience?

And, when all was said and done, these were my picks for The Top Books of 2017:

#30 – Elmet by Fiona Mozley

The family thought the little house they had made themselves in Elmet, a corner of Yorkshire, was theirs, that their peaceful, self-sufficient life was safe. Cathy and Daniel roamed the woods freely, occasionally visiting a local woman for some schooling, living outside all conventions. Their father built things and hunted, working with his hands; sometimes he would disappear, forced to do secret, brutal work for money, but to them he was a gentle protector.

Narrated by Daniel after a catastrophic event has occurred, Elmet mesmerizes even as it becomes clear the family’s solitary idyll will not last. When a local landowner shows up on their doorstep, their precarious existence is threatened, their innocence lost. Daddy and Cathy, both of them fierce, strong, and unyielding, set out to protect themselves and their neighbors, putting into motion a chain of events that can only end in violence.

The very last book I read in 2017 captures the final spot in my Top 30. A story about family, independence, and what people will do when what little they have is threatened.

#29 – Barbary Station by R.E. Stearns

Adda and Iridian are newly-minted engineers, but in a solar system wracked by economic collapse after an interplanetary war, an engineering degree isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. Desperate for gainful employment, they hijack a colony ship, planning to join a pirate crew at Barbary Station, an abandoned shipbreaking station in deep space.

But when they arrive at Barbary Station, nothing is as they expected. The pirates aren’t living in luxury — they’re hiding in a makeshift base welded onto the station’s exterior hull. The artificial intelligence controlling the station’s security system has gone mad, trying to kill all station residents. And it shoots down any ship that tries to leave, so there’s no way out.

Adda and Iridian have one chance to earn a place on the pirate crew: destroy the artificial intelligence. The last engineer who went up against the security system suffered explosive decapitation, and the pirates are taking bets on how the newcomers will die. But Adda and Iridian plan to beat the odds.

There’s a glorious future in piracy…if they can survive long enough.

A rip-roarin’ recommendation that came my way via The Verve’s Andrew Liptak. Sci-fi should be this much fun.

#28 – The Widow of Wall Street by Randy Susan Meyers

What’s real in a marriage built on sand and how do you abandon a man you’ve loved since the age of fifteen?

Phoebe sees the fire in Jake Pierce’s belly from the moment they meet as teenagers in Brooklyn. Eventually he creates a financial dynasty and she trusts him without hesitation—unaware his hunger for success hides a dark talent for deception.

When Phoebe learns—along with the rest of the world—that her husband’s triumphs are the result of an elaborate Ponzi scheme her world unravels. Lies underpin her life and marriage. As Jake’s crime is uncovered, the world obsesses about Phoebe. Did she know her life was fabricated by fraud? Did she partner with her husband in hustling billions from pensioners, charities, and CEOs? Was she his accomplice in stealing from their family and neighbors?

Debate rages as to whether love and loyalty blinded her to his crimes or if she chose to live in denial. While Jake is trapped in the web of his own deceit, Phoebe is faced with an unbearable choice. Her children refuse to see her if she remains at their father’s side, but abandoning Jake, a man she’s known since childhood, feels cruel and impossible.

From Brooklyn to Greenwich to Manhattan, from penthouse to prison, with tragic consequences rippling well beyond Wall Street, The Widow of Wall Street exposes a woman struggling to redefine her life and marriage as everything she thought she knew crumbles around her.

The fascinating flip side to The Wolf of Wall Street tells the tale of a fraudster’s wife left to pick up the pieces as a social pariah following her husband’s conviction.

#27 – Brave Deeds by David Abrams

From Fobbit author David Abrams, Brave Deeds is a powerful novel of war, brotherhood, and America. Spanning eight hours, the novel follows a squad of six AWOL soldiers as they attempt to cross war-torn Baghdad on foot to attend the funeral of their leader, Staff Sergeant Rafe Morgan. In an inhospitable landscape, these men recall the most ancient of warriors while portraying a cross section of twenty-first century America—sometimes strong, sometimes weak, but subject to the same human flaws as all of us.

Drew is reliable in the field, but unfaithful at home. Cheever, overweight and whining, is a friend to no one—least of all, himself. Specialist Olijandro, or O, is distracted by dangerous romantic thoughts of his ex-wife. Fish’s propensity for violence is what drew him to the military and could be a catalyst for the day’s events. Park is the quiet one, but his quick thinking may make him the day’s hero. And platoon commander Dmitri “Arrow” Arogapoulos, is stalwart, yet troubled with questions about his own identity and sexuality. As the six march across Baghdad, their complicated histories, hopes, and fears are told in a chorus of voices that merge into a powerful portrait of the modern war zone and the deepest concerns of us all, military and civilian alike. Moving, thoughtful, funny, and smart, Brave Deeds is a gripping story of combat and of brotherhood, and an important addition to the oeuvre of contemporary war fiction.

A stirring account of the incredible lengths a group of soldiers will go to in order to pay their respects to a fallen comrade.

#26 – Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke

When it comes to law and order, East Texas plays by its own rules–a fact that Darren Mathews, a black Texas Ranger, knows all too well. Deeply ambivalent about growing up black in the lone star state, he was the first in his family to get as far away from Texas as he could. Until duty called him home.

When his allegiance to his roots puts his job in jeopardy, he travels up Highway 59 to the small town of Lark, where two murders–a black lawyer from Chicago and a local white woman–have stirred up a hornet’s nest of resentment. Darren must solve the crimes–and save himself in the process–before Lark’s long-simmering racial fault lines erupt.

A gripping thriller with a remarkably atypical protagonist in Texas Ranger Darren Mathews. Hopefully the first in a long series.

#25 – Such Small Hands by Andrés Barb-a

It was once a happy city; we were once happy girls. . . . Life changes at the orphanage the day Marina shows up. As she tries to find her place, she creates a game whose rules are dictated by a haunting violence. In hypnotic, lyrical prose, Andrés Barba evokes the pain of loss and the hunger for acceptance—a masterwork from the Spanish writer at the peak of his powers.

A haunting little tale that will get under your skin – and stay there.

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December 31, 2017 - Part 2


#24 – Lightning Men by Thomas Mullen

Officer Denny Rakestraw, “Negro Officers” Lucius Boggs and Tommy Smith, and Sergeant McInnis have their hands full in an overcrowded and rapidly changing Atlanta. It’s 1950 and color lines are shifting and racial tensions are simmering. Black families—including Smith’s sister and brother-in-law—are moving into Rake’s formerly all-white neighborhood, leading some residents to raise money to buy them out, while others advocate a more violent solution. Rake’s brother-in-law, Dale, a proud Klansman, launches a scheme to rally his fellow Kluxers to save their neighborhood. When those efforts spiral out of control and leave a man dead, Rake is forced to choose between loyalty to family or the law.

He isn’t the only one with family troubles. Boggs has outraged his preacher father by courting a domestic, and now her ex-boyfriend has been released from prison. As Boggs, Smith, and their all-black precinct contend with violent drug dealers fighting for turf in new territory, their personal dramas draw them closer to the fires that threaten to consume Atlanta once again.

The second book in a (the Darktown) series, that reads like the first. A fascinating look at the professional and personal struggles on both sides of the racial divide in 1950’s Atlanta.

#23 – The Substitute by Nicole Lundrigan

Warren Botts is a disillusioned Ph.D., taking a break from his lab to teach middle-school science. Gentle, soft-spoken, and lonely, he innocently befriends Amanda, one of his students. But one morning, Amanda is found dead in his backyard, and Warren, shocked, flees the scene.

As the small community slowly turns against him, an anonymous narrator, a person of extreme intelligence and emotional detachment, offers insight into events past and present. As the tension builds, we gain an intimate understanding of the power of secrets, illusions, and memories.

A taunt thriller with a final reveal I never saw coming.

#22 – Gastrophysics: The New Science of Eating by Charles Spence

Why do we consume 35 percent more food when eating with one other person, and 75 percent more when dining with three? How do we explain the fact that people who like strong coffee drink more of it under bright lighting? And why does green ketchup just not work?

The answer is gastrophysics, the new area of sensory science pioneered by Oxford professor Charles Spence. Now he’s stepping out of his lab to lift the lid on the entire eating experience how the taste, the aroma, and our overall enjoyment of food are influenced by all of our senses, as well as by our mood and expectations.

The pleasures of food lie mostly in the mind, not in the mouth. Get that straight and you can start to understand what really makes food enjoyable, stimulating, and, most important, memorable. Spence reveals in amusing detail the importance of all the off the plate elements of a meal: the weight of cutlery, the color of the plate, the background music, and much more. Whether we re dining alone or at a dinner party, on a plane or in front of the TV, he reveals how to understand what we re tasting and influence what others experience.

I always wondered why I craved tomato juice on long haul flights. I’ll take food science over food porn any day.

#21 – The Last Place You Look by Kristen Lepionka

Sarah Cook, a beautiful blonde teenager disappeared fifteen years ago, the same night her parents were brutally murdered in their suburban Ohio home. Her boyfriend Brad Stockton – black and from the wrong side of the tracks – was convicted of the murders and sits on death row, though he always maintained his innocence. With his execution only weeks away, his devoted sister, insisting she has spotted Sarah at a local gas station, hires PI Roxane Weary to look again at the case.

Reeling from the recent death of her cop father, Roxane finds herself drawn to the story of Sarah’s vanishing act, especially when she thinks she’s linked Sarah’s disappearance to one of her father’s unsolved murder cases involving another teen girl. Despite her self-destructive tendencies, Roxane starts to hope that maybe she can save Brad’s life and her own.

This thriller stands out among so many others on the year for its deeply flawed but incredibly engaging protagonist, Roxanne Weary.

#20 – The Last Days of Cafe Leila by Donia Bijan

A neighborhood café in Tehran is at the center of this powerful and transporting story of love, family, friendship, and homecoming told against the backdrop of Iran’s rich, yet tragic, history.

When Noor returns to her native Iran for the first time in thirty years, so much about her homeland is different. But Café Leila–the restaurant Noor’s family has run for three generations–hasn’t changed. Zod, Noor’s father, is still at the café’s helm, a much-loved patriarch offering laughter, solace, and nourishment to the makeshift family of regulars and waiters who call Café Leila home. With her discontented, very American teenage daughter, Lily, reluctantly at her side, Noor struggles to maintain a semblance of family life. But Tehran is a place of contradictions, where grace and brutal violence both have a foothold, and it’s not long before rebellious Lily is caught up in both.

As the novel folds back in time, stories emerge of Noor’s ancestors, particularly of her mother, who was killed when Noor was a teenager. As past and present converge, Noor begins to understand her place in–and her responsibility to–this world and to the many souls who have sought refuge at the café. The Last Days of Café Leila is a powerful debut about the delicate, sometimes dangerous balance between history and progress, and the resilience of a family in the face of upheaval.

I was thoroughly swept away by this tale of one family’s journey from the horror’s of war to the hope of a new world, and then back to the home they once knew.

#19 – Red Sister by Mark Lawrence

At the Convent of Sweet Mercy young girls are raised to be killers. In a few the old bloods show, gifting talents rarely seen since the tribes beached their ships on Abeth. Sweet Mercy hones its novices’ skills to deadly effect: it takes ten years to educate a Red Sister in the ways of blade and fist.

But even the mistresses of sword and shadow don’t truly understand what they have purchased when Nona Grey is brought to their halls as a bloodstained child of eight, falsely accused of murder: guilty of worse.

Stolen from the shadow of the noose, Nona is sought by powerful enemies, and for good reason. Despite the security and isolation of the convent her secret and violent past will find her out. Beneath a dying sun that shines upon a crumbling empire, Nona Grey must come to terms with her demons and learn to become a deadly assassin if she is to survive…

Lawrence sets aside the grimdark trappings of his Broken Empire Trilogy for this much more hopeful but no less epic adventure which focuses on the rise of a bold new fantasy heroine.

#18 – The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi

Our universe is ruled by physics and faster than light travel is not possible — until the discovery of The Flow, an extra-dimensional field we can access at certain points in space-time that transport us to other worlds, around other stars.

Humanity flows away from Earth, into space, and in time forgets our home world and creates a new empire, the Interdependency, whose ethos requires that no one human outpost can survive without the others. It’s a hedge against interstellar war — and a system of control for the rulers of the empire.

The Flow is eternal — but it is not static. Just as a river changes course, The Flow changes as well, cutting off worlds from the rest of humanity. When it’s discovered that The Flow is moving, possibly cutting off all human worlds from faster than light travel forever, three individuals — a scientist, a starship captain and the Empress of the Interdependency — are in a race against time to discover what, if anything, can be salvaged from an interstellar empire on the brink of collapse.

Old Man’s War is and will forever by my favorite Scalzi novel, but The Collapsing Empire, with its BIG sci-fi concepts, clever plot, and sense of humor, is now a strong second.

#17 – History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund

Fourteen-year-old Madeline lives with her parents in the beautiful, austere woods of northern Minnesota, where their nearly abandoned commune stands as a last vestige of a lost counter-culture world. Isolated at home and an outlander at school, Madeline is drawn to the enigmatic, attractive Lily and new history teacher Mr. Grierson. When Mr. Grierson is charged with possessing child pornography, the implications of his arrest deeply affect Madeline as she wrestles with her own fledgling desires and craving to belong.

And then the young Gardner family moves in across the lake and Madeline finds herself welcomed into their home as a babysitter for their little boy, Paul. It seems that her life finally has purpose but with this new sense of belonging she is also drawn into secrets she doesn’t understand. Over the course of a few days, Madeline makes a set of choices that reverberate throughout her life. As she struggles to find a way out of the sequestered world into which she was born, Madeline confronts the life-and-death consequences of the things people do—and fail to do—for the people they love.

A story as strange and unique as its young protagonist. This one will stay with you…

#16 – Ill Will by Dan Chaon

“We are always telling a story to ourselves, about ourselves,” Dustin Tillman likes to say. It’s one of the little mantras he shares with his patients, and it’s meant to be reassuring. But what if that story is a lie?

A psychologist in suburban Cleveland, Dustin is drifting through his forties when he hears the news: His adopted brother, Rusty, is being released from prison. Thirty years ago, Rusty received a life sentence for the massacre of Dustin’s parents, aunt, and uncle. The trial came to symbolize the 1980s hysteria over Satanic cults; despite the lack of physical evidence, the jury believed the outlandish accusations Dustin and his cousin made against Rusty. Now, after DNA analysis has overturned the conviction, Dustin braces for a reckoning.

Meanwhile, one of Dustin’s patients gets him deeply engaged in a string of drowning deaths involving drunk college boys. At first Dustin dismisses talk of a serial killer as paranoid thinking, but as he gets wrapped up in their amateur investigation, Dustin starts to believe that there’s more to the deaths than coincidence. Soon he becomes obsessed, crossing all professional boundaries—and putting his own family in harm’s way.

“That was dark!”was my friend Alex’s review after taking me up on my recommendation to check out this book. Hell, yes. By the time the pieces of the mystery fall into place, it’ll have you by the throat.

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December 31, 2017 - Part 3


#15 – American Fire: Love, Arson, and Life in a Vanishing Land by Monica Hesse

The arsons started on a cold November midnight and didn’t stop for months. Night after night, the people of Accomack County waited to see which building would burn down next, regarding each other at first with compassion, and later suspicion. Vigilante groups sprang up, patrolling the rural Virginia coast with cameras and camouflage. Volunteer firefighters slept at their stations. The arsonist seemed to target abandoned buildings, but local police were stretched too thin to surveil them all. Accomack was desolate—there were hundreds of abandoned buildings. And by the dozen they were burning.

The culprit, and the path that led to these crimes, is a story of twenty-first century America. Washington Post reporter Monica Hesse first drove down to the reeling county to cover a hearing for Charlie Smith, a struggling mechanic who upon his capture had promptly pleaded guilty to sixty-seven counts of arson. But as Charlie’s confession unspooled, it got deeper and weirder. He wasn’t lighting fires alone; his crimes were galvanized by a surprising love story. Over a year of investigating, Hesse uncovered the motives of Charlie and his accomplice, girlfriend Tonya Bundick, a woman of steel-like strength and an inscrutable past. Theirs was a love built on impossibly tight budgets and simple pleasures. They were each other’s inspiration and escape…until they weren’t.

A great real life mystery particularly notable for the odd relationship at its center. We begin with a small community in the grips of a serial arsonist and end with a trial charged with shocking revelations.

#14 – Borne by Jeff VanderMeer

In a ruined, nameless city of the future, a woman named Rachel, who makes her living as a scavenger, finds a creature she names “Borne” entangled in the fur of Mord, a gigantic, despotic bear. Mord once prowled the corridors of the biotech organization known as the Company, which lies at the outskirts of the city, until he was experimented on, grew large, learned to fly and broke free. Driven insane by his torture at the Company, Mord terrorizes the city even as he provides sustenance for scavengers like Rachel.

At first, Borne looks like nothing at all—just a green lump that might be a Company discard. The Company, although severely damaged, is rumoured to still make creatures and send them to distant places that have not yet suffered Collapse.

Borne somehow reminds Rachel of the island nation of her birth, now long lost to rising seas. She feels an attachment she resents; attachments are traps, and in this world any weakness can kill you. Yet when she takes Borne to her subterranean sanctuary, the Balcony Cliffs, Rachel convinces her lover, Wick, not to render Borne down to raw genetic material for the drugs he sells—she cannot break that bond.

Wick is a special kind of supplier, because the drug dealers in the city don’t sell the usual things. They sell tiny creatures that can be swallowed or stuck in the ear, and that release powerful memories of other people’s happier times or pull out forgotten memories from the user’s own mind—or just produce beautiful visions that provide escape from the barren, craterous landscapes of the city.

Against his better judgment, out of affection for Rachel or perhaps some other impulse, Wick respects her decision. Rachel, meanwhile, despite her loyalty to Wick, knows he has kept secrets from her. Searching his apartment, she finds a burnt, unreadable journal titled “Mord,” a cryptic reference to the Magician (a rival drug dealer) and evidence that Wick has planned the layout of the Balcony Cliffs to match the blueprint of the Company building. What is he hiding? Why won’t he tell her about what happened when he worked for the Company?

VanderMeer’s recent Southern Reach series was an insidious, slow-burn departure from his fungi and celaphod-inspired early work, but Borne finds him at his brazenly bizarre best.

#13 – Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann

In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Indian Nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, the Osage rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe.

Then, one by one, they began to be killed off. One Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, watched as her family was murdered. Her older sister was shot. Her mother was then slowly poisoned. And it was just the beginning, as more Osage began to die under mysterious circumstances.

In this last remnant of the Wild West—where oilmen like J. P. Getty made their fortunes and where desperadoes such as Al Spencer, “the Phantom Terror,” roamed – virtually anyone who dared to investigate the killings were themselves murdered. As the death toll surpassed more than twenty-four Osage, the newly created F.B.I. took up the case, in what became one of the organization’s first major homicide investigations. But the bureau was then notoriously corrupt and initially bungled the case. Eventually the young director, J. Edgar Hoover, turned to a former Texas Ranger named Tom White to try to unravel the mystery. White put together an undercover team, including one of the only Native American agents in the bureau. They infiltrated the region, struggling to adopt the latest modern techniques of detection. Together with the Osage they began to expose one of the most sinister conspiracies in American history.

No mystery gripped me tighter than this true crime account of the mysterious murders that plagued Oklahama’s wealthy Osage Nation. Grann’s search for answers almost one hundred years later makes for one of 2017’s most compelling reads.

#12 – The Power by Naomi Alderman

In The Power the world is a recognisable place: there’s a rich Nigerian kid who lounges around the family pool; a foster girl whose religious parents hide their true nature; a local American politician; a tough London girl from a tricky family. But something vital has changed, causing their lives to converge with devastating effect. Teenage girls now have immense physical power – they can cause agonising pain and even death. And, with this small twist of nature, the world changes utterly.

This one made a bunch of Best Of lists which, on the one hand, put it on my radar but, on the other, made me a little dubious going in. It grabbed me in its first twenty pages and never let go. A critical darling wholly deserving of its praise.

#11 – Little Heaven by Nick Cutter

From electrifying horror author Nick Cutter comes a haunting new novel, reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridianand Stephen King’s It, in which a trio of mismatched mercenaries is hired by a young woman for a deceptively simple task: check in on her nephew, who may have been taken against his will to a remote New Mexico backwoods settlement called Little Heaven. Shortly after they arrive, things begin to turn ominous. Stirrings in the woods and over the treetops—the brooding shape of a monolith known as the Black Rock casts its terrible pall. Paranoia and distrust grips the settlement. The escape routes are gradually cut off as events spiral towards madness. Hell—or the closest thing to it—invades Little Heaven. The remaining occupants are forced to take a stand and fight back, but whatever has cast its dark eye on Little Heaven is now marshaling its powers…and it wants them all.

As far as I’m concerned, Nick Cutter ranks alongside Stephen King as a must-read author of the genre. His latest book is eerie and unsettling, but, as always, its characters are as crucial as the horror.

#10 – The Book of Polly by Kathy Hepinstall

Willow Havens is ten years old and obsessed with the fear that her mother will die. Her mother, Polly, is a cantankerous, take-no-prisoners Southern woman who lives to shoot varmints, drink margaritas, and antagonize the neighbors and she sticks out like a sore thumb among the young modern mothers of their small conventional Texas town. She was in her late fifties when Willow was born, so Willow knows she’s here by accident, a late-life afterthought. Willow’s father died before she was born, her much older brother and sister are long grown and gone and failing elsewhere. It’s just her and bigger-than-life Polly.

Willow is desperately hungry for clues to the family life that preceded her, and especially Polly’s life pre-Willow. Why did she leave her hometown of Bethel, Louisiana, fifty years ago and vow never to return? Who is Garland Jones, her long-ago suitor who possibly killed a man? And will Polly be able to outrun the Bear, the illness that finally puts her on a collision course with her past?

Polly, a caustic and colorful senior raising her teenage grand-daughter, is one of 2017’s most memorable fictional characters and, alone, well worth the price of admission. Or the cover price anyway.

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December 31, 2017 - Part 4


#9 – Things That Happened Before the Earthquake by Chiara Barzini

Mere weeks after the 1992 riots that laid waste to Los Angeles, Eugenia, a typical Italian teenager, is rudely yanked from her privileged Roman milieu by her hippieish filmmaker parents and transplanted to the strange suburban world of the San Fernando Valley. With only the Virgin Mary to call on for guidance as her parents struggle to make it big, Hollywood fashion, she must navigate her huge new public high school, complete with Crips and Bloods and Persian gang members, and a car-based environment of 99-cent stores and obscure fast-food franchises and all-night raves. She forges friendships with Henry, who runs his mother’s movie memorabilia store, and the bewitching Deva, who introduces her to the alternate cultural universe that is Topanga Canyon. And then the 1994 earthquake rocks the foundations not only of Eugenia’s home but of the future she’d been imagining for herself.

From local celebrity (after her family is cast in an Italian Spam commercial) to inner city outsider, Barzini’s offbeat protagonist, Eugenia, is a force of nature as strong as the titular quake. Joyously transportative.

#8 – The Destroyers by Christopher Bollen

Arriving on the Greek island of Patmos broke and humiliated, Ian Bledsoe is fleeing the emotional and financial fallout from his father’s death. His childhood friend Charlie—rich, exuberant, and basking in the success of his new venture on the island—could be his last hope.

At first Patmos appears to be a dream—long sun-soaked days on Charlie’s yacht and the reappearance of a girlfriend from Ian’s past—and Charlie readily offers Ian the lifeline he so desperately needs. But, like Charlie himself, this beautiful island conceals a darkness beneath, and it isn’t long before the dream begins to fragment. When Charlie suddenly vanishes, Ian finds himself caught up in deception after deception. As he grapples with the turmoil left in his friend’s wake, he is reminded of an imaginary game called Destroyers they played as children—a game, he now realizes, they may have never stopped playing.

An incredibly suspenseful read. Once I started, I became so engrossed that I ended up setting aside the entire day to finishing it.

#7 – To Be A Machine: Adventures Among Cyborgs, Utopians, Hackers, and the Futurists Solving the Modest Problem of Death by Mark O’Connell

Meet the visionaries, billionaires, professors, and programmers who are using groundbreaking technology to push the limits of the human body our senses, intelligence, and our lifespans.

Once relegated to the fringes of society, transhumanism (the use of technology to enhance human intellectual and physical capability) is now poised to enter our cultural mainstream. It has found adherents in Silicon Valley billionaires Ray Kurzweil and Peter Diamandis. Google has entered the picture, establishing a bio-tech subsidiary aimed at solving the problem of aging.

In To Be a Machine, journalist Mark O’Connell takes a headlong dive into this burgeoning movement. He travels to the laboratories, conferences, and basements of today’s foremost transhumanists, where he’s presented with the staggering possibilities and moral quandaries of new technologies like mind uploading, artificial superintelligence, cryonics, and device implants.

Informative, funny, and at times altogether bizarre, this book explores the concept of transhumanism through its contemporary proponents – all of them fascinating, several of them downright weird.

#6 – Ghosts of the Tsunami by Richard Lloyd Parry

On 11 March 2011, a massive earthquake sent a 120-foot-high tsunami smashing into the coast of north-east Japan. By the time the sea retreated, more than 18,500 people had been crushed, burned to death, or drowned.

It was Japan’s greatest single loss of life since the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. It set off a national crisis, and the meltdown of a nuclear power plant. And even after the immediate emergency had abated, the trauma of the disaster continued to express itself in bizarre and mysterious ways.

Richard Lloyd Parry, an award-winning foreign correspondent, lived through the earthquake in Tokyo, and spent six years reporting from the disaster zone. There he encountered stories of ghosts and hauntings. He met a priest who performed exorcisms on people possessed by the spirits of the dead. And he found himself drawn back again and again to a village which had suffered the greatest loss of all, a community tormented by unbearable mysteries of its own.

What really happened to the local children as they waited in the school playground in the moments before the tsunami? Why did their teachers not evacuate them to safety? And why was the unbearable truth being so stubbornly covered up?

At turns shocking, touching, and maddening, Parry’s book touches on the victims of the 2011 tsunami, their personal stories of survival, and their ensuing attempts to recover lost loved ones and the truth about the tragic circumstances at one ill-fated elementary school.

#5 – Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood

The childhood of Patricia Lockwood, the poet dubbed “The Smutty-Metaphor Queen of Lawrence, Kansas” by The New York Times, was unusual in many respects. There was the location: an impoverished, nuclear waste-riddled area of the American Midwest. There was her mother, a woman who speaks almost entirely in strange koans and warnings of impending danger. Above all, there was her gun-toting, guitar-riffing, frequently semi-naked father, who underwent a religious conversion on a submarine and discovered a loophole which saw him approved for the Catholic priesthood by the future Pope Benedict XVI – despite already having a wife and children.

When the expense of a medical procedure forces the 30-year-old Patricia to move back in with her parents, husband in tow, she must learn to live again with her family’s simmering madness, and to reckon with the dark side of a childhood spent in the bosom of the Catholic Church. Told with the comic sensibility of a brasher, bluer Waugh or Wodehouse, this is at the same time a lyrical and affecting story of how, having ventured into the underworld, we can emerge with our levity and our sense of justice intact.

As the son of a former minister, I could relate to a certain degree, but Lockwood’s hilarious account of her relationship with her colorful father is beyond imagining.

#4 – Stephen Florida by Gabe Habash

Foxcatcher meets The Art of Fielding, Stephen Florida follows a college wrestler in his senior season, when every practice, every match, is a step closer to greatness and a step further from sanity. Profane, manic, and tipping into the uncanny, it’s a story of loneliness, obsession, and the drive to leave a mark.

The biggest surprise of my 2017 reading list was this book about a college wrestler and his single-minded mission to achieve victory at all costs. Unputdownable.

#3 – The Force by Don Winslow

All Denny Malone wants is to be a good cop.

He is “the King of Manhattan North,” a highly decorated NYPD detective sergeant and the real leader of “Da Force.” Malone and his crew are the smartest, the toughest, the quickest, the bravest, and the baddest, an elite special unit given carte blanche to fight gangs, drugs, and guns. Every day and every night for the eighteen years he’s spent on the Job, Malone has served on the front lines, witnessing the hurt, the dead, the victims, the perps. He’s done whatever it takes to serve and protect in a city built by ambition and corruption, where no one is clean—including Malone himself.

What only a few know is that Denny Malone is dirty: he and his partners have stolen millions of dollars in drugs and cash in the wake of the biggest heroin bust in the city’s history. Now Malone is caught in a trap and being squeezed by the Feds, and he must walk the thin line between betraying his brothers and partners, the Job, his family, and the woman he loves, trying to survive, body and soul, while the city teeters on the brink of a racial conflagration that could destroy them all.

Winslow’s The Winter of Frankie Machine is one of my all-time favorite crime novels, so I was prepared to be underwhelmed by comparison. Instead, I ended up staying up until 3 a.m. to finish the last 400 pages of this cracking read.

#2 – Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked by Adam Alter

Welcome to the age of behavioral addiction—an age in which half of the American population is addicted to at least one behavior. We obsess over our emails, Instagram likes, and Facebook feeds; we binge on TV episodes and YouTube videos; we work longer hours each year; and we spend an average of three hours each day using our smartphones. Half of us would rather suffer a broken bone than a broken phone, and Millennial kids spend so much time in front of screens that they struggle to interact with real, live humans.

In this revolutionary book, Adam Alter, a professor of psychology and marketing at NYU, tracks the rise of behavioral addiction, and explains why so many of today’s products are irresistible. Though these miraculous products melt the miles that separate people across the globe, their extraordinary and sometimes damaging magnetism is no accident. The companies that design these products tweak them over time until they become almost impossible to resist.

By reverse engineering behavioral addiction, Alter explains how we can harness addictive products for the good—to improve how we communicate with each other, spend and save our money, and set boundaries between work and play—and how we can mitigate their most damaging effects on our well-being, and the health and happiness of our children.

Informative and downright shocking at times, this book has made me much more mindful of my technological dependencies. And makes me thankful I never disappeared down the rabbit hole that is World of Warcraft.

#1 – The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley by Hannah Tinti

After years spent living on the run, Samuel Hawley moves with his teenage daughter, Loo, to Olympus, Massachusetts. There, in his late wife’s hometown, Hawley finds work as a fisherman, while Loo struggles to fit in at school and grows curious about her mother’s mysterious death. Haunting them both are twelve scars Hawley carries on his body, from twelve bullets in his criminal past; a past that eventually spills over into his daughter’s present, until together they must face a reckoning yet to come. This father-daughter epic weaves back and forth through time and across America, from Alaska to the Adirondacks.

Both a coming-of-age novel and a literary thriller, The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley explores what it means to be a hero, and the cost we pay to protect the people we love most.

I read this one early in the year and it stayed #1 on my list through the next nine months on the strength of the wonderful father-daughter relationship at the heart of this wholly wonderful novel.

So, those were my picks for The Best Books of 2017. I’d love to know yours.

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no more blog updates?

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Joe has talked about the possibility of a new Stargate spin-off on his blog:

https://josephmallozzi.wordpress.com...the-next-step/
https://josephmallozzi.wordpress.com...possibilities/
https://josephmallozzi.wordpress.com...l-stargatenow/
https://josephmallozzi.wordpress.com...ns-lets-do-it/

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GW is the only place I can keep in touch with JM..
https://josephmallozzi.wordpress.com...decision-time/

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https://josephmallozzi.wordpress.com...f-2018-so-far/
I have "The Armored Saint" and Myke Cole signed it.

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All in..
https://josephmallozzi.wordpress.com.../july-5-2018-a