Lavie Tidhar‘s novel OSAMA, which won the World Fantasy Award in 2012, is now available in Russia! Published by Эксмо’s Fanzon SF imprint as Усама, here’s the synopsis…
Частного детектива Джо нанимает таинственная незнакомка для розыска исчезнувшего писателя Майкла Лонгшотта, автора культовой серии триллеров “Мститель”, повествующих о приключениях супергероя по имени Усама бен Ладен. Джо предстоят поиски в Лаосе, Франции, Америке, Афганистане, Марокко и Анг- лии — странах мира, столь похожего и столь отличающегося от нашего. Мира, в котором Вторая мировая война закончилась иначе, нет глобального терроризма, а реальность призрачна.
This Russian edition joins a growing number of translated editions of this excellent, thought-provoking novel. Here’s the novel’s English-language synopsis…
In an alternate world without global terrorism Joe, a private detective, is hired by a mysterious woman to find a man: the obscure author of pulp fiction novels featuring one Osama Bin Laden: Vigilante…
Joe’s quest to find the man takes him across the world, from the backwaters of Asia to the European Capitals of Paris and London, and as the mystery deepens around him there is one question he is trying hard not to ask: who is he, really, and how much of the books are fiction? Chased by unknown assailants, Joe s identity slowly fragments as he discovers the shadowy world of the refugees, ghostly entities haunting the world in which he lives.
Where do they come from? And what do they want? Joe knows how the story should end, but even he is not ready for the truths he ll find in New York and, finally, on top a quiet hill above Kabul nor for the choice he will at last have to make…
Here are a few of the great reviews the novel has received…
‘He is a political writer, an iconoclast and sometimes a provocateur … OSAMA is a remarkable and ambitious work.’ — China Mieville
‘Bears comparison with the best of Philip K Dick’s paranoid, alternate-history fantasies. It’s beautifully written and undeniably powerful.’ — Financial Times
‘OSAMA has ushered Tidhar into the limelight… OSAMA is the narrative symphony Philip K. Dick wished he could have composed. Not only is it beautifully written, it is expertly crafted… OSAMA is a work of art. And Tidhar is a word-painter, constructing vibrant and poetic landscapes of narrative in spite of the novel’s dark and brooding subject matter. Too often, I am surprised by works that win the World Fantasy Award, among others in the speculative genres (none more so than the Bram Stoker Award). Sometimes the quality of winners doesn’t hold up and their nominations seem to be a matter of sheer star power or nepotism. In this case, I’m happy to say, the judges got it dead right.’ — Los Angeles Review of Books
‘… fascinating and hypnotic … the writing is beautiful.’ — Jeff VanderMeer
‘A novel about the power of fantasy, about the proximity of dreams and reality, about ghost people and ghost realities. Lavie Tidhar has written a fine, striking, memorable piece of fiction here, one that deserves to be widely read.’ — Adam Roberts
‘A provocative and fast moving tale that raises good questions not only about the heritage of Al Qaeda, but about the slippage between reality and sensational fiction that sometimes seems to define our own confused and contorted experience of the last couple of decades.’ — Gary K. Wolfe, Locus
‘A roller-coaster ride… [a] fabulous opium-soaked political thriller… pulls out all the stops.’ — Rolling Stone (Germany)