Lavie Tidhar‘s critically-acclaimed CENTRAL STATION is out now in Bulgaria! Published by Бард as Централна станция, here’s the synopsis…
Животът е евтин, а информацията – още повече!
Една световна диаспора е оставила четвърт милион души в подножието на гигантски космодрум. Култури се сблъскват в истинския живот и виртуалната реалност. Градът е буквално плевел, оставен да расте на воля.
Когато Борис Чонг се връща в Тел Авив от Марс, много неща са се променили. Бившата му любима отглежда странно познато дете, което може да се включва към информационния поток на нечий ум само с докосване на пръста си. Братовчедка му се е увлякла по роботник – повреден войник киборг, който проси резервни части. Баща му е смъртно болен от наследствена умствена чума. А една жена информационен вампир е последвала Борис до мястото, на което й е забранено да се връща.
В Централната станция хора и машини продължават да се адаптират, да процъфтяват… и дори да еволюират.
CENTRAL STATION is published in English by Tachyon Publications, and as a limited edition by PS Publishing. Here’s the English-language synopsis…
A worldwide diaspora has left a quarter of a million people at the foot of a space station. Cultures collide in real life and virtual reality. Life is cheap, and data is cheaper.
When Boris Chong returns to Tel Aviv from Mars, much has changed. Boris’s ex-lover is raising a strangely familiar child who can tap into the datastream of a mind with the touch of a finger. His cousin is infatuated with a robotnik — a damaged cyborg soldier who might as well be begging for parts. His father is terminally-ill with a multigenerational mind-plague. And a hunted data-vampire has followed Boris to where she is forbidden to return.
Rising above them is Central Station, the interplanetary hub between all things: the constantly shifting Tel Aviv; a powerful virtual arena, and the space colonies where humanity has gone to escape the ravages of poverty and war. Everything is connected by the Others, powerful alien entities who, through the Conversation — a shifting, flowing stream of consciousness — are just the beginning of irrevocable change.
At Central Station, humans and machines continue to adapt, thrive… and even evolve.
In related news, CENTRAL STATION has been racking up an impressive number of appearances on Best Of 2016 (and other) lists. For example…
- An NPR Best Book of 2016
- A Tor.com Best Book of 2016
- Barnes and Noble Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of 2016
- A Guardian Best SF & Fantasy Book of 2016
- An NPR Summer Reading Choice
- A 10 Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy Book of 2016 So Far (Flavorwire – June)
- A May 2016 My Bookish Ways Must Read in Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror
- A Kirkus Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Horror Books You’ll Want to Read in May
- An io9 May Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Book That Will Blow Your Mind
- An Amazon Featured Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Book of May
- A Publishers Weekly Staff Pick
- A Bookskill Recommended Book
- A Tor.com Five Mosaic Novels You Should Read
Here, too, is a small selection from the praise the novel has received thus far…
‘A fascinating future glimpsed through the lens of a tight-knit community. Verdict: Tidhar (A Man Lies Dreaming; The Violent Century) changes genres with every outing, but his astounding talents guarantee something new and compelling no matter the story he tells.’ — Library Journal (starred review)
‘It is just this side of a masterpiece — short, restrained, lush — and the truest joy of it is in the way Tidhar scatters brilliant ideas like pennies on the sidewalk.’ — NPR Books
‘A marvellous, multi-faceted story that flows gently from one character to another like an intimate private tour of Tel Aviv and the spaceport at its centre.’ — SF Crowsnest
‘A fantastic mosaic novel.’ — New York Review of Science Fiction
‘Magnificently blends literary and speculative elements in this streetwise mosaic novel set under the towering titular spaceport… Tidhar gleefully mixes classic SF concepts with prose styles and concepts that recall the best of world literature. The byways of Central Station ring with dusty life, like the bruising, bustling Cairo streets depicted by Naguib Mahfouz. Characters wrestle with problems of identity forged under systems of oppression, much as displaced Easterners and Westerners do in the novels of Orhan Pamuk. And yet this is unmistakably SF. Readers of all persuasions will be entranced.’ — Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
‘The stories include some of Tidhar’s most beautiful prose, and his future Tel Aviv is among the most evocative settings in recent SF… Somehow, CENTRAL STATION combines a cultural sensibility too long invisible in SF with a sensibility which is nothing but classic SF, and the result is a rather elegant suite of tales.’ — Locus
‘CENTRAL STATION is without question the best assemblage of short stories I’ve read in recent memory. Sublimely sensual, emotionally moreish, and composed with crystalline clarity irrespective of its incredible complexity.’ — Tor.com