Tag: 竹書房

ICYMI: Zelazny’s A NIGHT IN THE LONESOME OCTOBER is Available in Japan

Posted on Friday, May 21st, 2021

In case you missed it, Roger Zelazny‘s acclaimed, fan-favourite novel A NIGHT IN THE LONESOME OCTOBER is available in a Japanese edition. Published by 竹書房 (Takeshobo) as 虚ろなる十月の夜に, here’s the synopsis…

切り裂き魔(ジャック)に吸血鬼(ドラキュラ)、名探偵(ホームズ)
いずれ劣らぬ曲者たちが旧き神々(クトゥルー)に対峙する――

十月の終わりの万聖節前夜（ハロウィーン）に、そのゲームは行われる。 《閉じる者（クローザー）》と《開く者（オープナー）》、旧き神々を崇拝する者たちとそれを阻止せんとする者たちの、 世界の変革と保持を巡る戦い──《大いなる儀式》が。
御主人（マスター）切り裂きジャックと使い魔である犬のスナッフもまた、《大いなる儀式》の参加者である。彼らが来た村には、ドラキュラ伯爵、フランケンシュタイン博士らの姿があり、使い魔たちは儀式へ向け情報を集めている。スナッフは魔女ジルの使い魔である猫のグレイモークと頻繁に情報を交換するが、果たして彼女たちが味方なのかすらもわからないのだ。そして儀式の日が迫る中、参加者たちの周りに名探偵シャーロック・ホームズの影が見え隠れする──。
著名なキャラクターたちとクトゥルー神話を融合させ、ネビュラ賞候補作ともなった、奇想横溢のゼラズニイ最後の長篇。

A NIGHT IN THE LONESOME OCTOBER is published in the UK by Farrago Books. Described by Neil Gaiman as ‘One of Zelazny’s most delightful books’, here’s the English-language synopsis…

All is not what it seems.

In the murky London gloom, a knife-wielding gentleman named Jack prowls the midnight streets with his faithful watchdog Snuff – gathering together the grisly ingredients they will need for an upcoming ancient and unearthly rite. For soon after the death of the moon, black magic will summon the Elder Gods back into the world. And all manner of Players, both human and undead, are preparing to participate.

Some have come to open the gates. Some have come to slam them shut. And now the dread night approaches – so let the Game begin.

The novel has also been translated widely; with recent new editions in Italy, Russia, Italy, and Ukraine.

Lavie Tidhar & Aliette de Bodard Nominated for Seiun Awards!

Posted on Friday, May 15th, 2020

Announced late last week, we are very happy to share the news that Lavie Tidhar and Aliette de Bodard have been nominated for Seiun Awards in Japan!

In the Best Translated Novel category, we have Lavie’s A MAN LIES DREAMING. Published in Japan by 竹書房 (Takeshobo), as 黒き微睡みの囚人, here’s the synopsis…

The novel won the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Award when it was first published in the UK. It was recently re-issued as an eBook by JABberwocky, with a cover by Sarah Anne Langton (above). Here’s the English-language synopsis…

Deep in the heart of history’s most infamous concentration camp, a man lies dreaming. His name is Shomer, and before the war he was a pulp fiction author. Now, to escape the brutal reality of life in Auschwitz, Shomer spends his nights imagining another world – a world where a disgraced former dictator now known only as Wolf ekes out a miserable existence as a low-rent PI in London’s grimiest streets.

Aliette’s ‘Memorials‘ is nominated in the Best Translated Story category. Available in Japan as part of the Xuya anthology, 茶匠と探偵, published by 竹書房. Here’s the synopsis for the collection…

星々は語らない。淡く見えるとも強く輝く――

探偵と元軍艦の宇宙船がコンビを組み深宇宙（ディープ・スペーシズ）での事件を解決する表題作の他、異文化に適応しようとした女性が偽りの自分に飲み込まれる「包嚢」、宇宙船を身籠った女性と船の設計士の交流を描く「船を造る者たち」、少女がおとぎ話の真実を知る「竜が太陽から飛びだす時」。

“アジアの宇宙”であるシュヤ宇宙を舞台に紡ぐ全9篇。
現代SFの最前線に立つ作家、日本初の短篇集。

【収録作品一覧】
「蝶々、黎明に墜ちて」（“Butterfly, Falling at Dawn”）
「船を造る者たち」（“The Shipmaker”）
「包嚢」（“Immersion”）
「星々は待っている」（“The Waiting Stars”）
「形見」（“Memorials”）
「哀しみの杯三つ、星明かりのもとで」（“Three Cups of Grief, by Starlight”）
「魂魄回収」（“A Salvaging of Ghosts”）
「竜の太陽から飛びだす時」（“The Dragon That Flew Out of the Sun”）
「茶匠と探偵」（“The Tea Master and the Detective”）

The stories included in 茶匠と探偵 are available in English in THE TEA MASTER AND THE DETECTIVE and OF WARS, AND MEMORIES, AND STARLIGHT — both published by Subterranean Press. The former is also available in the UK, published by JABberwocky.

Here’s the synopsis for OF WARS, AND MEMORIES, AND STARLIGHT…

A major first collection from a writer fast becoming one of the stars of the genre… Aliette de Bodard, multiple award winner and author of The Tea Master and the Detective, now brings readers fourteen dazzling tales that showcase the richly textured worldbuilding and beloved characters that have brought her so much acclaim.

Come discover the breadth and endless invention of her universes, ranging from a dark Gothic Paris devastated by a magical war; to the multiple award-winning Xuya, a far-future space opera inspired by Vietnamese culture where scholars administrate planets and sentient spaceships are part of families.

In the Nebula award and Locus award winning “Immersion”, a young girl working in a restaurant on a colonized space station crosses paths with an older woman who has cast off her own identity. In the novelette “Children of Thorns, Children of Water”, a shapeshifting dragon infiltrating a ruined mansion finds more than he’s bargained for when his partner is snatched by eerie, child-like creatures. And in the award-winning “Three Cups of Grief, by Starlight”, three very different people — a scholar, an engineer, and a spaceship — all must deal with the loss of a woman who was the cornerstone of their world.   

This collection includes a never-before seen 20,000-word novella, “Of Birthdays, and Fungus, and Kindness”, set in Bodard’s alternative dark Paris.

The Seiun Awards were originally planned to be presented at F-CON, the 59th Japan SF Convention, scheduled for August 22-23, 2020 in Fukushima prefecture. However, the convention has now been postponed until March 13-14, 2021.

Congratulations to Lavie and Aliette! Both very well-deserved nominations and we have our fingers crossed!

Aliette de Bodard’s Xuya Anthology, 茶匠と探偵 out tomorrow in Japan!

Posted on Wednesday, November 27th, 2019

Above you can see the gorgeous cover artwork that graces a new Japanese anthology of Aliette de Bodard‘s acclaimed, award-winning Xuya fiction. The cover’s artwork is by Kou Takano, and the design is by Koichi Sakano.

茶匠と探偵 is due to be published tomorrow by 竹書房 (Takeshobo), here’s the synopsis…

星々は語らない。淡く見えるとも強く輝く――

探偵と元軍艦の宇宙船がコンビを組み深宇宙（ディープ・スペーシズ）での事件を解決する表題作の他、異文化に適応しようとした女性が偽りの自分に飲み込まれる「包嚢」、宇宙船を身籠った女性と船の設計士の交流を描く「船を造る者たち」、少女がおとぎ話の真実を知る「竜が太陽から飛びだす時」。

“アジアの宇宙”であるシュヤ宇宙を舞台に紡ぐ全9篇。
現代SFの最前線に立つ作家、日本初の短篇集。

【収録作品一覧】
「蝶々、黎明に墜ちて」（“Butterfly, Falling at Dawn”）
「船を造る者たち」（“The Shipmaker”）
「包嚢」（“Immersion”）
「星々は待っている」（“The Waiting Stars”）
「形見」（“Memorials”）
「哀しみの杯三つ、星明かりのもとで」（“Three Cups of Grief, by Starlight”）
「魂魄回収」（“A Salvaging of Ghosts”）
「竜の太陽から飛びだす時」（“The Dragon That Flew Out of the Sun”）
「茶匠と探偵」（“The Tea Master and the Detective”）

As you can see, the synopsis includes a contents list. The book’s translator is Yutaka Ohshima.

THE TEA MASTER AND THE DETECTIVE is published in North America by Subterranean Press, and in the UK and elsewhere by JABberwocky. Here’s the English-language synopsis…

Welcome to the Scattered Pearls Belt, a collection of ring habitats and orbitals ruled by exiled human scholars and powerful families, and held together by living mindships who carry people and freight between the stars. In this fluid society, human and mindship avatars mingle in corridors and in function rooms, and physical and virtual realities overlap, the appearance of environments easily modified and adapted to interlocutors or current mood.

A transport ship discharged from military service after a traumatic injury, The Shadow’s Child now ekes out a precarious living as a brewer of mind-altering drugs for the comfort of space-travellers. Meanwhile, abrasive and eccentric scholar Long Chau wants to find a corpse for a scientific study. When Long Chau walks into her office, The Shadow’s Child expects an unpleasant but easy assignment. When the corpse turns out to have been murdered, Long Chau feels compelled to investigate, dragging The  Shadow’s Child with her.

As they dig deep into the victim’s past, The Shadow’s Child realises that the investigation points to Long Chau’s own murky past — and, ultimately, to the dark and unbearable void that lies between the stars…

Subterranean Press has also recently published a collection of Aliette’s short fiction — OF WARS, AND MEMORIES, AND STARLIGHT — which includes six of the stories included in 茶匠と探偵. Here’s the synopsis for the anthology…

A major first collection from a writer fast becoming one of the stars of the genre… Aliette de Bodard, multiple award winner and author of The Tea Master and the Detective, now brings readers fourteen dazzling tales that showcase the richly textured worldbuilding and beloved characters that have brought her so much acclaim.

Come discover the breadth and endless invention of her universes, ranging from a dark Gothic Paris devastated by a magical war; to the multiple award-winning Xuya, a far-future space opera inspired by Vietnamese culture where scholars administrate planets and sentient spaceships are part of families.

In the Nebula award and Locus award winning “Immersion”, a young girl working in a restaurant on a colonized space station crosses paths with an older woman who has cast off her own identity. In the novelette “Children of Thorns, Children of Water”, a shapeshifting dragon infiltrating a ruined mansion finds more than he’s bargained for when his partner is snatched by eerie, child-like creatures. And in the award-winning “Three Cups of Grief, by Starlight”, three very different people — a scholar, an engineer, and a spaceship — all must deal with the loss of a woman who was the cornerstone of their world.

黒き微睡みの囚人: Lavie Tidhar’s award-winning A MAN LIES DREAMING out now in Japan!

Posted on Thursday, January 31st, 2019

Lavie Tidhar‘s award-winning, critically-acclaimed novel A MAN LIES DREAMING is out today in Japan! Published by 竹書房 (Takeshobo) as 黒き微睡みの囚人, here’s the synopsis…

私立探偵ウルフ。ドイツで総統になるはずだった男。
作家ショーマー。アウシュヴィッツで総統の夢を見る男。

かつてウルフはドイツで有力な政治家だった。
しかし、“大転落”と呼ばれる政変が起こり、
権力を失った彼は、ロンドンに逃れ私立探偵をしていた。
ユダヤ人嫌いのウルフだが、金のためにユダヤ人女性の行方を探すことになり、
さらに娼婦連続殺人事件にも巻き込まれてしまう。
そして調査を進めるうちにウルフは
元同志たちが暗躍するイギリスの暗部へと足を踏み入れる。

時間と場所を隔てた別の世界。
アウシュヴィッツで、作家が夢を見ていた。
自分から、ユダヤ人から、すべてを奪ったあの男の夢を。
夢の中では男は私立探偵をしていた――。

ひとから想像力を奪うことはできない。
だが、すべてを奪われ想像力だけが残されたとき、それはひとに何をもたらすのか。
ホロコーストを新たな視点で描いた、歴史改変奇想ノワール。

A MAN LIES DREAMING, which won the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Award, is published in the UK by Hodder (where it is currently on sale in eBook), and in the US by Melville House. The novel has also been published in a number of translated editions. Here’s the English-language synopsis…

Deep in the heart of history’s most infamous concentration camp, a man lies dreaming. His name is Shomer, and before the war he was a pulp fiction author. Now, to escape the brutal reality of life in Auschwitz, Shomer spends his nights imagining another world – a world where a disgraced former dictator now known only as Wolf ekes out a miserable existence as a low-rent PI in London’s grimiest streets.

Here, too, is just a small selection of the critical acclaim the novel has received since it was first published in 2014…

‘Wild, noir-infused alternative history from genre-bender Tidhar… A wholly original Holocaust story: as outlandish as it is poignant.’ — Kirkus (Starred Review)

‘Set during the election of a demagogue who battens on the fears of an underemployed populace threatened by thousands of foreign-born refugees, A MAN LIES DREAMING feels disturbingly prescient. Tidhar holds up a mirror not just to Wolf, but to ourselves. In doing so, he reminds us that even — especially — under the most terrible of circumstances, stories are all we have. And in the right hands, they can be a formidable weapon.’ — Washington Post

‘This is a shocking book as well as a rather brilliant one… Tidhar’s novel treats its grim theme not as a comedy, although there is plenty of caustic humour, but instead as a pulp-noir tale of seamy city streets, gumshoes and lowlifes… Tidhar gets the outre tone just right… Tidhar, who cut his teeth in the world of genre SF, understands how eloquent pulp can be… Like Tarantino, Tidhar may find that some people don’t take him seriously. But the joke’s on them. Seriousness is the least of it: A MAN LIES DREAMING is a twisted masterpiece.’ — Guardian

‘Everything in this genre-bender works; intriguing historical characters are worked into expertly managed plots, and the visceral noir atmosphere is juxtaposed nicely against the drawing-room world of London’s political scene.’ — Booklist (Starred Review)

‘A Chandler-esque mystery… a jarring tale of a grim, gray alternative world… Seldom will readers come across fantasy as well conceived and well written as this exceptional novel.’ — Library Journal (Starred Review)

‘…savagely funny… A MAN LIES DREAMING, by the Israeli-born novelist Lavie Tidhar, has not been published with the fanfare bestowed on Martin Amis’s The Zone of Interest or Howard Jacobson’s J, but it is their equal for savage humour… Those who enjoy laughter in the dark will relish Tidhar’s parade of mordant ironies… This novel is weird, upsetting, unmissable.’ 5* — Telegraph

‘When Tidhar writes of the Holocaust it is with brutal accuracy and a deep sensitivity… it’s poetic and terrible… Many will find elements of this story deeply disturbing, not the least of which is a possible sympathy to Wolf… To top it all of course is Tidhar’s voice itself — at times humorous, at times grim but never frivolous and always taught and controlled… As with his previous novels, Tidhar knows how to say a great deal in very little. There is eloquence and gravitas in the sparseness and brevity of noir fiction when it is good, and Tidhar’s is quite incredible.’ — Tor.com

‘No one can accuse Lavie Tidhar of being risk-averse… Tidhar reveals – as he did earlier in OSAMA and to some extent in THE VIOLENT CENTURY – that he’s really less interested in the mechanistic ‘‘what-ifs’’ of conventional alternate history than he is in the interpenetration of real and in­vented histories, or perhaps more grandiosely in the interpenetration of art and life – even the often-demeaned art of sensational fiction or (as in the case of THE VIOLENT CENTURY) comic books. This is what makes him such an interesting writer, and what makes A MAN LIES DREAMING quite a bit more complex than it at first appears… the novel is not without a fair amount of humor, and that might well be the boldest risk Tidhar is taking here…’ — Locus

Lavie’s latest novels are UNHOLY LAND and CENTRAL STATION (published by Tachyon Publications) and his first book for younger readers, CANDY (published by Scholastic).

Next Week, A MAN LIES DREAMING in Japan…

Posted on Wednesday, January 23rd, 2019

Next week, 竹書房 (Takeshobo) are due to publish a Japanese edition of Lavie Tidhar‘s award-winning, critically-acclaimed novel A MAN LIES DREAMING! Published as 黒き微睡みの囚人, here’s the synopsis…

私立探偵ウルフ。ドイツで総統になるはずだった男。
作家ショーマー。アウシュヴィッツで総統の夢を見る男。

かつてウルフはドイツで有力な政治家だった。
しかし、“大転落”と呼ばれる政変が起こり、
権力を失った彼は、ロンドンに逃れ私立探偵をしていた。
ユダヤ人嫌いのウルフだが、金のためにユダヤ人女性の行方を探すことになり、
さらに娼婦連続殺人事件にも巻き込まれてしまう。
そして調査を進めるうちにウルフは
元同志たちが暗躍するイギリスの暗部へと足を踏み入れる。

時間と場所を隔てた別の世界。
アウシュヴィッツで、作家が夢を見ていた。
自分から、ユダヤ人から、すべてを奪ったあの男の夢を。
夢の中では男は私立探偵をしていた――。

ひとから想像力を奪うことはできない。
だが、すべてを奪われ想像力だけが残されたとき、それはひとに何をもたらすのか。
ホロコーストを新たな視点で描いた、歴史改変奇想ノワール。

A MAN LIES DREAMING, which won the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Award, is published in the UK by Hodder (where it is currently on sale in eBook), and in the US by Melville House. Here’s the English-language synopsis…

Deep in the heart of history’s most infamous concentration camp, a man lies dreaming. His name is Shomer, and before the war he was a pulp fiction author. Now, to escape the brutal reality of life in Auschwitz, Shomer spends his nights imagining another world – a world where a disgraced former dictator now known only as Wolf ekes out a miserable existence as a low-rent PI in London’s grimiest streets.

Here, too, is just a small selection of the critical acclaim the novel has received since it was first published in 2014…

‘This is a shocking book as well as a rather brilliant one… Tidhar’s novel treats its grim theme not as a comedy, although there is plenty of caustic humour, but instead as a pulp-noir tale of seamy city streets, gumshoes and lowlifes… Tidhar gets the outre tone just right… Tidhar, who cut his teeth in the world of genre SF, understands how eloquent pulp can be… Like Tarantino, Tidhar may find that some people don’t take him seriously. But the joke’s on them. Seriousness is the least of it: A MAN LIES DREAMING is a twisted masterpiece.’ — Guardian

‘Wild, noir-infused alternative history from genre-bender Tidhar… A wholly original Holocaust story: as outlandish as it is poignant.’ — Kirkus (Starred Review)

‘…savagely funny… A MAN LIES DREAMING, by the Israeli-born novelist Lavie Tidhar, has not been published with the fanfare bestowed on Martin Amis’s The Zone of Interest or Howard Jacobson’s J, but it is their equal for savage humour… Those who enjoy laughter in the dark will relish Tidhar’s parade of mordant ironies… This novel is weird, upsetting, unmissable.’ 5* — Telegraph

‘No one can accuse Lavie Tidhar of being risk-averse… Tidhar reveals – as he did earlier in OSAMA and to some extent in THE VIOLENT CENTURY – that he’s really less interested in the mechanistic ‘‘what-ifs’’ of conventional alternate history than he is in the interpenetration of real and in­vented histories, or perhaps more grandiosely in the interpenetration of art and life – even the often-demeaned art of sensational fiction or (as in the case of THE VIOLENT CENTURY) comic books. This is what makes him such an interesting writer, and what makes A MAN LIES DREAMING quite a bit more complex than it at first appears… the novel is not without a fair amount of humor, and that might well be the boldest risk Tidhar is taking here…’ — Locus

‘Everything in this genre-bender works; intriguing historical characters are worked into expertly managed plots, and the visceral noir atmosphere is juxtaposed nicely against the drawing-room world of London’s political scene.’ — Booklist (Starred Review)

‘A Chandler-esque mystery… a jarring tale of a grim, gray alternative world… Seldom will readers come across fantasy as well conceived and well written as this exceptional novel.’ — Library Journal (Starred Review)

Lavie’s latest novels are UNHOLY LAND and CENTRAL STATION (published by Tachyon Publications) and his first book for younger readers, CANDY (published by Scholastic).