Tag: Lavie Tidhar

Lavie Tidhar’s BY FORCE ALONE out now in the UK!

Posted on Thursday, March 5th, 2020

Lavie Tidhar‘s highly-anticipated next novel, BY FORCE ALONE is out now in the UK! Published by Head of Zeus, here’s the synopsis…

Everyone thinks they know the story of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table, but they don’t know sh*t. 

There was never a painting that showed the true Britain, that clogged sewer Rome abandoned just as soon as it could. A Britain where petty warlords murdered each other in the mud, while all the while the Angles and Saxons and – worst of all – the Jutes, were coming over here and taking our lands and taking our jobs and taking our women. 

You want to know the truth? Are you sure you can handle the truth? 

Arthur? An over-promoted gangster, in thrall to that eldritch parasite, Merlin. 

Excalibur? A shady deal with a watery arms dealer. 

The Grail Quest? Have you no idea about the aliens and the radioactive blight? 

Well, you’d better read this then.

The novel is due to be published in North America by St. Martin’s Press, on June 6th, 2020. We shared the cover for this edition a while ago, but it’s so good we wanted to share it again…

Lavie is the multi-award-winning author of a host of novels and short fiction, including UNHOLY GHOST, CENTRAL STATION and THE VIOLENT CENTURY (published by Tachyon Publications), A MAN LIES DREAMING, CANDY (Scholastic), and many more.

Here are just a few reviews that Lavie’s novels have received so far…

‘Lavie Tidhar is a genius at conjuring realities that are just two steps to the left of our own — places that look and smell and feel real, if just a bit hauntingly alien. UNHOLY LAND develops slowly. It begins with banal strangeness (this Palestinia, so like and unlike modern-day Israel) and leans gently into it… This is a story that gets weirder the deeper you get into it; that cultivates strangeness like something precious. It has three narrators: Investigator Bloom, Tirosh and a woman, Nur, who works as a field agent for the Border Agency. There are echoes of Chabon’s The Yiddish Policeman’s Union in it, wild strains of P.K. Dick and Roger Zelazny’s Chronicles of Amber. But UNHOLY LAND is its own thing. Something that no one but Tidhar could’ve written. Gorgeous in its alienness, comfortingly gray in its banality, and disquieting throughout.’ — NPR

‘In his first book for younger readers, he creates perhaps his most chilling vision yet: a city where sweets are forbidden under a prohibition act… The tone is as hard-boiled as a cough drop. The jokes sizzle like Space Dust. CANDY is a treat, the kind of confection Roald Dahl and Raymond Chandler might have come up with after an all-night bonbon bender.’ — Financial Times

‘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) on CENTRAL STATION

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

‘A brilliantly etched phantasmagoric reconfiguring of that most sizzling of eras – the twilight 20th…  This book has it all:  time travel, political intrigue, hellacious history…  You’ve got superheroes in the guise of regular humans, you’ve got World War II … THE VIOLENT CENTURY is a torrid tour de force!’ — James Ellroy

‘He is a political writer, an iconoclast and sometimes a provocateur… OSAMA is a remarkable and ambitious work.’ — China Mieville

Next Week: BY FORCE ALONE by Lavie Tidhar!

Posted on Thursday, February 27th, 2020

Lavie Tidhar‘s highly-anticipated next novel, BY FORCE ALONE is due to be published next week in the UK! Published by Head of Zeus, here’s the synopsis…

Everyone thinks they know the story of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table, but they don’t know sh*t. 

There was never a painting that showed the true Britain, that clogged sewer Rome abandoned just as soon as it could. A Britain where petty warlords murdered each other in the mud, while all the while the Angles and Saxons and – worst of all – the Jutes, were coming over here and taking our lands and taking our jobs and taking our women. 

You want to know the truth? Are you sure you can handle the truth? 

Arthur? An over-promoted gangster, in thrall to that eldritch parasite, Merlin. 

Excalibur? A shady deal with a watery arms dealer. 

The Grail Quest? Have you no idea about the aliens and the radioactive blight? 

Well, you’d better read this then.

Lavie’s North American fans will have to wait just a little bit longer before getting their hands on the novel, however: it is due to be published by Tor Books, on June 16th, 2020. Here’s the gorgeous cover…

Lavie is the multi-award-winning author of a host of critically-acclaimed novels and short fiction, including UNHOLY GHOST, CENTRAL STATION (both published by Tachyon Publications), THE VIOLENT CENTURY (Tachyon), A MAN LIES DREAMING, CANDY (Scholastic), and many more.

Here’s just a small selection of the aforementioned critical acclaim that Lavie’s novels have received so far…

‘[O]ne of those lovely books that starts out presenting itself as one thing, and mutates into another almost without you seeing it… a game-player of a writer who uses the spectrum of science fiction canon for his pieces… a grand game of alternate worlds cast like jewels on the sand. The long second act is all dust and blood and madness and glory, and the fast third act comes down on you like a sharpened spade… Lavie Tidhar is a clever bastard, and this book is a box of little miracles.’ — Warren Ellis on UNHOLY LAND

‘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 

‘…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

‘Vintage Lavie, and also I think his most fully accomplished novel yet. Nobody rides that fast-rolling wave separating schlocky pulp and serious literary sensibilities so deftly as Tidhar. He manages to make serious points about the benighted twentieth-century and its obsession with ‘supermen’ without ever letting the narrative slacken or the adventure pale. If Nietzche had written an X-Men storyline whilst high on mescaline, it might have read something like THE VIOLENT CENTURY.’ — Adam Roberts, author of Jack Glass

‘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

‘Delicious pastiche of “noir” fiction from SF author Lavie Tidhar, set in a city where everything sweet and sugary is banned. Private eye Nelle searches for a lost teddy bear and uncovers a Chinatown-style conspiracy. You could think of it as The Malteser Falcon, or perhaps Double Inde-mint-y.’ — Financial Times (Summer Books of 2018) on CANDY

ADLER’s Adventures Continue in 3 Weeks!

Posted on Friday, February 21st, 2020

The first issue of Lavie Tidhar‘s ADLER comic series was met with a veritable tsunami of praise, so there is no doubt plenty of excitement about the second issue. Today, we share with you the three fantastic variant covers for ADLER #2! Due to be published by Titan Comics on March 11th, here’s the synopsis…

After uniting some of the most famous heroines of the Victorian age including Jane Eyre, Miss Havisham and Marie Curie, Irene Adler must finally come face-to-face with Sherlock Holmes’s greatest nemesis, Moriarty!

World Fantasy Award winning writer Lavie Tidhar and TMNT artist Paul McCaffrey present an alternate history of the greatest literary characters of the 19th Century in the vein of Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen!

The cover up top is by Butch Guice, and here are the other two variant covers for ADLER #2, the first by Paul McCaffrey (series artist).

Lavie is also the author of the upcoming BY FORCE ALONE (Head of Zeus, Tor Books), a retelling of the Arthurian legend that has also been racking up some fantastic advance praise. Here are just three examples…

Tor Books due to publish Lavie Tidhar’s BY FORCE ALONE this summer!

Posted on Friday, February 14th, 2020

We’ve already shared the cover for the UK edition of Lavie Tidhar‘s upcoming next novel, BY FORCE ALONE. Above, you can see the equally striking North American cover — we’ve shared it a couple of times on Twitter already, but we thought you might like more details!

Due to be published by Tor Books on June 16th, 2020, here’s the synopsis…

A retelling of Arthurian myth for the age of Brexit and Trump…

Everyone thinks they know the story of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table.

The fact is they don’t know sh*t.

Arthur? An over-promoted gangster.
Merlin? An eldritch parasite.
Excalibur? A shady deal with a watery arms dealer.
Britain? A clogged sewer that Rome abandoned just as soon as it could.

A savage and cutting epic fantasy, equally poetic and profane, By Force Alone is at once a timely political satire, a magical adventure, and a subversive masterwork.

Here’s the UK cover again…

Lavie is the multi-award-winning author of a host of critically-acclaimed novels and short fiction, including UNHOLY GHOST, CENTRAL STATION (both published by Tachyon Publications), THE VIOLENT CENTURY (Tachyon), A MAN LIES DREAMING, CANDY (Scholastic), and many more.

Here’s just a small selection of the aforementioned critical acclaim that Lavie’s novels have received so far…

‘[O]ne of those lovely books that starts out presenting itself as one thing, and mutates into another almost without you seeing it… a game-player of a writer who uses the spectrum of science fiction canon for his pieces… a grand game of alternate worlds cast like jewels on the sand. The long second act is all dust and blood and madness and glory, and the fast third act comes down on you like a sharpened spade… Lavie Tidhar is a clever bastard, and this book is a box of little miracles.’ — Warren Ellis on UNHOLY LAND

‘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 

‘…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

‘Vintage Lavie, and also I think his most fully accomplished novel yet. Nobody rides that fast-rolling wave separating schlocky pulp and serious literary sensibilities so deftly as Tidhar. He manages to make serious points about the benighted twentieth-century and its obsession with ‘supermen’ without ever letting the narrative slacken or the adventure pale. If Nietzche had written an X-Men storyline whilst high on mescaline, it might have read something like THE VIOLENT CENTURY.’ — Adam Roberts, author of Jack Glass

‘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

‘Delicious pastiche of “noir” fiction from SF author Lavie Tidhar, set in a city where everything sweet and sugary is banned. Private eye Nelle searches for a lost teddy bear and uncovers a Chinatown-style conspiracy. You could think of it as The Malteser Falcon, or perhaps Double Inde-mint-y.’ — Financial Times (Summer Books of 2018) on CANDY

Aliette de Bodard, Ian McDonald and Lavie Tidhar on Locus’s 2019 Recommended Reading List!

Posted on Thursday, February 13th, 2020

A couple of weekends ago, Locus unveiled their 2019 Recommended Reading List, and we are delighted to be able to give a quick shout-out to clients Aliette de Bodard, Ian McDonald and Lavie Tidhar for being included! We also thought it would be a nice opportunity to share a bit more information about the work that was included on the list.

Let’s start with Aliette, who appears three times on the list! The latest novel in the Dominion of the Fallen series, THE HOUSE OF SUNDERING THORNS, is included among the best Fantasy Novels. Published by Gollancz (UK) and JABberwocky (North America), here’s the synopsis…

The great magical Houses of Paris – headed by Fallen angels and magicians – were, however temporarily, at peace with each other. Until House Harrier was levelled by a powerful explosion. Now that peace has become chaos, tearing apart old alliances and setting off a race in which each House hoards magic and resources to protect itself against another such blast.

Thuan, the Dragon head of the divided House Hawthorn, is still consolidating his power when war comes to his doorstep. Aurore -exiled from and almost beaten to death by House Harrier – sees her moment to seek power in order to protect her family, even if she must venture back to her destroyed former home to get it. And Emmanuelle finds herself alone in the middle of it all, driven to protect others, trying to piece together what has happened, andhoping – eventually – to make sense of it all.

None of them know what destroyed House Harrier, though… and when they do uncover that fiery, destructive magic then divided Houses, old enemies and estranged friends will all have to make a decision: stand together, or burn alone…

Aliette’s OF WARS, AND MEMORIES, AND STARLIGHT (Subterranean Press) is included among the best Collections, and one of the novellas within — OF BIRTHDAYS, AND FUNGUS, AND KINDNESS — is included in the recommended Novellas list! Here’s the collection’s synopsis…

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.

Next up, the third novel in Ian’s Luna series, MOON RISING, is among the recommended Sci-Fi Novels. Published by Gollancz (UK) and Tor Books (North America), here’s the synopsis…

A hundred years in the future, a war wages between the Five Dragons — five families that control the Moon’s leading industrial companies. Each clan does everything in their power to claw their way to the top of the food chain — marriages of convenience, corporate espionage, kidnapping, and mass assassinations.

Through ingenious political manipulation and sheer force of will, Lucas Cortas rises from the ashes of corporate defeat and seizes control of the Moon. The only person who can stop him is a brilliant lunar lawyer, his sister, Ariel.

Witness the Dragons’ final battle for absolute sovereignty in Ian McDonald’s heart-stopping finale to the Luna trilogy.

A prequel to the Luna series, THE MENACE FROM FARSIDE, was also included on the Novella list. It’s published by Tor.com…

Ian McDonald returns to his elegantly wound solar system of the twenty-second century, full of political intrigue and complicated families.

Remember: Lady Luna knows a thousand ways to kill you, but family is what you know. Family is what works.

Cariad Corcoran has a new sister who is everything she is not: tall, beautiful, confident. They’re unlikely allies and even unlikelier sisters, but they’re determined to find the moon’s first footprint, even if the lunar frontier is doing its best to kill them before they get there.

And last, but by no means least, Lavie’s novella NEW ATLANTIS is also included in the list. It was published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, May-June 2019. Here’s how Lavie described the novella, in an interview with SF Site…

“New Atlantis” is a novella set in what I call the Land, a sort of post-apocalyptic utopia where the few survivors of the climate change collapse now live in harmony with their environment – but can still be kind of obsessed with the old world and its excesses! I’ve been writing stories about Mai and the Land for a while now – one of them is “The Buried Giant” in Robots vs Fairies, which is also in a bunch of the Year’s Bests anthologies, and there’s a new one, “Svalbard,” coming out as a sort of interactive/puzzle thing online soon!

Lavie Tidhar signing today at Forbidden Planet in London!

Posted on Thursday, February 6th, 2020

Today at 6pm, Lavie Tidhar and Paul McCaffrey will be signing at Forbidden Plant in London! The pair will be signing copies of ADLER #1 (written by Lavie, art by Paul). There will also be advance copies of Lavie’s highly-anticipated new novel, BY FORCE ALONE!

ADLER #1, which came out yesterday, is published by Titan Comics. Here’s the synopsis…

For Sherlock, there was only ever one woman – now Irene Adler is on a mission to take down Moriarty! It’s the League of Extraordinary Gentlewomen, as Adler teams up with a host of famous female faces from science, history and literature to defeat the greatest criminal mastermind of all time!

BY FORCE ALONE, officially due to be published on March 5th in the UK by Head of Zeus, is Lavie’s highly-anticipated new novel. Here’s the synopsis…

Britannia, AD 535.

The Romans have gone. While their libraries smoulder, roads decay and cities crumble, men with swords pick over civilisation’s carcass, slaughtering and being slaughtered in turn.

This is the story of just such a man. Like the others, he had a sword. He slew until slain. Unlike the others, we remember him. We remember King Arthur.

This is the story of a land neither green nor pleasant. An eldritch isle of deep forest and dark fell haunted by swaithes, boggarts and tod-lowries, Robin-Goodfellows and Jenny Greenteeths, and predators of rarer appetite yet.

This is the story of a legend forged from a pack of self-serving, turd-gilding, weasel-worded lies told to justify foul deeds and ill-gotten gains.

Lavie Tidhar’s ADLER #1 is out now!

Posted on Wednesday, February 5th, 2020

The first issue in Lavie Tidhar‘s first comic series, ADLER, is out now! Published by Titan Comics, the issue is available with four variant covers (see below). Here’s the synopsis…

For Sherlock, there was only ever one woman – now Irene Adler is on a mission to take down Moriarty! It’s the League of Extraordinary Gentlewomen, as Adler teams up with a host of famous female faces from science, history and literature to defeat the greatest criminal mastermind of all time!

Series artwork by Paul McCaffrey, who also did one of the variant covers. The ‘A’ cover (at the top) is by Butch Guice.

Here’s a sample from the interior artwork, to further whet your appetite…

Lavie is also the highly-acclaimed author of many award-winning and -nominated novels and novellas, including most recently UNHOLY LAND, CENTRAL STATION and THE VIOLENT CENTURY (Tachyon Publications). He is also the author of CANDY, his first book for younger readers (Scholastic).

Lavie’s next novel is BY FORCE ALONE, due to be published by Head of Zeus (UK, March) and Tor Books (North America, June) — we shared the UK and US covers for this novel last week, but because we love them so much here they are again…

If you happen to be in London tomorrow, Lavie will be at Forbidden Planet signing copies of ADLER #1, as well as advance copies of BY FORCE ALONE!

Lavie Tidhar signing ADLER #1 and BY FORCE ALONE Next Week at Forbidden Planet!

Posted on Friday, January 31st, 2020

Next week — Thursday, 6th, to be exact — Lavie Tidhar will be at Forbidden Plant in London, signing copies of issue one in his first comic series, ADLER, as well as advance copies of his latest novel, BY FORCE ALONE!

Lavie will be joined by Paul McCaffrey, who did the artwork for the series. ADLER #1 is due to be published the day before the signing by Titan Comics. Here’s the synopsis…

For Sherlock, there was only ever one woman – now Irene Adler is on a mission to take down Moriarty! It’s the League of Extraordinary Gentlewomen, as Adler teams up with a host of famous female faces from science, history and literature to defeat the greatest criminal mastermind of all time!

BY FORCE ALONE, officially due to be published on March 5th in the UK by Head of Zeus, is Lavie’s highly-anticipated new novel. Here’s the synopsis…

Britannia, AD 535.

The Romans have gone. While their libraries smoulder, roads decay and cities crumble, men with swords pick over civilisation’s carcass, slaughtering and being slaughtered in turn.

This is the story of just such a man. Like the others, he had a sword. He slew until slain. Unlike the others, we remember him. We remember King Arthur.

This is the story of a land neither green nor pleasant. An eldritch isle of deep forest and dark fell haunted by swaithes, boggarts and tod-lowries, Robin-Goodfellows and Jenny Greenteeths, and predators of rarer appetite yet.

This is the story of a legend forged from a pack of self-serving, turd-gilding, weasel-worded lies told to justify foul deeds and ill-gotten gains.

ADLER #1 out in Two Weeks!

Posted on Friday, January 24th, 2020

The release of Lavie Tidhar‘s first comic series, ADLER, is fast approaching! Due out in two week (February 5th), the series will be published by Titan Comics. Here’s the synopsis…

For Sherlock, there was only ever one woman – now Irene Adler is on a mission to take down Moriarty! It’s the League of Extraordinary Gentlewomen, as Adler teams up with a host of famous female faces from science, history and literature to defeat the greatest criminal mastermind of all time!

Artwork for the series is by Paul McCaffrey. The first issue will also be available with multiple variant covers, including one by Butch Guice (at top), one by McCaffrey, a black & white version, and a vintage book-cover styled option…

Also, check out this sample from the interior…

Lavie Tidhar’s World Fantasy Award-winning OSAMA now available in Russia!

Posted on Wednesday, January 22nd, 2020

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)

Lavie Tidhar’s 中央星站 out now in China!

Posted on Wednesday, January 1st, 2020

Lavie Tidhar‘s award-winning and critically-acclaimed novel CENTRAL STATION is now available in China! Published as 中央星站 by 中信出版集团 (Citic), here’s the synopsis…

基因孩子、节点人类、增强元人类、数据吸血鬼、机械改造人、弃物之王、造神艺术家…

特拉维夫、中央星站、耶路撒冷、汤圆城、月球港、波吕港…

地球、火星、美茹河星、谷神星、土卫六、初始太空、混沌宇宙…

在不太遥远的未来，一场世界范围内的大离散过后，二十五万 人滞留中央星站。

城市破败，科技失控，生命廉价，数据泛滥，地球沦为宇宙中的垃圾场。

在遭受战争、离散、数据和科技入侵、“人”的定义饱受质疑。

生活在这里的各色“人类”继续着他们的进化…

CENTRAL STATION is published in English by Tachyon Publications. 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.

Tachyon also publishes Lavie’s acclaimed UNHOLY LAND and THE VIOLENT CENTURY (North America edition).

Chinese-speaking fans of Lavie’s work could also turn their attention to these great interviews the author did while recently in China:

Here’s is just a small selection taken from the aforementioned critical acclaim that CENTRAL STATION has received since it was released…

‘CENTRAL STATION is full of the worries and aspirations of a new generation of science fiction people. This is not a simple science fiction novel, but a projection of a multi-ethnic coexistence world, a true fable for the present and the future.’ — Wu Yan

‘Roles and characters are evidenced, stories are linked to stories, and through a community perspective that connects to each other, we are like a shuttle in the central station of Tel Aviv to get a glimpse of a glorious, chaotic future. It is the perfect combination of literature and imagination.’ — Hao Jingfang (Hugo Award-winning author)

‘Lavie Tidhar used CENTRAL STATION to reshape a wild, dreamy and homesick future of Tel Aviv, and also reshaped our understanding and expectation of science fiction.’ — Chen Qiufan

‘A dazzling tale of complicated politics and even more complicated souls. Beautiful.’ — Ken Liu

‘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

‘A fascinating future glimpsed through the lens of a tight-knit community. Tidhar 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

‘Tidhar’s prose draws the reader in, bringing this world to life with ease… characters are never sacrificed in favour of the technology; in fact, the two of them combine seamlessly to create a unique vision, one that will leave the reader thinking long after the final page. Not only intelligent, it’s emotional too, telling of loves lost and those only just begun, of those wishing to escape their past and those hoping to bring it back… Tidhar is reminiscent of an early William Gibson, not just in sharing that short and punchy style, but in his ability to create a world where the speculation is believable enough to fit seamlessly into the narrative; somehow, despite being set centuries into the future, it feels just around the corner… cement[s] Lavie Tidhar as one of science fiction’s great voices, an author who creates scenarios and characters that feel destined to become classics, ones that readers will be happy to revisit time and time again. It’s a compelling collection that mixes the epic and the intimate, one that succeeds at being profound, incredibly moving and, quite simply, stunning.’ (10/10) — Starburst 

‘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

Next year, Head of Zeus due to publish BY FORCE ALONE by Lavie Tidhar!

Posted on Friday, December 27th, 2019

Lavie Tidhar‘s highly-anticipated next novel, BY FORCE ALONE, will be out next year (March 5th, to be exact)! Due to be published in the UK by Head of Zeus, you can see the striking cover above. Here’s the synopsis…

Everyone thinks they know the story of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table, but they don’t know sh*t. 

There was never a painting that showed the true Britain, that clogged sewer Rome abandoned just as soon as it could. A Britain where petty warlords murdered each other in the mud, while all the while the Angles and Saxons and – worst of all – the Jutes, were coming over here and taking our lands and taking our jobs and taking our women. 

You want to know the truth? Are you sure you can handle the truth? 

Arthur? An over-promoted gangster, in thrall to that eldritch parasite, Merlin. 

Excalibur? A shady deal with a watery arms dealer. 

The Grail Quest? Have you no idea about the aliens and the radioactive blight? 

Well, you’d better read this then.

The novel is due to be published in North America by St. Martin’s Press, later in the year (we’ll share the cover and details for that edition soon).

Lavie is the multi-award-winning author of a host of novels and short fiction, including UNHOLY GHOST, CENTRAL STATION, THE VIOLENT CENTURY, CANDY, A MAN LIES DREAMING, and many more.

Coming Soon: Lavie Tidhar’s ADLER #1!

Posted on Friday, December 6th, 2019

In February 2020, Titan Comics are due to start publishing Lavie Tidhar‘s first comic series, ADLER! Created with artist Paul McCaffrey, the first issue will be published with four covers (one by Butch Guice), which you can see above and below. Here’s the synopsis…

For Sherlock, there was only ever one woman — now Irene Adler is on a mission to take down Moriarty! It’s the League of Extraordinary Gentlewomen, as Adler teams up with a host of famous female faces from science, history and literature to defeat the greatest criminal mastermind of all time!

A project long in the making, we’re so glad you will all soon be able to read this great comic!

Lavie is also the author of many award-winning and -nominated novels and novellas, including most recently UNHOLY LAND and CENTRAL STATION (Tachyon Publications). He is also the author of CANDY, his first book for younger readers (Scholastic).

Short Fiction Watch: IN XANADU and NEW ATLANTIS

Posted on Tuesday, November 19th, 2019

In this edition of Short Fiction Watch, we wanted to draw your attention to two new piece by Lavie Tidhar!

First up, IN XANADU, a new story that was published on Tor.com (it’s also available as an eBook from the usual retailers). Here’s the synopsis…

Security through physicality. Security through redundancy. Security through obscurity. How do immortal artificial intelligences defend themselves? With an air gap. With a security force that has no connection to anything that can harm them. With a young woman, trained to fight and to die who, along with her cohort must keep them safe. But In Xanadu things don’t always go as planned…

And second, we also wanted to draw your attention to a new novella that was published in Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine, NEW ATLANTIS. Here’s how Lavie described the novella, in an interview for SF Site…

“New Atlantis” is a novella set in what I call the Land, a sort of post-apocalyptic utopia where the few survivors of the climate change collapse now live in harmony with their environment – but can still be kind of obsessed with the old world and its excesses! I’ve been writing stories about Mai and the Land for a while now – one of them is “The Buried Giant” in Robots vs Fairies, which is also in a bunch of the Year’s Bests anthologies, and there’s a new one, “Svalbard,” coming out as a sort of interactive/puzzle thing online soon!

Prepare to visit Lavie Tidhar’s 中央星站 in the New Year!

Posted on Friday, November 15th, 2019

We’re very happy to share with you the details of the upcoming Chinese edition of Lavie Tidhar‘s award-winning CENTRAL STATION! Due to be published 中信出版集团 (Citic) as 中央星站 on January 1st, 2020, here’s the synopsis…

基因孩子、节点人类、增强元人类、数据吸血鬼、机械改造人、弃物之王、造神艺术家…

特拉维夫、中央星站、耶路撒冷、汤圆城、月球港、波吕港…

地球、火星、美茹河星、谷神星、土卫六、初始太空、混沌宇宙…

在不太遥远的未来，一场世界范围内的大离散过后，二十五万 人滞留中央星站。

城市破败，科技失控，生命廉价，数据泛滥，地球沦为宇宙中的垃圾场。

在遭受战争、离散、数据和科技入侵、“人”的定义饱受质疑。

生活在这里的各色“人类”继续着他们的进化…

CENTRAL STATION is published in English by Tachyon Publications, who also publish the acclaimed UNHOLY LAND and THE VIOLENT CENTURY (US edition). 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.

Chinese-speaking fans of Lavie’s work could also turn their attention to these great interviews the author did while recently in China:

Here’s is just a small selection taken from the aforementioned critical acclaim that CENTRAL STATION has received since it was released…

‘CENTRAL STATION is full of the worries and aspirations of a new generation of science fiction people. This is not a simple science fiction novel, but a projection of a multi-ethnic coexistence world, a true fable for the present and the future.’ — Wu Yan

‘Roles and characters are evidenced, stories are linked to stories, and through a community perspective that connects to each other, we are like a shuttle in the central station of Tel Aviv to get a glimpse of a glorious, chaotic future. It is the perfect combination of literature and imagination.’ — Hao Jingfang (Hugo Award-winning author)

‘Lavie Tidhar used CENTRAL STATION to reshape a wild, dreamy and homesick future of Tel Aviv, and also reshaped our understanding and expectation of science fiction.’ — Chen Qiufan

‘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)

‘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

‘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

‘A fascinating future glimpsed through the lens of a tight-knit community. Tidhar changes genres with every outing, but his astounding talents guarantee something new and compelling no matter the story he tells.’ — Library Journal (starred review)

‘A dazzling tale of complicated politics and even more complicated souls. Beautiful.’ — Ken Liu

‘Tidhar’s prose draws the reader in, bringing this world to life with ease… characters are never sacrificed in favour of the technology; in fact, the two of them combine seamlessly to create a unique vision, one that will leave the reader thinking long after the final page. Not only intelligent, it’s emotional too, telling of loves lost and those only just begun, of those wishing to escape their past and those hoping to bring it back… Tidhar is reminiscent of an early William Gibson, not just in sharing that short and punchy style, but in his ability to create a world where the speculation is believable enough to fit seamlessly into the narrative; somehow, despite being set centuries into the future, it feels just around the corner… cement[s] Lavie Tidhar as one of science fiction’s great voices, an author who creates scenarios and characters that feel destined to become classics, ones that readers will be happy to revisit time and time again. It’s a compelling collection that mixes the epic and the intimate, one that succeeds at being profound, incredibly moving and, quite simply, stunning.’ (10/10) — Starburst 

‘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