Tag: Tachyon Publications

ICYMI: Lavie Tidhar Interviewed for Imaginales

Posted on Monday, December 13th, 2021

Last month, Lavie Tidhar was interviewed by Lionel Davoust as part of the Imaginales 2021. In case you missed it, we’ve shared the video above.

AUCUNE TERRE N’EST PROMISE, the French edition of UNHOLY LAND, has won two awards in France: le Prix Planète SF des blogueurs 2021 and le Prix Actusf de l’uchronie 2021. It is published by Editions Mu. Here’s the synopsis…

… aucune destinée n’est manifeste.

Berlin. Lior Tirosh, écrivain de seconde zone, embarque pour la Palestina, fuyant une existence minée d’échecs. Il espère retrouver à Ararat City la chaleur du foyer, mais rien ne se passe comme prévu : la ville est ceinturée par un mur immense, et sa nièce, Déborah, a disparu dans les camps de réfugiés africains. Traqué, soupçonné de meurtre, offert en pâture à un promoteur véreux, Lior est entraîné malgré lui dans les dédales d’une histoire qu’il contribue pourtant à écrire.

Lavie Tidhar questionne nos identités, et le prix qui leur est attaché. Aucune terre n’est promise est un roman d’une incroyable lucidité sur les enjeux d’Israël, microcosme du monde. Il n’en cède pourtant rien à la poésie, seule utopie capable encore d’incarner la paix.

The novel is published by Tachyon Publications in North America and in the UK. Here’s the English-language synopsis…

Lior Tirosh is a semi-successful author of pulp fiction, an inadvertent time traveler, and an ongoing source of disappointment to his father.

Tirosh has returned to his homeland in East Africa. But Palestina — a Jewish state founded in the early 20th century — has grown dangerous. The government is building a vast border wall to keep out African refugees. Unrest in Ararat City is growing. And Tirosh’s childhood friend, trying to deliver a warning, has turned up dead in his hotel room. A state security officer has identified Tirosh as a suspect in a string of murders, and a rogue agent is stalking Tirosh through transdimensional rifts — possible futures that can only be prevented by avoiding the mistakes of the past.

From the bestselling author of Central Station comes an extraordinary new novel recalling China Miéville and Michael Chabon, entertaining and subversive in equal measures.

Here are just a few of the great reviews the novel has received…

‘… will leave readers’ heads spinning with this disorienting and gripping alternate history… Readers of all kinds, and particularly fans of detective stories and puzzles, will enjoy grappling with the numerous questions raised by this stellar work.’ — Publishers Weekly (PW Picks: Books of the Week, October 15, 2018)

‘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

‘Shifting perspectives will keep readers trying to catch up with this fast-paced plot involving incredible twists on multiple realities and homecoming. This latest from Campbell and World Fantasy Award winner Tidhar (Central Station) is fascinating and powerful.’ — Library Journal

‘[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

‘UNHOLY LAND starts out hard-boiled and comes at you sideways with the speculative elements. Tidhar has blended alternative history with murder in hotel rooms, missing women, an honest-to-god Fedora and mysterious borders in a tale that evokes Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, Casablanca and Mieville’s The City & the City. Political and pulpy, with distinct metafictional elements, Tidhar adroitly pulls off this fantastical tale of an occupied territory.’ — Tade Thompson

‘… adventurous readers will appreciate this well-written and ambitious book. It should find a place at any library that offers high-quality literary fiction.’ — Booklist

‘Tidhar has turned a suspenseful adventure tale into a complex meditation on the possible paths of modern Jewish history.’ — Chicago Tribune

Lavie Tidhar’s THE ESCAPEMENT Out Tomorrow!

Posted on Monday, October 4th, 2021

Lavie Tidhar‘s latest novel, THE ESCAPEMENT is available everywhere from tomorrow! Published last week in North America, fans in Europe can now get their hands on the author’s latest adventure. Published by Tachyon Publications, here’s the synopsis…

In this dazzling new novel evoking Westerns, surrealism, epic fantasy, mythology, and circus extravaganzas, World Fantasy Award winner Lavie Tidhar (Central Station) has created an incomparable dreamscape of dark comedy, heartbreak, hope, and adventure. Chronicling a lone man’s quest in parallel worlds, The Escapement offers the archetypal darkness of Stephen King’s The Gunslinger within the dark whimsy of a child’s imagination.

Into the Escapement rides the Stranger, a lone gunman on a quest to rescue his son in a strange parallel reality. But it is easy to lose one’s way on an endlessly shifting, unpredictable landscape. Especially in a place full of dangerous mirror-images of a child’s beloved things: lawless heroes, giants made of stone, downtrodden clowns, spectacular symbol storms, and an endless war between gods and shadowy beings.

As the Stranger has learned, the Escapement is a dreamscape of deep mysteries, unlikely allies, and unwinnable battles. Yet the flower the he seeks still lies beyond the Mountains of Darkness. Time is running out as the Stranger journeys deeper into the secret heart of an unimaginable world.

In his most compelling work to date, Lavie Tidhar has delivered a multicolored tapestry of dazzling imagery. The Escapement is an epic, wildly original chronicle of the extraordinary lengths to which one will go for love.

Want to give the book a try before you buy? Check out this excerpt, over on Tor.com.

Tachyon Publications has also published Lavie’s award winning novels CENTRAL STATION, UNHOLY LAND, and THE VIOLENT CENTURY.

Here are just a few of the great reviews THE ESCAPEMENT has received so far…

A delightfully cacophonous novel, teeming with character… Tidhar’s latest offering transports readers to a liminal otherworld of spaghetti Western pastiche… The author draws from an eclectic mix of sources to create a dazzling story that is more than the sum of its parts, and much of the fun of reading it comes from recognizing its homages.’ — Kirkus

‘[F]uriously inventive and wildly eclectic… Among the most visual and even cinematic of Tidhar’s novels… it’s also, in the end, a surprisingly touching reminder of how such quests can begin in heartache.’ — Locus (Gary K. Wolfe)

‘Dazzling… Those who enter THE ESCAPEMENT should strap themselves in for horrors and wonders galore. Filled with contorted fairy tales, myths, and familiar stories, Lavie Tidhar’s latest novel is both a fantastical diversion and a moving articulation of deep parental love.’ — Foreword

‘To say THE ESCAPEMENT is unique sells it way short. It’s part weird western and part quest; half dream and half epic adventure tale set in a memorable Daliesque landscape. Tidhar lets his imagination run wild in this vivid book, all told in spare, beautiful prose. Also, there are clowns. Lots of clowns.’ — Richard Kadrey, bestselling author of the Sandman Slim series

‘THE ESCAPEMENT is absorbing, bizarre, haunting, and compelling. Lavie Tidhar continues to shatter the boundaries of literary and genre fiction with a novel that is equal parts horrifying dreamscape and an affecting meditation on parental love. There are a lot of books out there, but this is an experience.’ — David Liss, author of The Peculiarities

‘The Man With No Name travels through an impossibly alien world peopled by brutalized clowns, superhuman bounty hunters, and titanic monsters indifferent to human suffering—although being a Lavie Tidhar book, there’s a step beyond the main story that I’ll avoid revealing. A blurb from me being at worst harmless, I will comment for the record that ‘Tidhar’s brand of surreal pulp continues to be one of the few truly distinctive voices in genre fiction.’ — Daniel Polansky

‘Can we just all admit now that Lavie Tidhar’s a genius? He’s written another brilliant book-a beautiful fever dream that somehow manages to be laugh-out-loud funny, psychedelically weird, and deeply moving.’ — Daryl Gregory

‘With THE ESCAPEMENT, Lavie Tidhar fearlessly crests the wave of the New New Weird with a wild, decadent hybrid of The Dark Tower and Carnivale. A vivid beach read, if the beach was made of greasepaint and gunpowder.’ — Catherynne M. Valente

In further great news, there’s not long to wait for Lavie’s next novel: THE HOOD is due to be published by Head of Zeus next week (October 13th)! The second novel in the author’s Anti-Matter of Britain Quartet (‘a viscerally entertaining, ominously subversive and poetically profane remixing of the myths and legends that shaped our nation’), here’s the synopsis…

God bless you, England, on this glorious Year of Our Lord, 1145.

Don’t cross the Templars. Everybody knows that. But Will Scarlett, back from the crusades, hopped up on khat and cider, did. Stabbed thrice in the belly but somehow still alive, he’s heading home to Nottingham.

And things are not right in Nottingham.

It’s the wood, you see. Sherwood. Ice-age ancient, impenetrable, hiding a dark and secret heart. As the ancient sages say, If you go into the woods today, you may not come out tomorrow, and the person who comes out may not be you…

The Hood is Lavie Tidhar’s narcotic remix of an ancient English myth, a tale knotted from legends lost to time, shredded and restitched for each passing century. A tale for today.

Lavie Tidhar’s UNHOLY LAND Wins 2021 Prix Planète SF Des Blogueurs!

Posted on Friday, October 1st, 2021

We’re very happy to report that the French edition of Lavie Tidhar‘s UNHOLY LAND has won the Prix Planète SF des blogueurs 2021!

Intelligent, fascinant, intrigant avant de devenir clair, Aucune terre n’est promise est un grand roman qui mérite amplement le Prix Planète-SF 2021.

The novel is published in France by Editions Mü as AUCUNE TERRE N’EST PROMISE. Here’s the synopsis…

… aucune destinée n’est manifeste.

Berlin. Lior Tirosh, écrivain de seconde zone, embarque pour la Palestina, fuyant une existence minée d’échecs. Il espère retrouver à Ararat City la chaleur du foyer, mais rien ne se passe comme prévu : la ville est ceinturée par un mur immense, et sa nièce, Déborah, a disparu dans les camps de réfugiés africains. Traqué, soupçonné de meurtre, offert en pâture à un promoteur véreux, Lior est entraîné malgré lui dans les dédales d’une histoire qu’il contribue pourtant à écrire.

Lavie Tidhar questionne nos identités, et le prix qui leur est attaché. Aucune terre n’est promise est un roman d’une incroyable lucidité sur les enjeux d’Israël, microcosme du monde. Il n’en cède pourtant rien à la poésie, seule utopie capable encore d’incarner la paix.

The English-language edition of UNHOLY LAND is published by Tachyon Publications.

Lior Tirosh is a semi-successful author of pulp fiction, an inadvertent time traveler, and an ongoing source of disappointment to his father.

Tirosh has returned to his homeland in East Africa. But Palestina — a Jewish state founded in the early 20th century — has grown dangerous. The government is building a vast border wall to keep out African refugees. Unrest in Ararat City is growing. And Tirosh’s childhood friend, trying to deliver a warning, has turned up dead in his hotel room. A state security officer has identified Tirosh as a suspect in a string of murders, and a rogue agent is stalking Tirosh through transdimensional rifts — possible futures that can only be prevented by avoiding the mistakes of the past.

The Prix Planète SF award joins a long list of the novel’s other commendations, which was also a best book of the year selected by NPR, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, the Guardian, and Crime Time. It was also a Barnes & Noble Favorite Science Fiction and Fantasy Book of 2018, appeared on the Locus Recommended Reading List, and was nominated for the 2018 SCKA Award. The cover, by Sarah Anne Langton, was also a finalist for the BSFA Award for Best Cover.

Here are just a few of the great reviews the novel has received…

‘… will leave readers’ heads spinning with this disorienting and gripping alternate history… Readers of all kinds, and particularly fans of detective stories and puzzles, will enjoy grappling with the numerous questions raised by this stellar work.’ — Publishers Weekly (PW Picks: Books of the Week, October 15, 2018)

‘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

‘Shifting perspectives will keep readers trying to catch up with this fast-paced plot involving incredible twists on multiple realities and homecoming. This latest from Campbell and World Fantasy Award winner Tidhar (Central Station) is fascinating and powerful.’ — Library Journal

‘[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

‘Tidhar has turned a suspenseful adventure tale into a complex meditation on the possible paths of modern Jewish history.’ — Chicago Tribune

‘We are in that kind of novel, the kind that doubles back and dodges sideways. Keeping up provides its own kind of pleasure… the various points of view meet up, and the result is an altogether dizzying and masterful use of narrative voice. The clashing narrative perspectives produce something like parallax—looking out of one eye, and then the other, and then both focused together on a third point. Which is the operative metaphor of UNHOLY LAND: one of partition and perspective, the same thing seen over and over and over again through different eyes… UNHOLY LAND plays in the strange, uncomfortable DMZ between the national founding myth and the uninterrogated childhood, between the person who leaves the homeland and the one who returns.’ — Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog

‘By extending Tidhar’s exploration of multiple and metafictional realities in even more sophis­ticated and assured ways than his earlier novels, UNHOLY LAND is quite an irritated oyster.’ — Locus (Gary K. Wolfe)

‘… provocative and brash… UNHOLY LAND is a wildly inventive and entertaining novel that moves at a breathless gallop… [Tidhar has] staked a claim as the genre’s most interesting, most bold, and most accomplished writer.’ — Locus (Ian Mond)

New French Paperback of Lavie Tidhar’s UNHOLY LAND Out Now!

Posted on Monday, September 20th, 2021

Lavie Tidhar‘s acclaimed, award-winning UNHOLY LAND is now available in a new French paperback edition! Published by Continent Mu as AUCUNE TERRE N’EST PROMISE, here’s the synopsis…

… aucune destinée n’est manifeste.

Berlin. Lior Tirosh, écrivain de seconde zone, embarque pour la Palestina, fuyant une existence minée d’échecs. Il espère retrouver à Ararat City la chaleur du foyer, mais rien ne se passe comme prévu : la ville est ceinturée par un mur immense, et sa nièce, Déborah, a disparu dans les camps de réfugiés africains. Traqué, soupçonné de meurtre, offert en pâture à un promoteur véreux, Lior est entraîné malgré lui dans les dédales d’une histoire qu’il contribue pourtant à écrire.

Lavie Tidhar questionne nos identités, et le prix qui leur est attaché. Aucune terre n’est promise est un roman d’une incroyable lucidité sur les enjeux d’Israël, microcosme du monde. Il n’en cède pourtant rien à la poésie, seule utopie capable encore d’incarner la paix.

UNHOLY LAND is published in English by Tachyon Publications; it is also available in Poland, published by Katedra. Here’s the English-language synopsis…

Lior Tirosh is a semi-successful author of pulp fiction, an inadvertent time traveler, and an ongoing source of disappointment to his father.

Tirosh has returned to his homeland in East Africa. But Palestina — a Jewish state founded in the early 20th century — has grown dangerous. The government is building a vast border wall to keep out African refugees. Unrest in Ararat City is growing. And Tirosh’s childhood friend, trying to deliver a warning, has turned up dead in his hotel room. A state security officer has identified Tirosh as a suspect in a string of murders, and a rogue agent is stalking Tirosh through transdimensional rifts — possible futures that can only be prevented by avoiding the mistakes of the past.

From the bestselling author of Central Station comes an extraordinary new novel recalling China Miéville and Michael Chabon, entertaining and subversive in equal measures.

Here are just a few of the great reviews UNHOLY LAND has received so far…

‘… will leave readers’ heads spinning with this disorienting and gripping alternate history… Readers of all kinds, and particularly fans of detective stories and puzzles, will enjoy grappling with the numerous questions raised by this stellar work.’ — Publishers Weekly (PW Picks: Books of the Week, October 15, 2018)

‘… provocative and brash… UNHOLY LAND is a wildly inventive and entertaining novel that moves at a breathless gallop… [Tidhar has] staked a claim as the genre’s most interesting, most bold, and most accomplished writer.’ — Locus (Ian Mond)

‘Shifting perspectives will keep readers trying to catch up with this fast-paced plot involving incredible twists on multiple realities and homecoming. This latest from Campbell and World Fantasy Award winner Tidhar (Central Station) is fascinating and powerful.’ — Library Journal

‘… adventurous readers will appreciate this well-written and ambitious book. It should find a place at any library that offers high-quality literary fiction.’ — Booklist

‘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

‘We are in that kind of novel, the kind that doubles back and dodges sideways. Keeping up provides its own kind of pleasure… the various points of view meet up, and the result is an altogether dizzying and masterful use of narrative voice. The clashing narrative perspectives produce something like parallax—looking out of one eye, and then the other, and then both focused together on a third point. Which is the operative metaphor of UNHOLY LAND: one of partition and perspective, the same thing seen over and over and over again through different eyes… UNHOLY LAND plays in the strange, uncomfortable DMZ between the national founding myth and the uninterrogated childhood, between the person who leaves the homeland and the one who returns.’ — Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog

‘By extending Tidhar’s exploration of multiple and metafictional realities in even more sophis­ticated and assured ways than his earlier novels, UNHOLY LAND is quite an irritated oyster.’ — Locus (Gary K. Wolfe)

Tachyon Publications also publishes Lavie’s critically acclaimed THE VIOLENT CENTURY and CENTRAL STATION; and are due to published his latest novel, THE ESCAPEMENT, in mid-October.

Lavie Tidhar’s THE ESCAPEMENT is Out in One Month!

Posted on Tuesday, September 7th, 2021

The wait is nearly over! Lavie Tidhar ‘dazzling new novel’, THE ESCAPEMENT is out in one month! Published by Tachyon Publications on October 5th, it’s a novel that evokes ‘Westerns, surrealism, epic fantasy, mythology, and circus extravaganzas’. Here’s the synopsis…

Into the Escapement rides the Stranger, a lone gunman on a quest to rescue his son in a strange parallel reality. But it is easy to lose one’s way on an endlessly shifting, unpredictable landscape. Especially in a place full of bizarre mirror-images of beloved things: lawless heroes, giants made of stone, subjugated clowns, symbol storms, and an endless war between gods and more shadowy forces.

As the Stranger has learned, the Escapement is a dreamscape of deep mysteries, unlikely allies, and unwinnable battles. Yet the flower the he seeks still lies beyond the Mountains of Darkness. Time is running out as The Stranger journeys deeper into the secret heart of an unimaginable world.

In his most compelling work to date, Lavie Tidhar has delivered a multicolored tapestry of dazzling imagery. The Escapement is an epic, wildly original chronicle of the extraordinary lengths to which one will go for love.

Here are just a few of the reviews THE ESCAPEMENT has received in advance of publication…

‘The Man With No Name travels through an impossibly alien world peopled by brutalized clowns, superhuman bounty hunters, and titanic monsters indifferent to human suffering—although being a Lavie Tidhar book, there’s a step beyond the main story that I’ll avoid revealing. A blurb from me being at worst harmless, I will comment for the record that ‘Tidhar’s brand of surreal pulp continues to be one of the few truly distinctive voices in genre fiction.’ — Daniel Polansky

A delightfully cacophonous novel, teeming with character… Tidhar’s latest offering transports readers to a liminal otherworld of spaghetti Western pastiche… The author draws from an eclectic mix of sources to create a dazzling story that is more than the sum of its parts, and much of the fun of reading it comes from recognizing its homages.’ — Kirkus

‘[F]uriously inventive and wildly eclectic… Among the most visual and even cinematic of Tidhar’s novels… it’s also, in the end, a surprisingly touching reminder of how such quests can begin in heartache.’ — Locus (Gary K. Wolfe)

‘Dazzling… Those who enter THE ESCAPEMENT should strap themselves in for horrors and wonders galore. Filled with contorted fairy tales, myths, and familiar stories, Lavie Tidhar’s latest novel is both a fantastical diversion and a moving articulation of deep parental love.’ — Foreword

‘… if THE ESCAPEMENT is any guide, Tidhar is a spellbinding stylist with a spell-casting imagination. Part fantasy, part sci-fi, part surreal mainstream, this novel plonks the reader into a vast, surreal landscape, the Escapement, in which clowns and stone monsters and cowboys and classic fictional characters coexist in a shifting tableau. The Stranger is our hero, a warrior searching for mythical flowers, even as in another universe he sits at his sick boy’s side in a hospital. None of this should work but all of it does, the author managing to evoke sadness, awe, and even humor. I could only compare my reading to old Philip K. Dick married to Samuel R. Delaney. THE ESCAPEMENT is a captivating triumph of imagination.’ — Read, Listen, Watch (9/10)

Tachyon Publications has also published Lavie’s award-winning CENTRAL STATION, UNHOLY LAND, and THE VIOLENT CENTURY.

If you’re looking for more THE ESCAPEMENT content, Lavie has also made a game based on the book’s world and events. You can find more information here.

One more thing: Lavie is one of the cover interviews in the latest issue of Locus Magazine!

Lavie Tidhar’s THE ESCAPEMENT is out in Two Weeks!

Posted on Friday, August 27th, 2021

In just two weeks (September 7th), Tachyon Publications are due to publish the latest novel by Lavie Tidhar: THE ESCAPEMENT! A ‘dazzling new novel’ that evokes ‘Westerns, surrealism, epic fantasy, mythology, and circus extravaganzas’, here’s the synopsis…

Into the Escapement rides the Stranger, a lone gunman on a quest to rescue his son in a strange parallel reality. But it is easy to lose one’s way on an endlessly shifting, unpredictable landscape. Especially in a place full of bizarre mirror-images of beloved things: lawless heroes, giants made of stone, subjugated clowns, symbol storms, and an endless war between gods and more shadowy forces.

As the Stranger has learned, the Escapement is a dreamscape of deep mysteries, unlikely allies, and unwinnable battles. Yet the flower the he seeks still lies beyond the Mountains of Darkness. Time is running out as The Stranger journeys deeper into the secret heart of an unimaginable world.

In his most compelling work to date, Lavie Tidhar has delivered a multicolored tapestry of dazzling imagery. The Escapement is an epic, wildly original chronicle of the extraordinary lengths to which one will go for love.

THE ESCAPEMENT has been generating some great reviews, in advance of publication…

‘The Man With No Name travels through an impossibly alien world peopled by brutalized clowns, superhuman bounty hunters, and titanic monsters indifferent to human suffering—although being a Lavie Tidhar book, there’s a step beyond the main story that I’ll avoid revealing. A blurb from me being at worst harmless, I will comment for the record that ‘Tidhar’s brand of surreal pulp continues to be one of the few truly distinctive voices in genre fiction.’ — Daniel Polansky

A delightfully cacophonous novel, teeming with character… Tidhar’s latest offering transports readers to a liminal otherworld of spaghetti Western pastiche… The author draws from an eclectic mix of sources to create a dazzling story that is more than the sum of its parts, and much of the fun of reading it comes from recognizing its homages.’ — Kirkus

‘[F]uriously inventive and wildly eclectic… Among the most visual and even cinematic of Tidhar’s novels… it’s also, in the end, a surprisingly touching reminder of how such quests can begin in heartache.’ — Locus (Gary K. Wolfe)

‘Dazzling… Those who enter THE ESCAPEMENT should strap themselves in for horrors and wonders galore. Filled with contorted fairy tales, myths, and familiar stories, Lavie Tidhar’s latest novel is both a fantastical diversion and a moving articulation of deep parental love.’ — Foreword

‘… if THE ESCAPEMENT is any guide, Tidhar is a spellbinding stylist with a spell-casting imagination. Part fantasy, part sci-fi, part surreal mainstream, this novel plonks the reader into a vast, surreal landscape, the Escapement, in which clowns and stone monsters and cowboys and classic fictional characters coexist in a shifting tableau. The Stranger is our hero, a warrior searching for mythical flowers, even as in another universe he sits at his sick boy’s side in a hospital. None of this should work but all of it does, the author managing to evoke sadness, awe, and even humor. I could only compare my reading to old Philip K. Dick married to Samuel R. Delaney. THE ESCAPEMENT is a captivating triumph of imagination.’ — Read, Listen, Watch (9/10)

Tachyon Publications has also published Lavie’s award-winning CENTRAL STATION, UNHOLY LAND, and THE VIOLENT CENTURY.

Lavie Tidhar’s ZIEMIA NIEŚWIĘTA Out Now in Poland!

Posted on Tuesday, July 20th, 2021

Lavie Tidhar‘s acclaimed novel UNHOLY LAND is now available in Poland! Published by Katedra as ZIEMIA NIEŚWIĘTA, here’s the synopsis…

Fascynujący thriller science fiction, opowiadający alternatywną historię świata, w którym udało się uniknąć Holokaustu.

Gdy autor pulpowych powieści Lior Tirosh wraca do ojczystej Afryki Wschodniej, przekonuje się, że wiele się zmieniło. Palestyna – żydowskie państwo założone w początkach dwudziestego wieku – buduje potężny mur, mający odgrodzić je od afrykańskich uchodźców. W stolicy, Araracie, panują gwałtowne napięcia społeczne.

Szukając zaginionej siostrzenicy, Lior Tirosh zaczyna się zachowywać jak detektyw ze swoich powieści. Ścigają go bezlitośni agenci państwowej służby bezpieczeństwa, a jednocześnie odkrywa groźne spiski i niewiarygodne rzeczywistości. Możliwe, że istnieje więcej niż jedna Palestyna, a bariery między światami zaczynają pękać…

UNHOLY LAND is published in the UK and North America by Tachyon Publications, and has racked up an impressive number of commendations — including being selected as a best book of the year by Library Journal, NPR, Publishers Weekly, and Barnes & Noble (among others). Here’s the English-language synopsis…

Lior Tirosh is a semi-successful author of pulp fiction, an inadvertent time traveler, and an ongoing source of disappointment to his father.

Tirosh has returned to his homeland in East Africa. But Palestina — a Jewish state founded in the early 20th century — has grown dangerous. The government is building a vast border wall to keep out African refugees. Unrest in Ararat City is growing. And Tirosh’s childhood friend, trying to deliver a warning, has turned up dead in his hotel room. A state security officer has identified Tirosh as a suspect in a string of murders, and a rogue agent is stalking Tirosh through transdimensional rifts — possible futures that can only be prevented by avoiding the mistakes of the past.

From the bestselling author of Central Station comes an extraordinary new novel recalling China Miéville and Michael Chabon, entertaining and subversive in equal measures.

The novel is also available in France, published by Continent Mu, as AUCUNE TERRE N’EST PROMISE.

Here are just a few of the great reviews the novel has received…

‘… will leave readers’ heads spinning with this disorienting and gripping alternate history… Readers of all kinds, and particularly fans of detective stories and puzzles, will enjoy grappling with the numerous questions raised by this stellar work.’ — Publishers Weekly (PW Picks: Books of the Week, October 15, 2018)

‘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

‘Shifting perspectives will keep readers trying to catch up with this fast-paced plot involving incredible twists on multiple realities and homecoming. This latest from Campbell and World Fantasy Award winner Tidhar (Central Station) is fascinating and powerful.’ — Library Journal

‘[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

‘UNHOLY LAND starts out hard-boiled and comes at you sideways with the speculative elements. Tidhar has blended alternative history with murder in hotel rooms, missing women, an honest-to-god Fedora and mysterious borders in a tale that evokes Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, Casablanca and Mieville’s The City & the City. Political and pulpy, with distinct metafictional elements, Tidhar adroitly pulls off this fantastical tale of an occupied territory.’ — Tade Thompson

‘… adventurous readers will appreciate this well-written and ambitious book. It should find a place at any library that offers high-quality literary fiction.’ — Booklist

‘We are in that kind of novel, the kind that doubles back and dodges sideways. Keeping up provides its own kind of pleasure… the various points of view meet up, and the result is an altogether dizzying and masterful use of narrative voice. The clashing narrative perspectives produce something like parallax—looking out of one eye, and then the other, and then both focused together on a third point. Which is the operative metaphor of UNHOLY LAND: one of partition and perspective, the same thing seen over and over and over again through different eyes… UNHOLY LAND plays in the strange, uncomfortable DMZ between the national founding myth and the uninterrogated childhood, between the person who leaves the homeland and the one who returns.’ — Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog

‘By extending Tidhar’s exploration of multiple and metafictional realities in even more sophis­ticated and assured ways than his earlier novels, UNHOLY LAND is quite an irritated oyster.’ — Locus (Gary K. Wolfe)

‘… provocative and brash… UNHOLY LAND is a wildly inventive and entertaining novel that moves at a breathless gallop… [Tidhar has] staked a claim as the genre’s most interesting, most bold, and most accomplished writer.’ — Locus (Ian Mond)

Tachyon Publications also publishes Lavie’s critically acclaimed THE VIOLENT CENTURY and CENTRAL STATION; and are due to published his latest novel, THE ESCAPEMENT, in September.

Polish Edition of Lavie Tidhar’s UNHOLY LAND Out in July!

Posted on Tuesday, June 22nd, 2021

Lavie Tidhar‘s acclaimed novel UNHOLY LAND is due to be published in a new Polish edition next month! Published by Katedra as ZIEMIA NIEŚWIĘTA, on July 20th, here’s the synopsis…

Fascynujący thriller science fiction, opowiadający alternatywną historię świata, w którym udało się uniknąć Holokaustu.

Gdy autor pulpowych powieści Lior Tirosh wraca do ojczystej Afryki Wschodniej, przekonuje się, że wiele się zmieniło. Palestyna – żydowskie państwo założone w początkach dwudziestego wieku – buduje potężny mur, mający odgrodzić je od afrykańskich uchodźców. W stolicy, Araracie, panują gwałtowne napięcia społeczne.

Szukając zaginionej siostrzenicy, Lior Tirosh zaczyna się zachowywać jak detektyw ze swoich powieści. Ścigają go bezlitośni agenci państwowej służby bezpieczeństwa, a jednocześnie odkrywa groźne spiski i niewiarygodne rzeczywistości. Możliwe, że istnieje więcej niż jedna Palestyna, a bariery między światami zaczynają pękać…

Selected as a best book of the year by NPR, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly and the Guardian (among other commendations), UNHOLY LAND is published in the UK and North America by Tachyon Publications. Here’s the English-language synopsis…

Lior Tirosh is a semi-successful author of pulp fiction, an inadvertent time traveler, and an ongoing source of disappointment to his father.

Tirosh has returned to his homeland in East Africa. But Palestina — a Jewish state founded in the early 20th century — has grown dangerous. The government is building a vast border wall to keep out African refugees. Unrest in Ararat City is growing. And Tirosh’s childhood friend, trying to deliver a warning, has turned up dead in his hotel room. A state security officer has identified Tirosh as a suspect in a string of murders, and a rogue agent is stalking Tirosh through transdimensional rifts — possible futures that can only be prevented by avoiding the mistakes of the past.

From the bestselling author of Central Station comes an extraordinary new novel recalling China Miéville and Michael Chabon, entertaining and subversive in equal measures.

The novel is also available in France, published by Continent Mu, as AUCUNE TERRE N’EST PROMISE.

Here are just a few of the great reviews the novel has received…

‘… will leave readers’ heads spinning with this disorienting and gripping alternate history… Readers of all kinds, and particularly fans of detective stories and puzzles, will enjoy grappling with the numerous questions raised by this stellar work.’ — Publishers Weekly (PW Picks: Books of the Week, October 15, 2018)

‘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

‘Shifting perspectives will keep readers trying to catch up with this fast-paced plot involving incredible twists on multiple realities and homecoming. This latest from Campbell and World Fantasy Award winner Tidhar (Central Station) is fascinating and powerful.’ — Library Journal

‘[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

‘UNHOLY LAND starts out hard-boiled and comes at you sideways with the speculative elements. Tidhar has blended alternative history with murder in hotel rooms, missing women, an honest-to-god Fedora and mysterious borders in a tale that evokes Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, Casablanca and Mieville’s The City & the City. Political and pulpy, with distinct metafictional elements, Tidhar adroitly pulls off this fantastical tale of an occupied territory.’ — Tade Thompson

‘… adventurous readers will appreciate this well-written and ambitious book. It should find a place at any library that offers high-quality literary fiction.’ — Booklist

‘We are in that kind of novel, the kind that doubles back and dodges sideways. Keeping up provides its own kind of pleasure… the various points of view meet up, and the result is an altogether dizzying and masterful use of narrative voice. The clashing narrative perspectives produce something like parallax—looking out of one eye, and then the other, and then both focused together on a third point. Which is the operative metaphor of UNHOLY LAND: one of partition and perspective, the same thing seen over and over and over again through different eyes… UNHOLY LAND plays in the strange, uncomfortable DMZ between the national founding myth and the uninterrogated childhood, between the person who leaves the homeland and the one who returns.’ — Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog

‘By extending Tidhar’s exploration of multiple and metafictional realities in even more sophis­ticated and assured ways than his earlier novels, UNHOLY LAND is quite an irritated oyster.’ — Locus (Gary K. Wolfe)

‘… provocative and brash… UNHOLY LAND is a wildly inventive and entertaining novel that moves at a breathless gallop… [Tidhar has] staked a claim as the genre’s most interesting, most bold, and most accomplished writer.’ — Locus (Ian Mond)

Tachyon Publications also publishes Lavie’s critically acclaimed THE VIOLENT CENTURY and CENTRAL STATION; and are due to published his latest novel, THE ESCAPEMENT, in September.

Lavie Tidhar’s CENTRAL STATION Wins Chinese Nebula (Xingyun) Award!

Posted on Sunday, April 25th, 2021

We’re very happy to report that Lavie Tidhar‘s CENTRAL STATION has won another award! This time, it is for the Chinese translation, which has won the Chinese Nebula (Xingyun) Award for Best Translated Fiction! Translated by Chen Yang, and published in China by Citic, as 中央 星站, 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 has won a tremendous number of awards (always room for more, though), including John W. Campbell Award (2017) and
the Neukom Institute Literary Arts Award in Speculative Fiction (2018). It also landed on many end-of-year best of lists. The English-language cover, but Sarah Anne Langton, also won the Chelsey Award for Best Cover Illustration.

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).

If Chinese-speaking fans of Lavie’s work would like to know more about the book and the author, you can read two great interview with the author here:

Lavie’s latest novel is BY FORCE ALONE, the first novel in the author’s Anti-Matter of Britain Quartet, is published by Head of Zeus (UK) and Tor Books (North America). The second novel in the tetralogy is THE HOOD, which is due to be published later this year by Head of Zeus.

New North American Audio Editions of THE VIOLENT CENTURY and A MAN LIES DREAMING!

Posted on Friday, April 23rd, 2021

There are new North American audiobook editions of Lavie Tidhar‘s acclaimed novels THE VIOLENT CENTURY and A MAN LIES DREAMING available now! Published by Tantor Media, here are some details…

Published in print and eBook by Tachyon Publications, THE VIOLENT CENTURY is a superb reimagining of history if superheroes had been employed by global governments since World War II. The audiobook is narrated by Alex Wyndham. Here’s the synopsis…

A bold experiment has mutated a small fraction of humanity. Nations race to harness the gifted, putting them to increasingly dark ends. At the dawn of global war, flashy American superheroes square off against sinister Germans and dissolute Russians. Increasingly depraved scientists conduct despicable research in the name of victory.

British agents Fogg and Oblivion, recalled to the Retirement Bureau, have kept a treacherous secret for over forty years. But all heroes must choose when to join the fray, and to whom their allegiance is owed—even for just one perfect summer’s day.

‘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

‘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

‘Tidhar folds up history, translating fiction into reality and back, presenting it to the reader like a closely guarded secret… THE VIOLENT CENTURY ruminates on the concept of the superhero—a term which never appears in the novel—by pondering the question of heroism itself… a brilliant novel of ideas.’ — Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog

The Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Award-winning A MAN LIES DREAMING is published in North America by JABberwocky, and has been recently re-issued in the UK by Head of Zeus…

Since its original 2014 publication, A Man Lies Dreaming has been translated into multiple languages and gained a cult following for its dark humor, prescient politics, and powerful exploration of the impossibility of fantasy.

1939: Adolf Hitler, fallen from power, seeks refuge in a London engulfed in the throes of a very British Fascism. Now eking a miserable living as a down-at-heels private eye and calling himself Wolf, he has no choice but to take on the case of a glamorous Jewish heiress whose sister went missing.

It’s a decision Wolf will very shortly regret.

For in another time and place a man lies dreaming: Shomer, once a Yiddish pulp writer, who dreams lurid tales of revenge in the hell that is Auschwitz.

Prescient, darkly funny, and wholly original, the award-winning A Man Lies Dreaming is a modern fable for our time that comes “crashing through the door of literature like Sam Spade with a .38 in his hand” (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

‘The best book I read last year is A MAN LIES DREAMING by Lavie Tidhar, a form of fictional historiography based on a’ what if ‘principle. I love that, if it is done well and intelligently… It sounds ridiculous and it has certainly been written down with a great sense of irony, but at the same time it is so cleverly constructed and such a spectacular conclusion unfolds that you are going to take it all very seriously.’ — Sting (yes, that one) to Volksrant

Lavie Tidhar’s UNHOLY LAND Out Tomorrow in France!

Posted on Thursday, January 28th, 2021

We’re very happy to report that Lavie Tidhar‘s highly acclaimed novel UNHOLY LAND will be available in a new French edition from tomorrow! Published by Continent Mu as AUCUNE TERRE N’EST PROMISE, here’s the synopsis…

… aucune destinée n’est manifeste.

Berlin. Lior Tirosh, écrivain de seconde zone, embarque pour la Palestina, fuyant une existence minée d’échecs.

Il espère retrouver à Ararat City la chaleur du foyer, mais rien ne se passe comme prévu : la ville est ceinturée par un mur immense, et sa nièce, Déborah, a disparu dans les camps de réfugiés africains.

Traqué, soupçonné de meurtre, offert en pâture à un promoteur véreux, Lior est entraîné malgré lui dans les dédales d’une histoire qu’il contribue pourtant à écrire.

Lavie Tidhar questionne nos identités, et le prix qui leur est attaché. Aucune terre n’est promise est un roman d’une incroyable lucidité sur les enjeux d’Israël, microcosme du monde. Il n’en cède pourtant rien à la poésie, seule utopie capable encore d’incarner la paix.

UNHOLY LAND is published in English by Tachyon Publications, who also publish Lavie’s other acclaimed, award-winning novels CENTRAL STATION and THE VIOLENT CENTURY. Here’s the English-language synopsis…

Lior Tirosh is a semi-successful author of pulp fiction, an inadvertent time traveler, and an ongoing source of disappointment to his father.

Tirosh has returned to his homeland in East Africa. But Palestina — a Jewish state founded in the early 20th century — has grown dangerous. The government is building a vast border wall to keep out African refugees. Unrest in Ararat City is growing. And Tirosh’s childhood friend, trying to deliver a warning, has turned up dead in his hotel room. A state security officer has identified Tirosh as a suspect in a string of murders, and a rogue agent is stalking Tirosh through transdimensional rifts — possible futures that can only be prevented by avoiding the mistakes of the past.

From the bestselling author of Central Station comes an extraordinary new novel recalling China Miéville and Michael Chabon, entertaining and subversive in equal measures.

(Each of these covers was designed and produced by Sarah Anne Langton.)

Here are just a few of the great reviews the novel has received…

‘… will leave readers’ heads spinning with this disorienting and gripping alternate history… Readers of all kinds, and particularly fans of detective stories and puzzles, will enjoy grappling with the numerous questions raised by this stellar work.’ — Publishers Weekly (PW Picks: Books of the Week, October 15, 2018)

‘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

‘UNHOLY LAND starts out hard-boiled and comes at you sideways with the speculative elements. Tidhar has blended alternative history with murder in hotel rooms, missing women, an honest-to-god Fedora and mysterious borders in a tale that evokes Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, Cassablanca and Mieville’s The City & the City. Political and pulpy, with distinct metafictional elements, Tidhar adroitly pulls off this fantastical tale of an occupied territory.’ — Tade Thompson

‘… adventurous readers will appreciate this well-written and ambitious book. It should find a place at any library that offers high-quality literary fiction.’ — Booklist

‘Tidhar has turned a suspenseful adventure tale into a complex meditation on the possible paths of modern Jewish history.’ — Chicago Tribune

‘We are in that kind of novel, the kind that doubles back and dodges sideways. Keeping up provides its own kind of pleasure… the various points of view meet up, and the result is an altogether dizzying and masterful use of narrative voice. The clashing narrative perspectives produce something like parallax—looking out of one eye, and then the other, and then both focused together on a third point. Which is the operative metaphor of UNHOLY LAND: one of partition and perspective, the same thing seen over and over and over again through different eyes… UNHOLY LAND plays in the strange, uncomfortable DMZ between the national founding myth and the uninterrogated childhood, between the person who leaves the homeland and the one who returns.’ — Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog

‘By extending Tidhar’s exploration of multiple and metafictional realities in even more sophis­ticated and assured ways than his earlier novels, UNHOLY LAND is quite an irritated oyster.’ — Locus (Gary K. Wolfe)

‘… provocative and brash… UNHOLY LAND is a wildly inventive and entertaining novel that moves at a breathless gallop… [Tidhar has] staked a claim as the genre’s most interesting, most bold, and most accomplished writer.’ — Locus (Ian Mond)

Lavie’s latest novel, BY FORCE ALONE, is out now — published by Head of Zeus in the UK and Tor Books in North America.

CENTRAL STATION Nominated for Xinyung Award in China!

Posted on Monday, May 18th, 2020

We’re very happy to report that Lavie Tidhar‘s CENTRAL STATION has been nominated for a 2020 Xiyung Award for Best Translated Fiction! The novel — which has won and been nominated for a whole host of other awards, including the Campbell Award — was translated by Chen Yang, and is published in China 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.

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

Lavie’s latest novel, BY FORCE ALONE, was published recently by Head of Zeus in the UK, and is due to be published by Tor Books in August 2020 (North America).

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

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

A Couple of Nominations for Lavie Tidhar!

Posted on Wednesday, September 25th, 2019

We’re very happy to report that a couple of Lavie Tidhar‘s novels have been nominated for awards! First up, UNHOLY LAND has been nominated for the Sidewise Award for best Alternate History! Published by Tachyon Publications, the novel has been met with an incredible amount of praise, appearing on a number of Best Of and must read lists. Here’s the synopsis…

Lior Tirosh is a semi-successful author of pulp fiction, an inadvertent time traveler, and an ongoing source of disappointment to his father.

Tirosh has returned to his homeland in East Africa. But Palestina — a Jewish state founded in the early 20th century — has grown dangerous. The government is building a vast border wall to keep out African refugees. Unrest in Ararat City is growing. And Tirosh’s childhood friend, trying to deliver a warning, has turned up dead in his hotel room. A state security officer has identified Tirosh as a suspect in a string of murders, and a rogue agent is stalking Tirosh through transdimensional rifts — possible futures that can only be prevented by avoiding the mistakes of the past.

From the bestselling author of Central Station comes an extraordinary new novel recalling China Miéville and Michael Chabon, entertaining and subversive in equal measures.

Here are just a few of the reviews the novel has received so far…

‘… will leave readers’ heads spinning with this disorienting and gripping alternate history… Readers of all kinds, and particularly fans of detective stories and puzzles, will enjoy grappling with the numerous questions raised by this stellar work.’ — Publishers Weekly (PW Picks: Books of the Week, October 15, 2018)

‘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

‘[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

‘By extending Tidhar’s exploration of multiple and metafictional realities in even more sophis­ticated and assured ways than his earlier novels, UNHOLY LAND is quite an irritated oyster.’ — Locus (Gary K. Wolfe)

‘… provocative and brash… UNHOLY LAND is a wildly inventive and entertaining novel that moves at a breathless gallop… [Tidhar has] staked a claim as the genre’s most interesting, most bold, and most accomplished writer.’ — Locus (Ian Mond)

Next up, Lavie’s first novel for young readers, CANDY has been nominated for a Lancashire Fantastic Book Award! Published by Scholastic in the UK, here’s the synopsis…

Guard your chocolate! Imagine living in a place where Mars bars are banned and sweeties are totally outlawed. Ugh – how depressing! In this miserable place, is it any wonder that gangsters trade in illegal sweeties? We can’t even blame them. Nelle Faulkner is a twelve-year-old private detective looking for her next client. So when notorious candy gangster Eddie de Menthe walks in and asks her to find a missing teddy bear, Nelle takes the case. But as soon as the teddy turns up, Eddie himself goes missing. Can Nelle track him down before all of them come to a sticky end?

Here’s what others have said about CANDY…

‘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

‘A perfectly pitched noir take on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory… delightful premise… as with Tidhar’s earlier work, his playful approach to genre is in service to the story’s hidden depths. He uses the trappings of noir detective tales to tell a subversive children’s story about corruption, the exploitation of vulnerable communities, and the limits of justice. The end result is a novel that for all its joyous sense of fun still packs a surprising emotional and philosophical punch… The whole thing is tied together by Tidhar’s wonderful character work and his excellent prose… engages in some beautiful, chocolate and candy themed descriptions which perfectly capture the playground noir aesthetic. Tidhar’s characters are drawn with surprising depth and sympathy, with only a few key scenes and interactions he is able to penetrate to the core of loneliness and desperation for belonging that inspires so many of his candy thugs and bullies, giving them believable humanising moments. Most importantly, we never lose sight of the characters as children, which is necessary for the novel to carry off its conceit.’ — Fantasy Faction

‘Candy is one of those books that do not take children and teenagers for fools. The story is able to change shifts, thanks to lot of humour, to more serious subjects. Of course, we can enjoy it at any age. If possible, the book should be served in place of dessert.’ — Geektest (France)

‘Due to the wonderfully fluent writing style, the pleasantly short chapters and the rousing plot, I devoured the book in record time. For girls and boys from the age of 10, who like to read exciting, funny, imaginative detective stories, “Secret Agent Candy” is just perfect. I really hope that this is a start of a series and we will soon be able to solve their second, tricky case together with Nelle… Exciting, funny, bizarre and just awesome!’ — Die Bücherwelt von CorniHolmes (Germany)

‘CANDY is the case when a children’s book can actually be interesting at any age. Children will appreciate the plot and humour, adults – a lot of references scattered throughout the text and how unexpectedly and funny elements of the classic “cool” and noir detective story are refracted, if you put them in the context of a children’s literature. Fun, playful and exciting.’ — Fantalab (Russia)