Lavie Tidhar

"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"--Amazon.com.

Central Station

"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 now identified Tirosh as a suspect in a string of murders. 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."--

Unholy Land

In this dazzling new novel evoking Westerns, surrealism, epic fantasy, and circus extravaganzas, World Fantasy Award winner Lavie Tidhar (Central Station) has created an evocative dreamscape of dark comedy, heartbreak, hope, and adventure. Chronicling a lone man's quest in parallel worlds, The Escapement recalls the epic darkness of Stephen King's The Gunslinger via the unpredictable whimsy of The Phantom Tollbooth. "Lavie Tidhar is a genius at conjuring realities that are just two steps to the left of our own." --NPR Books Into the reality called the Escapement rides the Stranger, a lone gunman on a quest to rescue his son. But it is too easy to get lost on a shifting landscape full of dangerous versions of favorite things: lawless cowboys, giants made of stone, oppressed clowns, and even more sinister forces at play. The Stranger always finds new enemies in every godforsaken town. He reluctantly defends the not-always-helpless, while avoiding the deadly symbol storms of petulant gods. As the Stranger has learned, the Escapement is a dreamscape of deep mysteries, unpredictable geography, unlikely allies, and unwinnable battles. But the flower the Stranger seeks still lies beyond the Mountains of Darkness. Time is running out, as he journeys deeper and deeper into the secret heart of an unknown world.

The Escapement

A retelling of Arthurian myth for the age of Brexit and Trump, from World Fantasy Award-winner Lavie Tidhar, By Force Alone. 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.

By Force Alone

Machines roam the desert in search of purpose; works of art can be deadlier than weapons, and improbable love transcends the sands of time. From the multiaward-winning universe of Central Station, a complex desert-city of the future's inhabitants rediscover passion while at the brink of revolution. "Can we just all admit now that Lavie Tidhar's a genius?" --Daryl Gregory, award-winning author of Spoonbenders The city known as Neom is many things to many beings, human or otherwise. Neom is a tech wonderland for the rich and beautiful; an urban sprawl along the Red Sea; and a port of call between Earth and the stars. In the desert, young orphan Elias has joined a caravan, hoping to earn his passage off-world from Central Station. But the desert is full of mechanical artefacts, some unexplained and some unexploded. Recently, a wry, unnamed robot has unearthed one of the region's biggest mysteries: the vestiges of a golden man. In Neom, childhood affection is rekindling between loyal shurta-officer Nasir and hardworking flower-seller Mariam. But Nasu, a deadly terrorartist, has come to the city with missing memories and unfinished business. Just one robot can change a city's destiny with a single rose--especially when that robot is in search of lost love.

Neom

In a 19th century unlike our own, the shadowy assassin known as the Bookman moves unseen. His weapons are books; his enemies are many. And when Orphan, a young man with a mysterious past, loses his love to the sinister machinations of the Bookman, Orphan would stop at nothing to bring her back from the dead. In The Bookman, World Fantasy Award winner Lavie Tidhar writes a love letter to books, and to the serial literature of the Victorian era: full of hair-breadth escapes and derring-dos, pirates and automatons, assassins and poets, a world in which real life authors mingle freely with their fictional creations – and where nothing is quite as it seems. New 2016 edition includes the novelette “Murder in the Cathedral”. Discover, truthfully, what actually happened when Orphan visited Paris. File Under: Steampunk [Alternate Victorian London | Reptilian royalty | Diabolical anarchists | Extraordinary adventure!] From the Trade Paperback edition.

The Bookman

Praise for The Violent Century “The Violent Century is a very sophisticated blend of fantasy and real life. Of flawed superheroes engaging with key events in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Lavie Tidhar is a veteran of seamlessly weaving an intriguing blend of fiction into world changing historical events.” —Strange Alliances “The Violent Centuryis a wonderfully constructed, crafted work that bears a great emotional weight even as it raises more intellectual questions. It’s the kind of work that lingers in the mind long after the reading.” —Fantasy Literature “Heart, a sly sense of humour, great action set-pieces and a range of fascinating supporting players.” —Newtown Review of Books “A brilliantly etched phantasmagoric reconfiguring of that most sizzling of eras—the twilight 20th . . . a torrid tour de force.” —James Ellroy, author of L.A. Confidential and Blood’s a Rover “A brilliant novel of ideas.” — B&N Book Blog “The Violent Century is admirably plotted and well paced, with an atmosphere of menace throughout, I’m puzzled as to why this wasn’t on any award shortlist for its year.” —Jack Deighton, author of A Son of the Rock “Like Watchmen on crack.” —io9 “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 “Pack your bags and go home; the superhero genre is now completed . . . if John le Carre wrote a superhero novel about the Cold War, it might be this good.” —Charles Stross, author of Neptune’s Brood: A Space Opera “The Violent Century is a brilliant story of superheroes and spies and secret histories. It stands with Alan Moore’s Watchmen as an examination of the myths that we made in the 20th Century and the ways they still haunt us now. it’s as dramatic and vital as the best comic books and as beautifully written and evocative as any literary novel today. Read it. You’ll see.” — Christopher Farnsworth, author of Blood Oath and Flashmob “An alternative history tour-de-force. Epic, intense and authentic. Lavie Tidhar reboots the 20th century with spies and superheroes battling for mastery—and the results are electric.” —Tom Harper, author of The Lost Temple “A stunning masterpiece” —The Independent “Tidhar synthesises the geeky and the political in a vision of world events that breaks new superhero ground.” —The Guardian “It’s hard, but not impossible as Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Mike Carey and others have shown, to create a morally complex, artistically ambitious story based on characters whose origins are not that far removed from the simplicity of Superman, Spiderman, and their ilk. Tidhar has succeeded brilliantly in this task.” —LA Review of Books “A sophisticated, moving and gripping take on 20th century conflicts and our capacity for love and hate, honour and betrayal.” —The Daily Mail “A love story and meditation on heroism, this is an elegiac espionage adventure that demands a second reading.” —Metro “Could keep anyone, regardless of the types of stories they regularly enjoy, interested and engaged. Tidhar has created a book that oozes excellence in both characterisation and storytelling.” —The Huffington Post [STARRED REVIEW]"This study in heroism, love, revenge, and violence will be in demand by lovers of complex, intelligent sf and alternative history. Anyone who enjoys stories of people with supernatural abilities will thrive reading Tidhar’s world.” —Library Journal “A terrifically told tale of heroism and enduring friendship that captures our imaginations from the very first page.” —Booklist “If you love Philip K. Dick, Lavie Tidhar should be your new favorite writer . . . an unforgettable read.” —The Jewish Standard “He’s dealing with the grandest schemes on the largest of backdrops in time and place, and this level of awe-inspiring craft places him firmly within the highest tier of writers working today, no longer an emerging writer, but a master.” —British Fantasy Society “Intense and evocative.” —SFX “Gripping, imaginative and moving.” —Sci Fi Now “The sort of thing Quentin Tarantino did as bloody wish-fulfillment in Inglourious Basterds, multiplied by several orders of magnitude.” —Locus “This is a novel that can break your heart and then, ever so subtly, include a cameo by Stan Lee. Tidhar clearly knows as much about supermen of all kinds as he does about the circumstances that produce them.” —Strange Horizons “The Violent Century is an excellent novel that demonstrates, once again, the impressive versatility of its author.” —Interzone “A masterful example of alternate universe science fiction and can only add to its author’s rapidly growing reputation.”— The Los Angeles Review of Books “An original, engrossing fusion of noir-ish super-heroes and gritty espionage thriller . . . a fantastic novel” —Civilian Reader “Lavie Tidhar is no longer a rising star in the genre, but one burning bright.” —Staffer’s Book Review Praise for the Campbell Award and Neukom Literary-winning novel Central Station An NPR Best Book of 2016 An Amazon Featured Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Book A Tor.com Best Book of 2016 A Guardian Best SF & Fantasy Book of 2016 A Publishers Weekly Staff Pick A Kirkus Best Science Fiction and Fantasy pick British Science Fiction Award, shortlist Arthur C. Clarke Award, shortlist “It is just this side of a masterpiece — short, restrained, lush — and the truest joy of it is in the way Tidhar scatters brilliant ideas like pennies on the sidewalk.” —NPR Books [STARRED REVIEW] "Readers of all persuasions will be entranced.” —Publishers Weekly [STARRED REVIEW] “. . . a fascinating future glimpsed through the lens of a tight-knit community. Verdict: Tidhar (A Man Lies Dreaming; The Violent Century) changes genres with every outing, but his astounding talents guarantee something new and compelling no matter the story he tells.” —Library Journal, starred review "A sprawling hymn to the glory and mess of cultural diversity.” —Guardian ”Quietly enthralling and subtly ingenious.” —Asimov's Science Fiction “Beautiful, original, a shimmering tapestry of connections and images - I can't think of another SF novel quite like it. Lavie Tidhar is one of the most distinctive voices to enter the field in many years.” —Alastair Reynolds, author of the Revelation Space series “If you want to know what SF is going to look like in the next decade, this is it.” —Gardner Dozois, editor of the bestselling Year’s Best Science Fiction series “A dazzling tale of complicated politics and even more complicated souls. Beautiful.” —Ken Liu, author of The Paper Menagerie “Central Station is masterful: simultaneously spare and sweeping—a perfect combination of emotional sophistication and speculative vision. Tidhar always stuns me.” —Kij Johnson, author of At the Mouth of the River of Bees “ A unique marriage of Philip K. Dick, William Gibson, C. L. Moore, China Miéville, and Larry Niven with 50 degrees of compassion and the bizarre added. An irresistible cocktail.” —Maxim Jakubowski, author of the Sunday Times bestselling Vina Jackson novels Praise for Unholy Land “Lavie Tidhar does it again. A jewelled little box of miracles. Magnificent.” —Warren Ellis, author of Gun Machine “[STARRED REVIEW] 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 “It’s precisely what we’ve come to expect of Tidhar, a writer who just keeps getting better.” —Angela Slatter, author of the World Fantasy Award-winning The Bitterwood Bible “There are SFF writers. There are good SFF writers. And there is Lavie Tidhar . . . Bold and witty and smoky, [Unholy Land] plays games and coquetries, makes dark dalliances and will leave you dazzled and delighted.” —Ian McDonald, author of Time Was and Luna: Wolf Moon "A genius, dreamlike fantasy for those who slip across might-have-been worlds.” —Saad Z. Hossain, author of Escape from Baghdad! “Unholy Land is a stunning achievement.” —The Speculative Shelf “Lavie Tidhar has given us a mystically charged, morally complex vision of Theodor Herzl’s famous Jewish state that might have been.” —James Morrow, author of The Last Witchfinder and Shambling Towards Hiroshima “Lavie Tidhar’s daring Unholy Land brilliantly showcases one of the foremost science fiction authors of our generation.” — Silvia Moreno-Garcia, World Fantasy Award-winning editor and author of Certain Dark Things “Unholy Land is probably better than Michael Chabon’s Yiddish Policeman’s Union.” —Bradley Horner, author of the Darkside Earther series

The Violent Century

No vampire is ever innocent... The wandering Judge Dee serves as judge, jury, and executioner for any vampire who breaks the laws designed to safeguard their kind’s survival. This new case in particular puts his mandate to the test. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

A Tor.com Original

Judge Dee and the Limits of the Law

Kelly Link

Seanan McGuire

Sarah Pinsker

Carrie Vaughn

Cat Rambo

Behind the Mask is a multi-author collection with stories by award-winning authors Kelly Link, Cat Rambo, Carrie Vaughn, Seanan McGuire, Lavie Tidhar, Sarah Pinsker, Keith Rosson, Kate Marshall, Chris Large and others. It is partially a prose nod to the comic world--the bombast, the larger-than-life, the save-the-worlds and the calls-to-adventure. But it's also a spotlight on the more intimate side of the genre. The hopes and dreams of our cape-clad heroes. The regrets and longings of our cowled villains. That poignant, solitary view of the world that can only be experienced from behind the mask. The authors in this collection, both established and new, are all dexterous and wonderfully imaginative, each deserving of their own form-fitting uniforms and capes. Some of the stories pulse with social commentary, like Cat Rambo's whimsical and deft -Ms. Liberty Gets a Haircut- and Keith Rosson's haunting -Torch Songs.- Others twist the genre into strange and new territories, like Stuart Suffel's atmospheric -Birthright, - Kate Marhsall's moving -Destroy the City with Me Tonight, - and Adam Shannon's reality-bending -Over an Embattled City.- Some punch with heart and humor, like Matt Mikalatos's satisfying -The Beard of Truth- and Chris Large's adventurous -Salt City Blue, - while others punch with bite and grit, such as Michael Milne's evocative -Inheritance, - Aimee Ogden's poignant -As I Fall Asleep, - and Jennifer Pullen's heartfelt -Meeting Someone in the 22nd Century.- Some of the stories feature characters who might not be superheroes in the traditional sense, yet are heroic nonetheless, such as Sarah Pinsker's imaginative -The Smoke Means It's Working- and Stephanie Lai's majestic -The Fall of the Jade Sword.- Some shine a unique, captivating spotlight on supervillains, like Keith Frady's dramatic -Fool- and Carrie Vaughn's romantic -Origin Story.- Some are somber, ponderous works, where our heroes consider their impact on the world, like Lavie Tidhar's regret-tinged -Heroes- and Nathan Crowder's resonant -Madjack.- Others tread more light-hearted waters, with heroes adjusting to the sometimes-comical, sometimes-stressful life in the public eye, like Seanan McGuire's entertaining -Pedestal- and Patrick Flanagan's lively -Quintessential Justice.- And then there are the softer, quieter moments between heroes, as they navigate their extraordinary lives in their own unique ways, such as Ziggy Schutz's tender -Eggshells- and, of course, Kelly Link's captivating -Origin Story.-

A Superhero Anthology

Behind the Mask

Editor Lavie Tidhar collects short stories by international science fiction and fantasy authors.

Volume 3

The Best of World SF

A Novel

Osama

Maror

Yoon Ha Lee

S. Qiouyi Lu

Melissa Marr

Charlie Jane Anders

Stephen Graham Jones

Usman T. Malik

Brian Evenson

K.M. Szpara

Maria Dahvana Headley

Rich Larson

Tamsyn Muir

Fran Wilde

Rachel Swirsky

C. L. Polk

Maureen F. McHugh

Naomi Kritzer

Katharine Duckett

Zin E. Rocklyn

G. V. Anderson

Carolyn Ives Gilman

M. Rickert

Matthew Pridham

Gregory Norman Bossert

Claire Wrenwood

Jeremy Packert Burke

Justin C. Key

A collection of some of the best original science fiction and fantasy short fiction published on Tor.com in 2020. Includes stories by: Charlie Jane Anders G. V. Anderson Gregory Norman Bossert Jeremy Packert Burke Katharine Duckett Brian Evenson Carolyn Ives Gilman Maria Dahvana Headley Stephen Graham Jones Justin C. Key Naomi Kritzer Rich Larson Yoon Ha Lee S. Qiouyi Lu Usman T. Malik Melissa Marr Maureen McHugh Tamsyn Muir Sarah Pinsker C. L. Polk Matthew Pridham M. Rickert Zin E. Rocklyn Rachel Swirsky Lavie Tidhar Carrie Vaughn Fran Wilde Claire Wrenwood At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Some of the Best from Tor.com: 2020 Edition

Terminal by Lavie Tidhar is an emotionally wrenching science fiction story about people, who, either having nothing to lose or having a deep desire to go into space, travel to Mars via cheap, one-person, one-way vehicles dubbed jalopies. During the trip, those in the swarm communicate with each other, their words relayed to those left behind. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

A Tor.Com Original

Terminal

Can dreams come true? They can if you win the lottery, which promises to provide what your heart desires. For a humble shopkeeper in Yiwu, it’s a living, selling lottery tickets. Until a winning ticket opens up mysteries he’d never imagined. Lavie Tidha's Yiwu is a Tor.com Original short story. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Yiwu

Deep in the heart of history's most infamous concentration camp, a man lies dreaming. His name is Shomer, and before the war he was a pulp fiction author. Now, to escape the brutal reality of life in Auschwitz, Shomer spends his nights imagining another world - a world where a disgraced former dictator now known only as Wolf ekes out a miserable existence as a low-rent PI in London's grimiest streets. An extraordinary story of revenge and redemption, A Man Lies Dreaming is the unforgettable testament to the power of imagination.

A Man Lies Dreaming

Caught between realities, a mathematician, a book dealer, and a mobster desperately seek a notorious book that disappears upon being read. Only the author, a rakish sci-fi writer, knows whether his popular novel is truthful or a hoax. In a story that is cosmic, inventive, and sly, multi-award-winning author Lavie Tidhar (Central Station) travels from the emergence of life to the very ends of the universe. Delia Welegtabit discovered two things during her childhood on a South Pacific island: her love for mathematics and a novel that isn't supposed to exist. But the elusive book proves unexpectedly dangerous. When Delia's husband Levi goes missing, she seeks help from Daniel Chase, a young, face-blind book dealer. Lode Stars was written by the infamous Eugene Charles Hartley: legendary pulp science-fiction writer and founder of the Church of the All-Seeing Eyes. In Hartley's novel, a doppelganger of Delia searches for her missing father in a strange star system with three black holes. Oskar Lens, a Russian mobster in the midst of an existential crisis, is determined to find a copy of Lode Stars. Oskar believes that the novel provides protection from unseen aliens, and that reality is only an unreliable memory that is billions of years old. But is any of Lode Stars real? Was Hartley a cynical conman on a quest for wealth and immortality, creating a religion he did not believe in? Or was he a visionary who truly discovered the secrets of the universe?

The Circumference of the World

“A complex, layered and hugely enjoyable story” –Bestsf “Lovely work” –Locus When a mysterious message arrives from vanished New Atlantis, a restless Mai undertakes the perilous journey to its drowned isles. But the journey is long and hard: through the Blasted Plains and the ancient cities of Tyr and Suf, through shipwreck and wilderness. For this is a world where ants develop inexplicable weapons, where a lonely robot lives surrounded by cats in the ruins of old Paris, and where floating coral islands host sleeping sentience. Mai’s journey takes her by land, sea and air to the islands of New Atlantis, and to the nightmare prison buried underneath old London. On her way she will find heartbreak and love – and a new life, awakening. PRAISE FOR NEW ATLANTIS “Excellent... not a word is wasted” –Sfcrowsnest “Amazing” –1000yearplan “A wonderful, imaginative story” –SFRevu PRAISE FOR LAVIE TIDHAR Winner – The World Fantasy Award Winner – The John W. Campbell Award Winner – The British Fantasy Award Winner – The Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize Winner – The Neukom Literary Arts Award Winner – The Kitschies Award Winner – The BSFA Award “Tidhar is a genius at conjuring realities that are just two steps to the left of our own.” –NPR “Tidhar changes genres with every outing, but his astounding talents guarantee something new and compelling no matter the story he tells.” –Library Journal “In a genre entirely of his own, and quite possibly a warped genius.” –Ian McDonald, author of River of Gods “One of the foremost science fiction authors of our generation.” –Silvia Moreno-Garcia, author of Gods of Jade and Shadow “Already staked a claim as the genre’s most interesting, most bold, and most accomplished writer.” –Locus “One of science fiction’s great voices.” –Starburst

Lavie Tidhar

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