Blog Archives
New Audiobook released: An Occupation of Angels (Iambik Audio)
I’m delighted to announce the release of my first audio book!
An Occupation of Angels is now available for download as an audio book, from Iambik Audio, narrated by Elizabeth Klett. You can listen to the first chapter for free. The book is 3 hours and 22 minutes long and priced at $6.99.
After Archangels materialise over the bloodbaths of WWII, they take up residence in most of the world’s major cities. But what would happen if, more than quarter of a century later, something somehow managed to kill these supreme beings? Killarney knows and, as an agent working for the Bureau, a British agency that’s so secret it doesn’t officially exist, she finds herself embroiled in the consequences as, one by one, the Archangels die.
Assigned to trace a missing cryptographer thought to have information on the murders, she travels from England, through France, heading for the frozen wastes of the USSR. But there’s an unknown third party intent on stopping her, and there’s God, who also has an agenda. Not knowing who is friend and who is foe, and with only a brief glimpse of a swastika on angel wings as solid information, Killarney struggles to remain alive long enough to glean sufficient information to put together the pieces of the puzzle and complete what is, without them, an impossible mission.
An Occupation of Angels – now just $0.99!
For a limited time, the e-book edition of An Occupation of Angels is available for just $0.99! Get it on Kindle [UK] [US], Nook, or direct from the publisher!
“Sharp, brutal, cool – yet also stunningly imaginative and perfectly realised. This is the most compelling thing I’ve read in a long time: the only bad thing was that it had to end.” – Michael Marshall Smith
Apex Book Club: An Occupation of Angels!
From Apex:
Let’s be honest: February is a short month. Even during a leap year, we get cheated out of at least one extra day—two, if you’re hoping for thirty-one total. So it only seems fitting that the Apex Book Club selection for this month be something a bit more concise as well. February can be a dreary month, too, so I wanted a book that would grab readers by the throat from the very first page and shake the winter fog out of our heads.
What better than Lavie Tidhar’s An Occupation of Angels? Secret agents, World War II, trans-national espionage, Nazi baddies, dead angels, cryptography, and one wild race to solve a bizarre mystery?
Yes, please.
Lavie Tidhar first released An Occupation of Angels back in 2005 through Pendragon Press, and was released again just this year from Apex Publications. Lavie has lived all over the world, and because of this, he’s got a fresh and fascinating approach to fiction. Want to know more?Check out Apex’s interview with Lavie about An Occupation of Angels or the one about his novella Cloud Permutations (PS Publishing) on the Apex Blog. Interesting is his middle name.
Like last month, the Apex forum is your home base for all Book Club related activity. Be sure to register, if you haven’t already, so you can jump into the discussion as this month flies by as fast as the pages of this tight little novella will. Remember: no spoilers until the 15th of the month. After that, it’s open season to discuss every little twist and turn that caught you by surprise.
So watch the Apex forum for the upcoming Book Club discussion, and order your copy of An Occupation of Angels through the Apex Store today!
My First Audio Book!
It seems to be official, so… news that An Occupation of Angels is to become an audio book, to be published in early 2011 by Iambik Audiobooks!
Post day, computer troubles, review, comics
Got back from a nice week in the desert to find my laptop giving me a blue screen of death… which I managed to fix last night. Sigh of relief all around.
Also came back to a full post box, including copies of the American edition of The Bookman, my copies of the US edition of An Occupation of Angels (of which some news, soon!), and copies of my graphic short story, “Mr. Spellman’s Last Dance” in the comics anthology Grave Conditions.
There’s a new review of An Occupation of Angels, reading, partly:
An Occupation of Angels is exhausting, but in a good way. Tidhar delivers a supernatural spy novella that gallops along at a break-neck pace. True to his usual form, Tidhar drops you into the middle of the action, only feeding you pieces of information as they naturally come up in the story. The result is that you’re endlessly intrigued, both by what’s happening, and where and when it’s happening. Tidhar never falls into the trap of standing back and admiring the alternative history he’s created. Rather, he uses it, with all its richness and mystery, as an effective backdrop to a cinematic thriller, and the reader is left hungry for more.
Also news that The Night Train will be published in audio at Escape Pod (and I’ll have more news about that story, too, soon).
An Occupation of Angels sample chapters
Available on Amazon: paperback. Kindle.
Chapter One
THE GUN WAS UNDER THE pillow and so I used it, emptying three bullets that tore through his torso before exploding, the crystal casing fragmenting and the blood inside hissing as it touched skin.
He was inhumanly large, and as I sent another bullet his way, I watched the blood—human blood, Whitehall volunteers, probably had a drop of mine in it, I hated to give blood, the needles and the smell of medical alcohol and the nurse watching you like a specimen—burn his skin away.
I turned at a sound like breaking glass but it was only a Chinese urn, Ming clay, they were suckers for Ming vases, and I turned back and shot him again, twice, once in each wing.
The blood exploded when it came in touch with the underside of his wing, and his feathers began to burn, the acrid stench making me gag.
Target reached and eliminated, or something like that. I waited as Raphael’s great bulk fought to stay corporeal and lost.
Raphael’s body shimmered and burnt, reducing to nothing. A halo of light expanded from it, white and clean-burning, almost reaching me.
Then his essence was gone, and it was time to get out of there.
Animal instincts taking over, I was out of the bedroom door and running, scanning for the hidden assassin who could get me at any moment, and then what would they say at the Bureau? We don’t talk about our work, and if Whitehall could help it, we wouldn’t be talking to each other at all, but sometimes you have to, if only to say, “Tomlin, yeah, I was with him in Tangiers, good man, imagine the East Germans cracking his network, stroke of bad luck,” when what we mean is what we know in our hearts, that Tomlin might have been a good guy, but he blew the mission and there was nothing much left of him when they’d finished what they were doing and dumped him in the river, and that this could be us, me, next time, and it was pride, old stupid pride that kept me going as I ran through the mansion and out into the gardens, and continued to run until I reached the gate and opened it and jumped in a taxi and said, “Airport, please.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
He hit the gas and we drove away from Raphael’s House of Horrors, now minus one, at least, and I could feel myself relax and that was wrong; that was dangerous, and when things seem too easy I get worried.
“Which airline do you need?” he said.
“North Western,” I said, which was the agreed code, and he said, “Really? I prefer British Airways,” the whole ridiculous affair remaining ridiculous until the second you forget to use it and it’s the knife in the kidney, the knife you didn’t see inside the wrong newspaper, or the poison-tipped umbrella scratching your leg because you let your guard down for just one second.
“We need to get you out of the country,” he said, switching to English, but he didn’t take his eyes off the road and that was a good sign; the only thing that could get me out of Warsaw alive right now was a fast car on a one-way journey to the border. When you waste someone like Raphael, there are no doors, there are no holes through which you can escape, and they will hunt you. And don’t even think about flying.
But—“Stop.”
He wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t know, but there was one thing he didn’t understand, and it’s this: I work alone.
I relied on Control to get me a vehicle, but that was as far as it went, and so I told him to stop, and when he did I pushed him out, had to make a credible job of it, his face roughed up just enough so he would have a legitimate story to tell if he ran into them before he got back to the safe house, not that they like listening to stories, legit or otherwise, when they could just as easily kill you, or suck away the very core of you as you tried uselessly to struggle—it didn’t make any difference. They’d take the core of you out and cut it into nice, neat lines and let their disciples snort the remainder of your soul through a straw. If they caught you.
I didn’t intend to be caught.
I drove through a road block, and the nerves started playing up, but I was Merely Mary, I was innocent Mary Webb that day, an English teacher, thirty-one and working for VSO, and the soldier didn’t look more than twenty and cheerful, and his, “Documents, please,” was delivered with a smile, but still—they got Baggott in Iraq with a smile and left him with one, carved like a half-moon into his throat. I never liked the miserable bastard, but still.
The soldier at the checkpoint waved me through. I drove, foot to the accelerator, across barren cold fields.
“The guy you roughed up is going to need a doctor.”
“Better that than ending up dead.”
Ford waited at the rendezvous point, five kilometres from the East German border. When we’re in the field, we expect our Controller to work out the bigger picture, and Ford was good, a short thin man with a balding head and a pair of reading glasses, looking like a maths teacher or a Bible salesman, you’d lose him in a crowd—which is the whole point, really.
“Roads clear,” I said.
Ford looked tired. “Not without a fair bit of muscle,” he said. “We even had to activate a deep-cover mole, a sleeper. I don’t suppose she’ll live.” He said that with a soft apologetic air, coughing, and, “Anderson on the Eastern Europe Desk is rather unhappy.”
Which is Ford’s way of saying “Hopping mad,” but I didn’t care. He wouldn’t say anything without a good reason, but if he meant to push me it didn’t work—you can’t be pushed past a certain point, and your entire being concentrates on one thing: survival.
So I said, “Can we get a move on?” and he said, “Yes,” obviously, and if I was in such a hurry, and I got into the microlight, I’d sit Ford behind me; he was good but I wanted to survive, and when you do, there is only one person you trust.
I’d slid into a pair of overalls and now speeded up along the track road and then we were in the air and climbing, and I was grateful for the overalls. It gets cold quickly up there, and you need the insulation.
Flying blind and in fear of angels, the action is a strange dance, trying to keep between the two realms. There’s the human one below, the realm of the Sluzba Bezpieczeństwa and Stasi, of dank cells and rats and beatings, blood in water—but I wasn’t going to think about that, I was going to think ahead, to safety, to getting away with it.
Just don’t fly too high.
There’s the human realm, and then there’s the heavenly one where the winged predators ruled.
We flew over the border into East Germany and I consulted the map as I let the microlight glide, unassisted, then grabbed hold of the bars again and swooped north, Ford behind me—and I knew the thing with Raphael had been serious, they wouldn’t let someone like Ford out of bed for less than a revolution, nukes, or angels.
And they wouldn’t have asked for me.
Racing through cold clear air, waiting, the nerves on edge, piano wires stretched to snap.
But still we weren’t disturbed; the air remained clear and bright, no sign of unfriendly visitations, no sign of wings, and the ground, as much of it as I could see, remained clear of their agents, and we flew until I could smell the sea cutting like a blade against skin, salty and smoky at the same time, and a flare went up and I made an awkward landing, bumpy, but we rode it until the microlight stopped and I got out and, not waiting for Ford to unstrap himself, jumped onto the deck of the boat without ceremony and commandeered the ladies bathrooms.
It gets cold up there.
At 04:15 we touched Dover and at 05:30 I was back in London, alive, and the adrenaline wearing off and needing release, and I went to find Ben and woke him up, which he didn’t mind at all.
An Occupation of Angels released in the US!
Today is the release day of my supernatural thriller, An Occupation of Angels!
Please consider picking up a copy at Amazon! I’m going to be doing a couple of Twitter chats today – follow/take a look for a chance to win signed copies of The Bookman and Cloud Permutations.
And, in the meantime, here is me talking about five favourite works that inspired An Occupation of Angels, over at the Bibliophile Stalker blog, and an interview about the book over at Apex Books.
Here is the official announcement from Apex, with details:
Presenting An Occupation of Angels by Lavie Tidhar.
Here’s how you can participate in the celebration:
Check out the author interview.
Read the sample chapter we have posted. (Coming shortly)
Catch the #apexchat on Twitter. Apex Assistant Editor @JenniferBrozek will be hosting the discussion with Author @LavieTidhar. The chats last an hour. Anyone can chime in as well.One lucky participant from each will be drawn at random to receive an autographed book. Chat #1 is scheduled for 9am PST/4pm UK and Chat #2 is scheduled for 3pm PST/10pm UK. When you stop by Twitter just search for the #apexchat hashtag.
We will be posting the Amazon rank as it climbs. Keep an eye out for these ranking posts and cheer us on.
Boost the signal for the launch, the Twitter chats/book drawings, the interview, the sample chapter, and the sales rankings posts. Also if you see related posts out in the wild, boost the signal for those as well. (Feel free to leave us link love in the comments below.)
Grab a copy of your own (Paperback or Kindle). If you buy from Amazon.com today, you will be contributing to the book’s climb in the rankings. You can also purchase directly from the Apex Book Store where additional ebook formats are available.
Cover art by Vitaly S. Alexius
After Archangels materialise over the bloodbaths of WWII, they take up residence in most of the world’s major cities. But what would happen if, more than quarter of a century later, something somehow managed to kill these supreme beings? Killarney knows and, as an agent working for the Bureau, a British agency that’s so secret it doesn’t officially exist, she finds herself embroiled in the consequences as, one by one, the Archangels die.
Assigned to trace a missing cryptographer thought to have information on the murders, she travels from England, through France, heading for the frozen wastes of the USSR. But there’s an unknown third party intent on stopping her, and there’s God, who also has an agenda. Not knowing who is friend and who is foe, and with only a brief glimpse of a swastika on angel wings as solid information, Killarney struggles to remain alive long enough to glean sufficient information to put together the pieces of the puzzle and complete what is, without them, an impossible mission.
Blurb:
“Sharp, brutal, cool–yet also stunningly imaginative and perfectly realised.”
–Michael Marshall, bestselling author of The Straw Men trilogy
Updatery
This blog might go silent for a while, but in the meantime, a little updatery. What’s happening book-wise?
Well, after a harrowing around-the-world journey, the signing sheets for my forthcoming PS novella, Cloud Permutations, are making their way safely back to the UK, which means this planetary romance South Pacific tale should be on its way to the printers soon! The book’s available for pre-order, in both signed and unsigned hardcover editions.
Here’s the back cover blurb:
The world of Heven was populated, centuries ago, by Melanesian settlers from distant Earth. It is a peaceful, quiet world – yet it harbours ancient secrets.
Kai just wants to fly. But flying is the one thing forbidden on Heven – a world
dominated by the mysterious, ever present clouds in the skies. What do they hide? For Kai, finding the answer might mean his death – but how far will you go to realise your dreams?
Set against the breathtaking vista of a world filled with mystery and magic, Cloud Permutations is a planetary romance with a unique South Pacific flavour, filled with mythic monsters, ancient alien artefacts, floating islands and a quest to find a legendary tower… whatever the cost.
Work also continues on the American edition of An Occupation of Angels, with final edits coming to a close and cool new cover artwork chosen. I’ll post more details when I can. Lots more work in progress – including comics, editing, novel writing and some short stories coming soon…
