The Bookman Histories: Cover Reveal!

Well the guys at Angry Robot kept this quiet! Art by John Coulthart.

The Great Game cover art!

Angry Robots have just revealed the cover art for the forthcoming third Bookman Histories novel, The Great Game.

I still can’t believe I got David Frankland as my cover artist. I’ve loved his work for years, and he just does them perfectly!

Anyway, no words necessary. Just… this:

Get The Bookman for just 99p!

Angry Robot Books have gone craaaaaazy! You can now get The Bookman for the Kindle for just 99p!

That’s right! 99 pence!

What are you waiting for!

And if that’s not all, you get a set of steak knives absolutely free!!*

Get The Bookman for just 99p now!

* no you don’t.

SF Signal Mind Meld, plus Podcast Interview

A couple of things recently – I participate in the latest SF Signal Mind Meld, on women SF writers, where I get to gush a bit about all the writers in the Apex Book of World SF, and talk about the influence of Tiptree (Alice Sheldon) and C.L. Moore on my own work.

And I was interviewed by Mur Lafferty for the Angry Robot podcast – where I ramble on about Camera Obscura and being a secret agent… erm.

New story should be up at Chizine soon. I’ll post as soon as it goes up!

Short Story: “Lost in Transit”

Because it’s Sunday!

Lost in Transit

By Lavie Tidhar

There are caves under Sydney Airport. Parallel evolution never reached into the deep caverns there. the creatures that live below the terminal have an entirely alien physiognomy. Hidden tunnels connect the terminals with the pits below. It is unsafe to walk alone in the transit tunnels of International Departures. The airport evolved like a chameleon, mimicking the alien beings that are the true aborigines of the place. Some have the camouflage colours of blue-swirls and yellow dots that the slimy, organic carpet had learnt to emulate. It is unsafe to sit in one spot for too long. On the public announcement system human operators send out the hunting cry to the predators that live below. ‘Melinda Glass, please come to Gate Fifty-One. This is a call for Melinda Glass at Gate Fifty-One.’ The call comes out, and the passenger runs, but she will never now reach the gate. ‘Passenger late, presumed missing,’ it says on the passenger manifesto. The Australian aborigines know this. They used to hunt the creatures, when the world was young. The Australian government knows too. But what can they do? The airways must be kept open. People must come to see the Sydney Opera House and whatever else there is in Sydney, American fast-food chains and British paperbacks and Billabong t-shirts. Once an entire trade mission from Papua New Guinea went missing in Sydney airport. Only a single member, of the Kukukuku tribe, survived, for a short while; he had his poison darts with him. The things that live in Sydney airport hunted him for three hours, finally catching up with him in Border Control. No one saw anything. The next week PNG signed the agreement, exactly as Australia presented it. Be careful when you go to Sydney. And if the carpet seems to move you better run.

THE END.

Originally published in the Angry Robot advent calendar, Dec. 2010

The Bookman – e-book edition now available!

You can now buy an e-book edition of The Bookman for only £3.49, directly from the Angry Robot Bookstore. That’s a bargain, that is!

I still wish I had an e-book reader. A couple more years, I think, before the technology and pricing are both where I want them to be…

The Bookman – Free Sample!

Angry Robot are offering a free sample from The Bookman.

Or you can download it directly in epub, mobipocket, or PDF.

Novel Sale!

I’m glad to announce that my short novel, Martian Sands, has sold to Jason Sizemore at Apex Books for a late-2010 release. The deal was handled by John Berlyne of the Zeno Literary Agency (i.e., my agent).

If you want a Hollywood pitch for it, it would be something like: Schindler’s List meets Total Recall! It was a very difficult book to write, and I ended up writing it, piece by piece, while living on Vanua Lava, getting maybe 2 hours of electricity a day from the single solar-power unit on the island. For a short novel, it sure took a long time…

The book is partly a correspondence with some of the works of Philip K. Dick, particularly The Simulacra (possibly my favourite PKD novel). It’s certainly a strange book, and also a book I am very happy with. I’m delighted Apex (already publishers of HebrewPunk, The Apex Book of World SF and the forthcoming reissue of An Occupation of Angels) have picked it up.

This also means I will have not less than three novels out next year. The Bookman is coming out in January 2010 in the UK, and Angry Robot have confirmed the release date of the second book, Camera Obscura, for November that year.

It’s going to be busy!