Nir Yaniv’s debut English short story collection released!

I got to write the introduction to The Love Machine & Other Contraptions – Nir Yaniv’s debut English-language collection. I translated several of the stories originally. Check it out! It’s a £1.99 e-book, or you can get the spiffy paperback edition. It is also available in Amazon in the US.

 

Here’s the press release:

Israeli author Nir Yaniv’s debut English-language collection has been released by Keith Brooke’s Infinity Plus imprint.

The Love Machine & Other Contraptions is available in Kindle and paperback formats.

Yaniv is a film-maker, musician and author based in Tel Aviv. With World Fantasy Award winner Lavie Tidhar he co-wrote 2009 novel, The Tel Aviv Dossier. It has been described by SFCrowsnest as “the most enjoyably bizarre novel I’ve read,” and was called a “neo-Gnostic apocalypse narrative for the iPod generation” by The Jewish Quarterly.

Yaniv’s stories have appeared widely in Israel, where he is considered one of the most prominent of the new wave of genre writers. His writing is often humorous, and tackles a wide variety of subjects and literary approaches. In English, his stories have previously appeared in Weird Tales, Apex Magazine, Chizine and elsewhere, and they have been translated into German, Portuguese and Polish.

The Love Machine collects Yaniv’s previously published stories as well as many new stories never published in English. Some have been translated by Lavie Tidhar, who also provides an introduction, and well as by the author himself.

Yaniv’s work has been called “hypnotic, surreal and prophetic” by World Fantasy Award winning editor Ann VanderMeer, and as “fantastic, wonderful [and] weird” by Strange Horizons.

Osama: The Alternative Cover?

Nir Yaniv was bored, so he made me an alternative cover for Osama. He must have been so proud!

 

The Tel Aviv Dossier, Now in Audio!

I’m delighted to announce that The Tel Aviv Dossier, my 2009 novel co-written with Nir Yaniv, is now available as an audiobook!

The audio book runs 7 hours and 35 minutes and is narrated by Eric Meyers. It is available directly via Audible, or through Amazon.com or Amazon UK.

Note that Nir’s name is missing from the credits, I hope it will be rectified very shortly.

What is it like? Here’s an Amazon review I quite like…

Have you ever thought to yourself, “You know, the books I’m reading just aren’t crazy enough”? If so, THE TEL AVV DOSSIER might be something for you.
This is one of those rare books that defies all explanation. If you try to explain the plot to someone, you end up sounding like a rambling lunatic.
So I will just tell you this: It’s crazy.
And awesome.
And really original.
It’s the kind of book that makes you think WTF?, but I mean that in a good way. I am seriously in love with this book. It stays with you. It haunts you. I have spent a good deal of time thinking about this book. Dwelling on it. Trying to interpret it. I don’t know if I’ve come up with any solid answers yet, but the journey has been a good time.

A War Over Nothing?

A WAR OVER NOTHING?

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

28 June 2011

TEL AVIV –

An Android phone application continues to cause fierce debate in the Middle East.

“How many times have you paid nothing and got something back? Now we offer you a unique opportunity: pay something and get Nothing back! This application does absolutely Nothing. By purchasing it you will help us prove that Nothing is indeed worth Something!”

Nothing – which retails for $0.99 – was developed by Israeli programmer, musician and author Nir Yaniv. In the few days still its release it has already sold in the double figures and was featured on prominent Israeli news site Ynet. One customer described it as “the best App I ever got. It does exactly what it promised to do! Nothing!”

Nothing Pro, retailing for $9.00 and described as “lighter in size, easier on both the memory and the CPU, and it does Nothing way more smoothly and efficiently than the regular consumer version,” has since been released.

Now the tongue-in-cheek application – described by Ynet readers as, variously, “the stupidest thing I have ever seen” and “pure genius” – and resembling British artist Martin Creed’s controversial, Turner Prize-winning piece Work 227: The lights going on and off – has been co-opted in the Middle East’s always-bitter political conflict.

Right-wing blog The Elder of Ziyon has used the application to attack Palestinian politics, writing, in part, “I think that we can expand on this concept. for example, a deluxe edition of Nothing that shows: Every Palestinian Arab concession since 1988; Every example of Mahmoud Abbas’ “moderation”; Every Palestinian Arab “human rights group” that calls for an unconditional release of Gilad Shalit; Every benefit that a Palestinian Arab state would bring to the world,” and continuing further in that vein.

When reached for comment, a bemused Mr. Yaniv said, “I never dreamed that anyone would use the app for political purposes. In retrospect, given the nature of the internet, I should have known better.”

Plans for an iPhone version of Nothing have since been announced.

The Three Laws of Zombie

My latest short story, The Three Laws of Zombie, is now online at Daily Science Fiction. My thanks to Nir Yaniv for his help in formulating the three laws. Incidentally, the story was conceived and written exactly a year ago! We were hanging around a book stall in Israeli Book Week, supposedly to sign copies of the Hebrew edition of The Tel Aviv Dossier, and we ended up with the idea of a zombie Asimov robot and, almost immediately afterwards, to the Three Laws. I possibly have that piece of paper with them scribbled on it, somewhere around…

Anyway, check it out!

The first time I saw a zombie was at McDonald’s. It tried to attack the cashier. An angry mob turned on the zombie. It stood between them and a Happy Meal. They beat the crap out of that thing. Green rotten brain splutters hit the plastic counter and it smelled worse than it usually smells at McDonald’s. By the time it was dead for good I had lost my appetite.

Zombies weren’t good for business.

In the following weeks every major fast-food chain had hired guards to stand outside, big fellah bouncers in non-threatening company colours and brightly-coloured shotguns. Don’t matter what colour a shotgun is when it blows your brains out.

They also hired extra cleaners. The new company standard was despatch-remove-clean in under a minute, or you could claim a free meal.

Everyone likes a free meal at McDonald’s.

KFC had a major embarrassment when old Colonel Sanders came back from beyond the grave looking like a half-cooked fried chicken past its sell-by-date. And when the whole zombie thing really took off, and Micky D had to face hordes of zombie Ronald McDonalds in feeding frenzies across the country, mass layoffs were a continuous problem.

I don’t know what happened with Wendy’s. I never went to Wendy’s. – continue reading.

Icon photos – Day 1

Still recovering – had a long week and not enough sleep. Some exciting developments on the books front that I can’t mention yet, but meant I spent most of yesterday on skype and e-mail. In the meantime!

At the Cinemateque bookshop stall, with The Apex Book of World SF.

Nir Yaniv with The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy, which includes his story “Painter, a Sheep and a Boa Constrictor” in my translation.

Very first copies of the Hebrew edition of The Tel Aviv Dossier!

Announcing the new Hebrew edition of The Tel Aviv Dossier!

I am delighted to announce the imminent release of the Israeli edition of The Tel Aviv Dossier, the supernatural disaster novel I co-wrote with Nir Yaniv. It is published by Odyssey Publishing and translated by Itamar Faran. The cover artwork is the same as the Chizine edition, by the extremely talented Erik Mohr.

Advance copies of the novel will be available for sale at Icon, the Israeli SF convention, from Sunday 26, with bookshop distribution to follow. Nir and I will be discussing the novel on Monday 27, 20:00, at the Eshkol arena.

New Interview with Me and Nir Yaniv (Hebrew)

Nir Yaniv and I have been interviewed as joint nominees for this year’s Geffen Award, for our Hebrew novel רצח בדיוני (A Fictional Murder): a murder mystery set in an Israeli SF convention. We… took some liberties with the questions, not to say the answers. Follow that link! (Hebrew only).

My Icon Schedule

Next week, I’m attending Israel’s Icon Festival, or Icon convention or, to be honest, both of them.

There are currently two Icon festivals – the big, municipality-sponsored, film-festival-with-everything-else-thrown-in extravaganza Icon TLV, and the smaller, community-fan-organised Icon.

Icon TLV takes place 25th-30th of this month, Icon between 26th-28th of this month. They are right next to each other, Icon TLV taking place at the Tel Aviv Cinemateque, the other next door.

Why there are two competing Icons is something I should perhaps save for a future post – not sure I entirely understand it, though it’s hardly all that surprising considering fan politics has always tended to this sort of thing (reading Fred Pohl’s The Way the Future Was, at any rate!). Suffice to say I will be appearing at both.

I was very happy to be approached by the organisers of Icon TLV – one of whom is the formidable Abigail Nussbaum, and if you don’t read her blog, Asking the Wrong Questions, you really should – for advice on international SF. One of my panels this year will be on this very topic – with author Guest-of-Honour Andrzej Sapkowski, Poland’s best-selling fantasy author. I love the fact Icon is looking to include more international participants and hopefully some more of my recommendations will be making an appearance in future years.

My appearances at the fan Icon (for lack of a better description) have to do with my being nominated for the Israeli Geffen Award this year, alongside my co-author, Nir Yaniv, for our novel רצח בדיוני (A Fictional Murder) – a murder mystery set, as it happens, in an Israeli SF convention… I only wish we’d thought of a convention split ourselves! Perhaps a sequel…

Anyhow, without further ado, here is my programme for both Icons.

Sunday 26 September, 15:00 – Lavie Tidhar interviewed by Abigail Nussbaum, in front of an audience (Icon TLV)

Sunday 26 September, 18:00 – Meet the Geffen nominees, Lavie Tidhar and Nir Yaniv (20 minutes, Icon Festival)

Monday 27 September, 20:00 – Destroying Tel Aviv, Lavie Tidhar and Nir Yaniv, moderated by Ehud Maimon (Icon Festival)

Tuesday 28 September, 14:00 – World SF Panel with Andrzej Sapkowski, Nicholas Seeley and Lavie Tidhar, moderated by Abigail Nussbaum (Icon TLV)

Tuesday 28 September, 17:30 – Creating an Israeli Future, panel with Lavie Tidhar, Nir Yaniv and Shimon Adaf, moderated by Abigail Nussbaum (Icon TLV).

Quite looking forward to it!

2010: An Israeli Space Odissey

Guy Hasson has a new article, 2010: An Israeli Space Odyssey, in the latest issue of The Jewish Renaissance, which looks at some of my work, and the work of my sometimes co-writer Nir Yaniv.

2010: AN ISRAELI SPACE ODYSSEY
SF author Guy Hasson explains the explosion of science fiction in Israel and looks at how far the themes of its authors are particularly Jewish or Israeli. Writers covered include Lavie Tidhar and Nir Yaniv and Hasson himself