Blog Archives
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.
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).
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
Interview, and review of The Tel Aviv Dossier
The Boston Book Bums blog has just reviewed The Tel Aviv Dossier:
Pop-culture become spiritual landmarks, obscured through time and turned profound by reinterpretation.
Tel Aviv Doisser shows you that common men and women can, when put into fantastic circumstance, become prophets, devils or disciples. You don’t need to be a religious scholar to appreciate the subtext and eschatological sarcasm oozing from Tel Aviv Dossier.
Will the fragmented archival style and occasionally disjointed storyline lose people? Yes. However, for us, these snap-shots are a literary devices that capture an authenticity, stealing facts, no matter how surreal. Tidhar and Yaniv utilize the device to blend biblical credibility into an absurd Apocalypse.
And calling Tel Aviv Dossier broadly Lovecraftian fits, so long as you throw in the pop-culture sensibilities of Nick Hornby with travelogue written up by Hunter S. Thompson.
And an interview with myself and Nir Yaniv, talking about the book, has just been published by SF Signal:
CT: How have your personal lives influenced the writing of the book?
LT: Well, Nir lives a little like an old Turkish Sultan – he lives in a converted apartment block gutted out from the inside – just this big huge space filled with water fountains, rare orchids and wild birds, where the smell of sweet opium and the pleasant sound of young women chatting permeate the air. So it’s hard to get him to write anything. Every word he writes is like a precious stone – he picks it up, looks at it from all directions, sniffs it, tastes it, puts it in its place, then moves on to the next word while sipping sherry out of a crystal goblet that may or may not be the genuine Holy Grail.
And obviously, the psychotic fireman-cum-messiah in The Tel Aviv Dossier pretty much is Nir.
NY: Have you ever wondered why you never see Lavie anywhere? I shall give you the answer right now, and if you’re as experienced an SF fan as you must be in order to be reading this interview, you won’t be surprised: Lavie is the Invisible Man.
As such, it’s quite easy to see how he was the inspiration behind all those mysterious forces which destroyed Tel Aviv so effortlessly in our book. I just had to invent the rest and let Lavie write some of it.
Nominated
Apparently I am nominated (alongside my co-writer, Nir Yaniv), for the Israeli Geffen Award for best novel – for רצח בדיוני, or A Fictional Murder, a humorous murder mystery set in an Israeli science fiction convention. A surprise nomination, and quite nice, for sure.
Also: over at the World SF News Blog we’ll be offering weekly fiction from tomorrow!
