Blog Archives
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.
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.
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





















