Bashert (The Homeland Connection) [Kindle Edition]

Lior Samson (Author), Tal Paz-Fridman (Photographer)

Book Description

It's 1963. A gifted and inquisitive student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology stumbles on a storage room filled with unusual supplies. What begins as a student stunt soon explodes into a life-changing misadventure. Decades later, an unexpected encounter with a college classmate shakes a world-weary computer consultant out of his routine and brings him face-to-face with a distant past that he must quickly decipher - or die.

Bashert, meaning fate, is an intricate and intense political thriller, a tale of intrigue and innocence, devotion and destiny. Inspired by real events, Bashert is a page turner that caroms between continents and across time-frames as it narrates a story of betrayal and self-sacrifice set against the backdrop of Israel's emergence as a nuclear power.

Also available in the four-volume Kindle set The Homeland Connection (ISBN 978-0-9885275-1-5).

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Lior Samson is a university professor, consultant, and science fiction author with more than a dozen books and hundreds of articles to his credit. He lives with his wife and their two children in Massachusetts.

Product Details

• File Size: 394 KB
• Print Length: 276 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0984377204
• Publisher: Gesher Press (June 10, 2010)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B004774OGS
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Not Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #57,794 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
  • #67 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > Jewish

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars MIT, the Mosad, and Isreal's first atomic bomb July 11, 2010

By Semaj Eel Snikwah

Format:Paperback

If you ever wondered how Isreal obtained the fissionable material for its first atomic bomb, this first class thriller offers an explanation, at once plausible and fantastic. Based on the then semi-secret atomic research lab in the basement of an MIT classroom building, the author has invented a sometimes oddball yet believeable and engaging cast of characters who conspire to heist and deliver the goods. The action takes place over a short few days, that is, after the plot is actually hatched, and includes a harrowing escape through the streets of Boston and an exciting sea voyage in a commandered high speed vessle. A skeptical Mosad is very interested in the events, but a double agent and the personal histories of the characters conspire to complicate what seemed like a straight forward plan with occasional tragic results. The second of a planned trilogy, titled "The Dome" involving the same characters will be published soon.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Rocky Ride is Worth It. June 29, 2011

By Tom Goodrick

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I read Lior Samson's Bashert in just a couple of days. I found it very absorbing. It is great for reading on a business trip over a short span where you can remember the various interactions. It deals with what seems like a kid's prank that develops huge consequences and changes the lives of many people and even creates a new nuclear balance in the world by helping Israel to develop its nuclear capability. The author chose to develop the story in a disjointed way which is like a rocky ride in that you jump backward 40 years and then forward 40 years several times during the novel. But this disjointed way is probably the best way to develop such a story. Just fasten your seat belt and enjoy the ride. The characters are all people we come to care about significantly. There is a fair amount of Jewish custom discussed which was unfamiliar to me. But I found it a broadening experience. There is a terrific "Gotcha" moment that I cannot spoil. But for anyone who gets hung up on parts where the action seems to slow down (but key information is developed) just hang in there. By the end you will see deceit, love, murder and heroic action. The author's personal familiarity with the various places - Boston, Frankfurt, Tel Aviv - and the travel between them helps give a sense of authentication. It's a heck of a story!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Lior Samson Has Brought A New Meaning To Thrilling June 20, 2010

By Devan

Format:Paperback

This book is a very brilliant and suspenseful read. If you like the work of Francine Matthew's then you will most likely love this! The characters come alive as if you had known them for years. The complex and ever changing plot makes Bashert a must read!
This is definitely on my Top 10 Reads of 2010!
The title Bashert means fate so I guess it's your fate to read this intense thriller.

More About the Author

I am Lior Samson, although you won't find that name on my passport or my mailbox. Lior Samson is my pen name. I am frequently asked why I write under a pseudonym, particularly since my "real" name is hardly a secret and would easily be discovered by anyone with Internet access. In this benign deception, I carry on with a long tradition and follow humbly in the footsteps of far greater writers, writers like the brilliant author of contemporary spy novels who publishes under the pen name of John le Carré, although his identity as David Cornwell has been known for many decades.

To friends, family, colleagues, and the Post Office, I am Larry Constantine, but writing under a pen name serves several purposes, including marking out my full-length fiction from all the other writing I have done. I have been writing professionally all my adult life, and, over a varied career spanning more than four decades, I have had 23 books--including one Jolt Award winner--and hundreds of papers and articles published. One of my essays even garnered a Simon Rockower Award from the American Jewish Press Association. My novels and short fiction as Lior Samson are a new direction, markedly different from most of what has gone before.

As a professional member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and the author of a number of science fiction short stories, I did not expect that I would end up writing contemporary thrillers when I finally got around to my first full-length novel. What happened? The novels are simply the stories that demanded of me to sit down at the keyboard and tell them--now--not stories of fantasy or the far future or other worlds, but stories of this world in our age, of the issues and problems and challenges we and our children face.

My pen name also helps me to brand my fiction with a particular point of view that quickly becomes apparent to my readers. Of course, I try to write stories that are, first and foremost, engaging and entertaining, that keep readers turning the pages. But I also write from a place, a perspective from which I want to challenge my readers and, by challenging them, begin a conversation that will extend beyond the book and to others. I want to get my readers thinking and rethinking some of the issues that bedevil the modern world and modern society, issues like the nature of extremism and its relation to terrorism, the roles of religion and politics in current events, our dependence on technology and its growing fragility, the nature of love and commitment in a fluid and fractured society.

When I am not writing novels, I write serious choral and instrumental music, sing in a chorus, cook gourmet meals, teach at a university in Portugal, and try to keep pace with my two school-age children. It's a full life.