Bookman (Angry Robot) [Mass Market Paperback]

Lavie Tidhar (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 28, 2010 | Series: Angry Robot

LATE EXTRA!
BOMB OUTRAGE IN LONDON!

A masked terrorist has brought London to its knees -- there are bombs inside books, and nobody knows which ones. On the day of the launch of the first expedition to Mars, by giant cannon, he outdoes himself with an audacious attack.

For young poet Orphan, trapped in the screaming audience, it seems his destiny is entwined with that of the shadowy terrorist, but how? His quest to uncover the truth takes him from the hidden catacombs of London on the brink of revolution, through pirate-infested seas, to the mysterious island that may hold the secret to the origin not only of the shadowy Bookman, but of Orphan himself...

Like a steam-powered take on V for Vendetta, rich with satire and slashed through with automatons, giant lizards, pirates, airships and wild adventure. The Bookman is the first of a series.

File Under: Steampunk [ Alternate History! | Reptilian Royalty! | Diabolical Anarchists! | Extraordinary Adventure! ]

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Readers will enjoy watching Tidhar's imagination throwing off sparks like a Roman candle." - Publishers Weekly

"Tidhar's book gives readers airships, pirates, automatons, cannons to launch people to Mars, and giant lizards; in short, everything but the kitchen sink... Tidhar ushers readers along from one situation to the next with a deft touch." - John Klima, Library Journal

"The Bookman pokes at the fat and waddled body of steampunk with its walking cane and leaves it on the roadside with its fresh take on Victorian London without loosing any steam on its way." - Loudmouth Man

"The Bookman is a delight, crammed with gorgeous period detail, seat-of-the-pants adventure and fabulous set-pieces." - The Guardian

"This is a steampunk gem... Bring on a sequel, Tidhar! I'm craving to know what happens after the ending!" - SFF World

"An emerging master" - LOCUS Magazine

Praise for Lavie Tidhar's Previous Works:

"Tidhar beautifully evokes the power of technology " - The Fix (reviewing "The Dying World" from Clarkesworld Magazine)

"...richly detailed characters in a well paced and well thought out story" - Tangent (reviewing "The Pattern Makers of Zanzibar" from Murky Depths)

"Tidhar's story reads like a drug-infused John Le Carre novel, if Le Carre wrote science fiction and dropped LSD as he pounded on the typewriter... an amazing accomplishment, and highly recommended." - The Fix (reviewing "The Shangri-La Affair" from Strange Horizons) 

"It's stomach churning and very sweet at the same time, bizarreness and beauty like most of Tidhar's stories." - The Fix (reviewing "The Butcher and The Flykeeper - A Christmas Love Story" from Murky Depths)

"The strength of this work is the setting. It is incredibly inventive and fun... a wonderful story, especially for those who enjoy the more surreal edges of speculative fiction." - Tangent (reviewing "High Noon in Clown Town" from Postscripts)

"Tidhar's story is classic noir, but with its tongue firmly in its cheek from beginning to end. A very enjoyable read." - The Fix (reviewing "Hard Rain at the Fortean Cafe" from Aeon)

"This is one of those books which you can’t put down and yet you don’t want to reach the end because then it will be all over ... It’s a book which makes you resent all those little things which get in the way; eating, sleeping, children, work are all annoyances and must be kept to a minimum until you get to the end." - SF Book Reviews

About the Author

Israeli-born writer Lavie Tidhar has been called an "emerging master" by Locus magazine, and has quickly established a name for himself as a short fiction writer of some note. He has traveled widely, living variously in South Africa, the UK, Asia and the remote island-nation of Vanuatu in the South Pacific, and his work exhibits a strong sense of place and an engagement with the literary Other in all its forms.

Lavie's novella An Occupation of Angels was published in 2005, a Cold War fantasy thriller described by Michael Marshall Smith as "stunningly imaginative" and "the most compelling thing I have read in a long time". In linked-story collection HebrewPunk (2007), Tidhar set out to re-imagine traditional fantasy tropes with a distinctly Jewish slant and rich historical settings, including a tale of the little-known Zionist expedition to British East Africa in search of a possible Jewish homeland in "Uganda", effortlessly mixing fact and fiction. The collection was described by Adam Roberts as containing "intensified supernatural action-surrealism" full of "conceptual surprise" and "saturated with a sense of exotic roundedness, an eerie solidity and reality." The author lives in Israel.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Angry Robot; Reprint edition (September 28, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0857660349
• ISBN-13: 978-0857660343
• Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 1.1 x 6.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #397,385 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not For Everyone, October 5, 2010

By 

Nickolas X. P. Sharps "Fleet Strike 13" - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bookman (Angry Robot) (Mass Market Paperback)

I really have difficulty reviewing this book. It was a struggle for me to read The Bookman all the way through, only having spent money on it persuaded me to continue. Let me say that I don't think this is a bad book by any means, in fact it might be a good book. The Bookman just isn't the book for me. I didn't much care for Orphan, he never seemed to be his own man, as a character he was just a pawn in everyone else's game. He undertakes the adventure to save his beloved but the path from beginning to end is so convoluted that I found it hard to follow. There are a lot of literary references and historical figures which would probably be of great enjoyment to some readers. I personally felt like The Bookman tried to be too clever for its own good. The whole book felt really superfluous, the pseudo-steampunk setting was intriguing at first but it never really developed into a fully realized idea.

I feel like I should have more to say about this book after giving it a 2 star rating but I'm at a loss for words. The Bookman probably offers a unique experience to a different type of reader but to me reading it felt like a hassle.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Refreshing and Enjoyable, March 7, 2011

By 

Amber Marie - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Bookman (Angry Robot) (Mass Market Paperback)

I first started this book with rather low expectations. It had several mixed reviews on Amazon, and I wasn't so sure about some of the concepts, such as lizards as the current royalty. However, I ended up really enjoying this book!

It was an strangely absorbing take on a revolution, complete with robots fighting for independence and equal rights, alien invaders, a love story, and strange but enjoyable appearances of well known people and characters. Jules Verne, Karl Marx, and Moriarty all show up, to name a few. The plot is, to put it bluntly, extraordinarily weird at parts, but somehow that doesn't get in the way of the story (which, by the way, is wonderfully full of twists and turns). Plus, Tidhar writes beautifully, with a distinct and very refreshing style. I disagree with another reviewer who said that Bookman was 'nothing new'. I thought it was very original. I read a lot a books, and I've never read one like this. While that's normally a bad thing, it was a great thing here.

I'd recommend it to steampunk fans and fantasy fans alike.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Strange & Not Rewarding, August 19, 2011

By 

John J. Browne "bookaholic" (Brooklyn, New York United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bookman (Angry Robot) (Mass Market Paperback)

I had high hopes that I would enjoy this book when I began reading it but at the end I can not give it more than two stars. The author has created a rich if rather strange world but overall it sometimes felt like it was written by committee and without discussion. The hero is an extremely passive figure who is a pawn in intertwining schemes by various factions and the reader is often just as confused as he is. The "lizard villians" are never really fleshed out. There are many enjoyable historical and literary references which will bring a smile to the knowledgeable reader's face but which also appear thrown in as an after thought. The conclusion seems patched together at the last minute and not well thought out. We are expected to believe that a human royalist underground just springs up without any prior discussion. I also found the overall "feel" of the book to be difficult. It is clear that Mr. Tidhar is not an American writer. This is not an objection. He is enormously imaginative and skilled but I think I am more comfortable with a more linear and direct writing style.