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URL:https://www.sciencefictionbookclub.org/events/243360649/
SUMMARY:Central Station - Lavie Tidhar
DESCRIPTION:A worldwide diaspora has left a quarter of a million people at 
 the foot of a space station. Cultures collide in real life and virtual rea
 lity. The city is literally a weed\, its growth left unchecked. Life is ch
 eap\, and data is cheaper.\n\nWhen Boris Chong returns to Tel Aviv from Ma
 rs\, much has changed. Boris’s ex-lover is raising a strangely familiar 
 child who can tap into the datastream of a mind with the touch of a finger
 . His cousin is infatuated with a robotnik—a damaged cyborg soldier who 
 might as well be begging for parts. His father is terminally-ill with a mu
 lti-generational mind-plague. And a hunted data-vampire has followed Boris
  to where she is forbidden to return.\n\nRising above them is Central Stat
 ion\, the interplanetary hub between all things: the constantly shifting T
 el Aviv\; a powerful virtual arena\, and the space colonies where humanity
  has gone to escape the ravages of poverty and war. Everything is connecte
 d by the Others\, powerful alien entities who\, through the Conversation
 —a shifting\, flowing stream of consciousness—are just the beginning o
 f irrevocable change.\n\nAt Central Station\, humans and machines continue
  to adapt\, thrive...and even evolve.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAmazon Featured Best 
 Science Fiction &amp\; Fantasy Book of May Barnes &amp\; Noble Best Scienc
 e Fiction and Fantasy of 2016 pick Bookskill Recommended Book Featured in 
 the Jewish Telegraph Featured on the Reading Envy podcast Guardian Best SF
  &amp\; Fantasy Book of 2016 Kirkus Science Fiction\, Fantasy\, &amp\; Hor
 ror Books You`ll Want to Read in May Kirkus 2016 Best Science Fiction and 
 Fantasy pick NPR Best Books of 2016 Publishers Weekly Staff Pick SFBluesto
 cking Best of 2016 Tor.com Best Book of 2016 io9 May Science Fiction\, Fan
 tasy\, and Horror Book That Will Blow Your Mind 2016 British Science Ficti
 on Award\, Longlist 2016 Locus Recommended Reading List 2017 John W. Campb
 ell Award Winner 2017\, Shortlist Winner Sarah Anne Langton Nomination\, C
 hesley Award\, Best Cover Illustration – Sarah Anne Langton 2017 British
  Fantasy Society – Shortlist for Best Artist – Sarah Anne Langton "It`
 s all of science fiction distilled into a single book."\n—Warren Ellis\,
  author of Transmetropolitan and Gun Machine\nREVIEWS\n“World Fantasy Aw
 ard–winner Tidhar (A Man Lies Dreaming) magnificently blends literary an
 d speculative elements in this streetwise mosaic novel set under the tower
 ing titular spaceport. In a future border town formed between Israeli Tel 
 Aviv and Arab Jaffa\, cyborg ex-soldiers deliver illicit drugs for psychic
  vampires\, and robot priests give sermons and conduct circumcisions. The 
 Chong family struggles to save patriarch Vlad\, lost in the inescapable me
 mory stream they all share\, thanks to his father’s hack of the Conversa
 tion\, the collective unconscious. New children\, born from back-alley gen
 etic engineering\, begin to experience actual and virtual reality simultan
 eously. Family and faith bring them all back and sustain them. Tidhar glee
 fully mixes classic SF concepts with prose styles and concepts that recall
  the best of world literature. The byways of Central Station ring with dus
 ty life\, like the bruising\, bustling Cairo streets depicted by Naguib Ma
 hfouz. Characters wrestle with problems of identity forged under systems o
 f oppression\, much as displaced Easterners and Westerners do in the novel
 s of Orhan Pamuk. And yet this is unmistakably SF. Readers of all persuasi
 ons will be entranced.”\nPublishers Weekly\, starred review\n\n“. . . 
 a fascinating future glimpsed through the lens of a tight-knit community. 
 Verdict: Tidhar (A Man Lies Dreaming\; The Violent Century) changes genres
  with every outing\, but his astounding talents guarantee something new an
 d compelling no matter the story he tells.”\nLibrary Journal\, starred r
 eview\n\n“It is just this side of a masterpiece — short\, restrained\,
  lush — and the truest joy of it is in the way Tidhar scatters brilliant
  ideas like pennies on the sidewalk.”\nNPR Books\n\n“A marvellous\, mu
 lti-faceted story that flows gently from one character to another like an 
 intimate private tour of Tel Aviv and the spaceport at its centre.”\nSF 
 Crowsnest\n\n“A fantastic mosaic novel.”\nNew York Review of Science F
 iction\n\n“Tidhar\, who the Guardian newspaper compared to Philip K. Dic
 k\, has given the world a fascinating and imaginative snapshot of a distan
 t future.”\nCharlie Shifflett\, author of Accomplices\n\n“Breathtaking
 ly heady . . . a wonderfully inventive set of interconnected tales\, brimm
 ing with sensory detail and paying tribute to a plethora of science-fictio
 n tropes.”\nIntergalactic Medicine Show\n\n“Tidhar presents a richly c
 onstructed future in this beautifully crafted world.”\nDavid Brin\, auth
 or of Startide Rising and Existence\n\n“Central Station is in every way 
 a literary masterpiece.”\nThe Future Fire\n\n“Thought-provoking . . . 
 highly intellectual.”\nBooklist\n\n“A sprawling hymn to the glory and 
 mess of cultural diversity.”\nGuardian\n\n“Quietly enthralling and sub
 tly ingenious.”\nAsimov’s Science Fiction\n\n“Beautiful\, original\,
  a shimmering tapestry of connections and images - I can’t think of anot
 her SF novel quite like it. Lavie Tidhar is one of the most distinctive vo
 ices to enter the field in many years.”\nAlastair Reynolds\, author of t
 he Revelation Space series\n\n“If you want to know what SF is going to l
 ook like in the next decade\, this is it.”\nGardner Dozois\, editor of t
 he bestselling Year’s Best Science Fiction series\n\n“A dazzling tale 
 of complicated politics and even more complicated souls. Beautiful.”\nKe
 n Liu\, author of The Grace of Kings\n\n“If Nalo Hopkinson and William G
 ibson held a séance to channel the spirit of Ray Bradbury\, they might be
  inspired to produce a work as grimy\, as gorgeous\, and as downright sens
 ual as Central Station.”\nPeter Watts\, author of Blindsight\n\n“Centr
 al Station is masterful: simultaneously spare and sweeping—a perfect com
 bination of emotional sophistication and speculative vision. Tidhar always
  stuns me.”\nKij Johnson\, author of At the Mouth of the River of Bees\n
 \n“Central Station boasts complexity without complication\, sharp prose\
 , and a multi-dimensional world.”\nJeffrey Ford\, author of The Girl in 
 the Glass\n\n“Lavie Tidhar weaves the threads of classic and modern scie
 nce fiction tropes with the skills of a gene surgeon and creates a whole n
 ew landscape to portray a future both familiar and unsettling. A unique ma
 rriage of Philip K. Dick\, William Gibson\, C. L. Moore\, China Miéville\
 , and Larry Niven with 50 degrees of compassion and the bizarre added. An 
 irresistible cocktail.”\nMaxim Jakubowski\, author of the Sunday Times b
 estselling Vina Jackson novels\n\n“Like all good science fiction\, the l
 inked stories of Central Station are really about the here and now we live
  in. Most urgently\, they are about just who ‘we’ might be\, here on t
 his overcrowded\, contested\, Anthropocene world that we all must share.
 ”\nCarter Scholz\, author of Radiance\n\n“Tidhar weaves strands of fai
 th and science fiction into a breathtaking and lush family history of the 
 far future.”\nMax Gladstone\, author of Three Parts Dead\n\n“Disturbin
 gly strange\, yet bizarrely familiar\, like implanted memories from a futu
 re you have not yet lived. I loved it.”\nEileen Gunn\, author of Stable 
 Strategies and Others\n\n“A mosaic of mind-blowing ideas and a dazzling 
 look at a richly-imagined\, textured future.”\nAliette de Bodard\, autho
 r of The House of Shattered Wings\n\n“I recommend it highly. It’ll sta
 y with you for days\, because every idea in it has more ideas under it. It
 ’s all of science fiction distilled into a single book.”\nWarren Ellis
 \, author of Transmetropolitan and Gun Machine\n\n“It’s an amazing boo
 k!”\nJewelle Gomez\, author of The Gilda Stories\n\n“Central Station i
 s brilliant.”\nBarnes and Noble\n\n“[Tidhar] has created a textured an
 d original future that echoes real historical and economic tensions while 
 satisfying veteran readers with deliberate echoes of classic science ficti
 on…Deeply humane.”\nChicago Tribune\n\n“[A] standout\, absorbing\, w
 ell realised sci-fi world\, with characters who feel like they’re about 
 to stroll off the page and take you for a cup of arak.”\nSci-Fi and Fant
 asy Reviews\n\n“[T]he escape from more traditional (and commercial) stor
 y structure allows the Central Station to be a place where the extraordina
 ry and alien are commonplace\, its world imbued with life beyond the servi
 ce of a single narrative arc.”\nArs Technica\n\n“It’s a compelling c
 ollection that mixes the epic and the intimate\, one that succeeds at bein
 g profound\, incredibly moving and\, quite simply\, stunning.”\nStarburs
 t Magazine\, 10 out of 10 stars\n\n“Some of Tidhar’s finest writing. V
 erdict: Come to Central Station and allow yourself to be enveloped in its 
 embrace.”\nSci-Fi Bulletin\n\n“Central Station combines a cultural sen
 sibility too long invisible in SF with a sensibility which is nothing but 
 classic SF\, and the result is a rather elegant suite of tales.”\nLocus\
 n\n“Central Station is without question the best assemblage of short sto
 ries I’ve read in recent memory…. Sublimely sensual\, emotionally more
 ish\, and composed with crystalline clarity irrespective of its incredible
  complexity.”\nTor.com\n\n“I smelled the smells of Tel Aviv in the fir
 st paragraph of the introduction\, meat cooking and sweat and sand and Med
 iterranean air. I saw the city squares\, flowing with life and laughter an
 d languages. I felt like I had come home.”\nThe Warbler\n\n“Intricate 
 and otherworldly\, emotional and thought provoking\,”\nBooks\, Bones &am
 p\; Buffy\n\n“It’s unlike any Science Fiction I’ve ever read\, equal
 ly parts poetic\, abstract\, and authentic in its ability to show us a str
 ange future we can believe that\, yes\, is certainly possible.”\nElitist
  Book Reviews\n\n“The breadth of Tidhar’s imagination in this book jus
 t left me gasping…if you love worldbuilding\, good characterisation and 
 a world of possibilities\, this is definitely for you.”\nBlue Book Ballo
 on\n\n“This is a novel that captures the heart of human experience (in a
 ll it’s odd ways) whilst simultaneously building a world full of wonderf
 ul and far-reaching ideas. It’s beautiful\, considered and complex in eq
 ual measure.”\nThe Bookbeard’s Blog\n\n“I love Lavie Tidhar’s writ
 ing and\, as always\, here it is beautiful.”\nFor Winter Nights\n\n“Ti
 dhar’s imagination is not only seen in the newly-minted terms or the qui
 rky languages the novel has\, but in the ideas it contains. Central Statio
 n is full of fresh and well-thought concepts.”\nSense of Wonder\n\n“Gr
 eat…it has a very Blade Runner feel to it.”\nThe Writerly Reader\n\n
 “If SF is about expanding boundaries and making us think in new ways\, t
 hen this is absolutely at the core of the genre. I can’t recommend it hi
 ghly enough.”\nFed on Peaches\n\n“Central Station is one of the most b
 reathtakingly\, bewilderingly\, mindbendingly imaginative stories I’ve r
 ead in some time.”\nBookaneer\n\n“If you’re looking for something a 
 little more philosophical and thoughtful than the usual fare in the genre\
 , look no further than this book . . . a fantastic read.”\nStrange Curre
 ncies\n\n“Lavie Tidhar gives enormous depth to the world he creates. . .
  . Central Station is a fascinating glimpse into a very possible future.
 ”\nMetapunk\n\n“Central Station is a gorgeous book”\nBooklikes\n\n
 “I think I’ve just read one of the books of the year\, although we are
  only in April.”\nDreams of Elvex\n\n“I wouldn’t be surprised to see
  this one on the Nebula shortlist next year.”\nRob Weber\, Val’s Rando
 m Comments\n\n“The lushness\, the alien-ness\, but organic feel of the s
 etting of Tel Aviv\, with the gamespace and the Conversation flickering in
  and around\, reminded me of Hyperion by Dan Simmons.”\nKoenix\n\n“Hig
 hly recommended to anyone who enjoys literary science fiction\, especially
  authors like Hannu Rajaniemi”\nAgreybox\n\n“This is science fiction t
 old on an intimate scale.”\nStrange Alliances\n\n“What makes this book
  special is the strong literary quality to the writing…. Central Station
  is not like anything else you’ve read. This book shows clearly that Lav
 ie Tidhar is an author to watch.”\nSF Revu\n\n“Central Station is a wo
 ndrous thought-provoking book\, as you would expect from someone as highly
  credentialed as Lavie Tidhar.”\nFantasy Book Review\n\n“Powerfully im
 agined and beautifully rendered… capture[s] profound emotional truths”
 \nInterzone\n\n“Central Station is a thoughtful\, poignant\, human take 
 on a possible future.”\nFantasy Literature\n\n“I loved the array of ch
 aracters\, cultures\, real and imagined from the robotniks with their robo
 tic religion\, to the description of a futuristic Tel Aviv that was so viv
 id\, I could almost see it.”\nThe Conversationalist\n\n“Full of sublim
 e ideas and beautiful\, evocative prose...It is a novel to fall in love wi
 th.”\nDancing on Glass\n\n“Every page was a delight.”\nAstounding Ya
 rns\n\n“It’s a really great piece of fiction\, and one of the most int
 eresting science-fiction novels of recent years.”\nBookmunch\n\n“The f
 urther I got into this novel\, the more I enjoyed myself.”\nThe Little R
 ed Reviewer\n\n“Tidhar is one of the few authors who can take these big\
 , uncomfortable ideas and story tropes and pull something brilliant and be
 autiful and fresh out of them.”\nKalireads\n\n“[A] short\, wonderful n
 ovel that I loved from beginning to end and thoroughly recommend.”\nSens
 e of Wonder\n\n“Tidhar does a marvelous job of depicting his vision of E
 arth’s future\, and after a few pages\, you’re completely immersed in 
 his semi-dystopian\, realistic version of Tel Aviv.”\nGirl Who Reads\n\n
 “A gorgeous vision of what more likely than not will be the world to com
 e and beautifully written to boot.”\nShelf Inflicted\n\n“...a wonderfu
 l tribute to classic SF...”\nLocus\, Year in Review\n\n“This is the fu
 ture we were promised. . . . In Central Station the future is all around\,
  all those glittering\, exciting\, shimmering things that we learned to re
 cognise from science fiction.”\nPaul Kincaid\, the Anglia Ruskin Centre 
 for Science Fiction and Fantasy\n\n“A tapestry of individual characters\
 , every one artfully and lovingly drawn down to the very least\, whose liv
 es touch and interact with each other\, but who exist in their own right.
 ”\nAdrian Tchaikovsky\, Shadows of the Apt\n\n“Amidst the loves and th
 e fears\, Tidhar reminds us of the intoxicating and invigorating power of 
 longing and nostalgia.”\nThe Jewish Standard\n\n“Groundbreaking . . . 
 Genius literary invention.”\nAsimov’s SF
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