Escapement

Advance Praise for The Escapement Can we just all admit now that Lavie Tidhar's a genius? He's written another brilliant book--a beautiful fever dream that somehow manages to be laugh-out-loud funny, psychedelically weird, and deeply moving. --Daryl Gregory, award-winning author of Spoonbenders To say The Escapement is unique sells it way short. It's part weird western and part quest; half dream and half epic adventure tale set in a memorable Daliesque landscape. Tidhar lets his imagination run wild in this vivid book, all told in spare, beautiful prose. --Richard Kadrey, bestselling author of the Sandman Slim series Somewhere, in some city, a nameless man attends his dying son's bedside, powerless to save the boy. Desperate to find a cure, he slips into the Escapement: a Western world of maniacal whimsy populated by bounty hunters, stone giants, mimes, and clowns. Here, the ghost of John Wayne Gacy becomes a bloodthirsty giant, and P.T. Barnum is recast as a clown-enslaving general. The man, known in the Escapement as the Stranger, is not alone; most of the people in this weird desert come there from the real world by way of dream, drink, or death. Studded with features like the Big Rock Candy Mountains and the Desert de Soleil, the land bears intimate connections to the dying boy in the hospital bed--a boy who loves the circus and its clowns--and it's here that the Stranger hopes to find his son a panacea: Ur-shanabi, the Plant of Heartbeat. In keeping with its roots in midcentury Westerns, Tidhar's novel casts the Escapement's clowns as Native American analogs, turning the Stranger into their White savior and avenger, a man who knows that 'one should never be unkind to clowns.' The author draws from an eclectic mix of sources to create a dazzling story that is more than the sum of its parts, and much of the fun of reading it comes from recognizing its homages. Knowledgeable readers will notice shades of Stephen King, Lewis Carroll, and Westworld here, and Tidhar himself cites Z. Ariel's fairy tale, The Heart of the Golden Flower, the Epic of Gilgamesh, Salvador Dali, tarot cards, and Sergio Leone as particular sources of inspiration. A delightfully cacophonous novel, teeming with character. --Kirkus The Escapement is absorbing, bizarre, haunting, and compelling. Lavie Tidhar continues to shatter the boundaries of literary and genre fiction with a novel that is equal parts horrifying dreamscape and an affecting meditation on parental love. There are a lot of books out there, but this is an experience. --David Liss, author of The Peculiarities Lavie Tidhar is a voice to be reckoned with. With The Escapement, he fearlessly crests the wave of the New New Weird with a wild, decadent hybrid of The Dark Tower and Carnivale. A vivid beach read, if the beach was made of greasepaint and gunpowder. --Catherynne M. Valente, author of Deathless Tidhar is a spellbinding stylist with a spell-casting imagination. Part fantasy, part sci-fi, part surreal mainstream, this novel plonks the reader into a vast, surreal landscape, the Escapement, in which clowns and stone monsters and cowboys and classic fictional characters coexist in a shifting tableau. The Stranger is our hero, a warrior searching for mythical flowers, even as in another universe he sits at his sick boy's side in a hospital. None of this should work but all of it does, the author managing to evoke sadness, awe, and even humor. I could only compare my reading to old Philip K. Dick married to Samuel R. Delaney. The Escapement is a captivating triumph of imagination. --Watch Praise for Lavie Tidhar On Central Station John W. Campbell Award Winner / Neukom Literary Arts Award Winner/ Arthur C. Clarke Award Finalist / NPR Best Books / Barnes and Noble Best Science Fiction and Fantasy / Locus Recommended Reading List Beautiful, original, a shimmering tapestry of connections and images. --Alastair Reynolds, author of the Revelation Space series A dazzling tale of complicated politics and even more complicated souls. Beautiful. --Ken Liu, author of The Grace of Kings [STARRED REVIEW] Readers of all persuasions will be entranced. --Publishers Weekly [STARRED REVIEW] A fascinating future glimpsed through the lens of a tight-knit community. --Library Journal If Nalo Hopkinson and William Gibson held a seance to channel the spirit of Ray Bradbury, they might be inspired to produce a work as grimy, as gorgeous, and as downright sensual as Central Station. --Peter Watts, author of The Freeze-Frame Revolution On Unholy Land Best Books of the Year: NPR Books / Library Journal / Publishers Weekly / UK Guardian / Crime Time Lavie Tidhar does it again. A jewelled little box of miracles. Magnificent. --Warren Ellis, author of Gun Machine Thoughtfulness, suspense, imagery, and beautiful prose. Highly recommended. --Fantasy Literature [STARRED REVIEW] Incredible twists on multiple realities and homecoming. This latest from Campbell and World Fantasy Award winner Tidhar (Central Station) is fascinating and powerful. --Library Journal