Interview with Lavie Tidhar

Sci-Fi November is here!!!

For those of you who have been hiding under a rock or something, Sci-Fi November is a month-long celebration of everything sci-fi. So that's books, movies, games, etc. Anything sci-fi! Rinn of Rinn Reads and the lovely girls at Oh, the Books! are hosting this year and a bunch of bloggers are joining. So expect lots of sci-fi awesomeness in the following weeks. :)

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Andrea of The Little Red Reviewer was nice enough to help set up interviews with sci-fi authors. I was lucky to be introduced to Lavie Tidhar, World Fantasy Award winning author of Osama, and of The Violent Century and A Man Lies Dreaming. He works across genres, combining detective and thriller modes with poetry, science fiction and historical and autobiographical material. His answers to my questions (which are much more intellectual than my Slam Book questions. Shame.) are really insightful and interesting. So, without further ado, meet Lavie Tidhar!



1. What do you like most about science fiction? What do you think makes it special?
I think when it is done right, it can be a very liberating experience, that it allows you to ask really big questions, but still do it in a, hopefully, entertaining way. And I have a weakness for the big space opera type – the vast galactic epics. I’d love to write one, one day.

2. Your works combines various genres such as science fiction, mystery, and historical fiction. Do you have a favorite genre? Do you prefer one over the other?
I suppose most of what I do is cross-genre, so I like to mix things up, but I’ve written numerous “straight” science fiction stories, for instance, all set in the same future history. But I’m drawn to a mix of historical – or alt. historical – and crime/thriller modes, I suppose. I love noir and hardboiled for the attitude, and I like mystery for the way it allows you to go around asking lots of questions! And then, for the rest of it, I like weird stuff. I love pulp, especially for the covers! But I’d get bored in just one. I’d like to do a bit of everything, as long as it’s weird enough.

3. One of your works that have caught my attention is Selfies, most likely because of the title. I have only read the blurb but I thought that was really creepy! And the cover, wow... Just out of curiosity, where did you get the idea behind this short story? Any plans to expand it to a full-length novel?
I thought of it initially as an idea for a film, but I decided to take the core idea and write it as a story eventually. It took longer than I’m used to, since it was hard to get the structure just right, but I’m quite pleased with the way it turned out.

4. In books - not just in science fiction - the world building always amazes me. I really admire authors who can make their fictional world both unique and amazing and realistic at the same time. I can't imagine how hard that must be. Do you follow a pre-determined process when building your books' worlds? How do you start and where do you usually get your ideas?
I don’t world-build at all – I know some people keep whole wikis of notes and that sort of thing! I just start with an idea or an image or even, sometimes, an ending, and I work it out as I go along. I actually don’t like making stuff up all that much. There’s so much real weirdness everywhere that it’s easy to write stuff that sounds crazy but isn’t.

5. What are your favorite science fiction novels?
Too many to list, really. The Man in the High Castle is one that was a very direct influence though, to mention one.

6. Any science fiction authors who have influenced you in any way?
A lot, when I was growing up – Zelanzy and Delany, C.L. Moore, Cordwainer Smith. I have a soft spot for Clifford Simak. Old school stuff...

7. I read somewhere that you've traveled extensively since you were a teenager. Did this affect the way you write?
It certainly did, though paradoxically it also brought me slowly to the realisation I want to write more personal stuff, more stuff rooted in my own personal reality. You can live in places for years but can you really know them? But it certainly informs my writing, and I like writing about places where I’ve lived for some time.

8. Where do you think is science fiction heading? Any predictions?
I find it hard to write science fiction these days – my last pure SF story was written almost a year ago. I’m wondering where it’s going. We get to a point where the future stops being the present-just-extended and it becomes... weird. We’re so much in dialogue with all the science fiction that had gone before that I do wonder how we can start imagining wholly new futures. I don’t know if we can. It’s worth trying though!

9. What can readers expect from your newly published book, A Man Lies Dreaming?
Imagine if the Nazis never rose to power in Germany in 1933, but the Communists did... and that a former dictator named Wolf is now a grimy private eye working in London in 1939. Who is then hired by a Jewish femme fatale to find her missing sister. Leading to a whole heap of trouble. And the whole thing takes place in the mind of a Yiddish pulp writer in Auschwitz. Honestly, it’s funnier than it sounds! It’s a mix of noir and alternate history and a bunch of other stuff. It’s out in the UK in hardback right now. I figured if one person could get away with writing this book, it might be me...

10. This one's just for fun... If you can be anyone and anywhere right now, who and where would you want to be? (just couldn't resist asking this one)
I’d still be me, only ideally somewhere on a beach instead of in rainy London. (Rainy London is still London. I'll take it.)

Isn't this guy just awesome? I am so excited to read Osama and Selfies!

If you want to know more about Lavie Tidhar, check out his site. Or tweet him! For a list of his books (and there are A LOT), go here.

Thank you for sticking around! Let me know if you've read any of Lavie's works, or if you intend to do so. :)