The Bookman

Description

In a 19th century unlike our own, the shadowy assassin known as the Bookman moves unseen. His weapons are books; his enemies are many. And when Orphan, a young man with a mysterious past, loses his love to the sinister machinations of the Bookman, Orphan would stop at nothing to bring her back from the dead.

In The Bookman, World Fantasy Award winner Lavie Tidhar writes a love letter to books, and to the serial literature of the Victorian era: full of hair-breadth escapes and derring-dos, pirates and automatons, assassins and poets, a world in which real life authors mingle freely with their fictional creations – and where nothing is quite as it seems.

New 2016 edition includes the novelette “Murder in the Cathedral”. Discover, truthfully, what actually happened when Orphan visited Paris.

File Under: Steampunk [Alternate Victorian London | Reptilian royalty | Diabolical anarchists | Extraordinary adventure!]“Skilful, clever and highly enjoyable.”
– SFX

“Pulls off the impossible.”
– Locus

“Lavie Tidhar’s The Bookman is simply the best book I’ve read in a long time, and I read a lot of books. If you’re worried that Steampunk has turned into a mere fashion aesthetic, then you’d better read this one. It’s a stunningly imaginative remix of history, technology, literature, and Victorian adventure that’s impossible to put down. The book is immensely smart and readable at the same time. I very much hope that it’s the first of many such books. Buy it.”
– James P Blaylock

“Literary figures emerge from the swirling fog, automatons patrol the streets, space probes head for Mars and giant lizards rule over Victorian England. A potent and atmospheric steampunk adventure.”
– Chris Wooding

“The Bookman is without a doubt the most enjoyable, fascinating and captivating book I have read in a long time.
– Dailysteampunk.com

“The Bookman is a delight, crammed with gorgeous period detail, seat-of-the-pants adventure and fabulous set-pieces.”
– The GuardianLavie Tidhar is the World Fantasy Award winning author of Osama (2011), of The Violent Century (2013) and of the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize winning A Man Lies Dreaming (2014), in addition to many other works and several awards. He works across genres, combining detective and thriller modes with poetry, science fiction and historical and autobiographical material. His work has been compared to that of Philip K. Dick by the Guardian and the Financial Times, and to Kurt Vonnegut’s by Locus.GB

Additional information