You know you've discovered something special when immediately after reading a book you start looking for other titles by the same author. I came across Lavie Tidhar in a passing reference on TwitterX (though I had unwittingly read a short story by him recently) from someone whose opinion trusted, took the plunge and bought this book - to be captivated. Tidhar does here for science fiction what Gene Wolfe did in his fantasy novel peak with the likes of Castleview, Free Live Free, There are Doors, Pandora by Holly Hollander and The Sorceror's House . We get something set in what appears to be our everyday world, but where something is at a slant to that world. Here the 'something' is a book, that some say was never written, but if it does exist is hugely desirable for obscure reasons. This is just one part of multipart novel, each section of which seems to add another layer of complexity and fascination. Where's the science fiction? In once sense it's a meta-con
There have been several Twelve Tomorrows collections from MIT Press since the original in 2018 - stories that are supposed to make the reader think about the impact of future technology. This latest addition focuses on 'science fiction exploring the future of art' - which presented a distinct danger of pretentiousness taken to the extreme. Thankfully, editor Indrapamit Das has been able to avoid this trap. Like all such collections, there is a mix of good, bad and indifferent - but on the whole the balance is positive. Even a story like the opener The Limner Wrings His Hands by Vajra Chandrasekera - which scores fairly high on the pretentiousness stakes, and is far too clever clever somewhat in the manner of David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest - is surprisingly readable if you force yourself to focus hard on the word salad (though it is fantasy rather than SF). To pick out two favourites, The Art Crowd by Samit Basu was a significantly more readable piece, well structure