I closed the book--or rather swiped to the last page on my iPad--and my first thought was, I want to read this again. Now.Because Unholy Land by Lavie Tidhar took me on a crazy ride across genres and space and time and I want to do it all over again.I read Tidhar's Central Station last year after my son raved about it. So I was expecting Science Fiction. But Unholy Land transcends genre, encompassing alternative history, noir mystery, and time-travel sci-fi, with social and political commentary

In the early 1900s, the Sixth Zionist Congress authorized an expedition to British East Africa to determine its suitability as a Jewish homeland. The British Government had offered to settle Jews in what is now Kenya, and with the increasing number of pogroms in Czarist Russia, the Zionists wanted to investigate every possibility for a Jewish state. The author of the expedition's report, though, was biased against any option but a return to the Holy Land, and he unsurprisingly found the land uns...

Lavie Tidhar is a British writer, who grew up in a kibbutz in Israel and whose writing comes from a distinctly Israeli cultural perspective. Unholy City begins in a fascinating alternate history world, where the early twentieth century Zionist movement chose an East African homeland (Palestina) rather than one in Middle Eastern Palestine. At one time, this was a real option among others, and in this world the early exodus of Jews from Europe headed off the Holocaust within the enlarged German Re...

This is a sci-fantasy / alt-history novel about a Jewish homeland in the middle of Africa. The book intentionally mixes genres and plays meta-fiction, while remaining a fast-paced yarn.In the early 20th century, the newly formed Zionist movement was looking for a land for Jewish people. There were suggestions for settling in El-Arish in Egypt; Cyprus; Anatolia; Argentina and the British East Africa. For the latter, a special expedition was sent in 1904 to a territory near the Lake Victoria, betw...

Somewhere between 4.5 and 5 stars. RTC

Strange eerie and thought provoking Full review - https://www.runalongtheshelves.net/ch...

Ever since I read Exodus by Leon Uris in high school, I have been fascinated by the history of Jewish settlement in Palestine and the prickly nation-building that comes with it. This novel has a premise that suits my interest. In the early 20th century, a group of explorers came to Uganda to examine a site that might become a homeland for the Jews. If only I had known that particular history before I visited Uganda two years ago, I'd have another perspective. Obviously, whatever result the team

2.5 starsI originally found this book because it was described as SFF. Let me make sometime clear: While this book contains a few elements of a typical SFF novel, I would not jump to calling it SFF. I can understand why it could be categorized that way, but I also don't feel like SFF themes were predominant in this book. In some ways, that could be really refreshing, but for me, it fell flat.And that may be where some of my disappointment comes from. I was expecting something with a lot more SFF...

Lavie Tidhar’s sci-fantasies swirl around in a nexus of dreams and memories and imagined realities, soaking through pages of pulpy detective potboilers and silver-age sci-fi brain benders. They are also intensely personal, perhaps none more so than his new novel, Unholy Land. The novel’s hero, a writer named Lior Tirosh, bears not only his creator’s initials but seems to have also written all his novels. This is typical of Tidhar’s metaphysics, where the truth of one reality is the daydream of a...

Wow, what a crazy read! I can't say I've ever come across Israeli science fiction before, and I enjoyed the heck out of this one.The initial premise is intriguing -- and based on true events. Back in 1904, the Zionist Congress, led by Theodore Herzl, sent an expedition to Uganda to explore land that had been proposed as a site of a future Jewish state. In our (real) world, that didn't work out particularly well, and the idea was shelved in favor of pursuing a homeland in the "holy land", resulti...

Lior Tirosh, the main character in Lavie Tidhar's novel, may as well be the author. I mean, the author certainly seems to think so, both being more or less a self-described semi-successful pulp-fiction writer of SF, and like writers being in their own stories, they tend to go absolutely nuts on the imagination bits.Well, at least, the good ones do. And guess what? He's one of the good ones. :)This book wears several hats and unlike a normal hat-trick, this one does it gently enough that we barel...

Alternate realities coupled with an interesting historical fact that at one time there was idea of creating a country in Africa next to Uganda for Jews. A writer, Lior Tirosh, returns to this country to see his ailing father, and soon becomes embroiled in murder and terrorist plots. Government security and other organizations are spying on Lior, concerned about his possible involvement with terrorists, and in which reality he should reside, while Lior rushes about looking for his disappeared nie...

I received an ARC of this book from the publishing company Tachyon Publications in exchange for a fair and honest review.Unholy Land by Lavie Tidhar is a highly inventive mindfuck of a book, but one I wish had been more fleshed out.The story is set in an Alternate Universe Jewish homeland called 'Palestina', located in East Africa. (This is based on a real early 20th century plan, "the Uganda Scheme", where a part of British-colonised East Africa would be made into a country for Jewish people.)

Review first published at The Curious SFF Reader Lior Tirosh, a not so famous pulp-fiction writer who’s never published something of note, decides to go back to his homeland to take care of his ill father. Palestina, a small Jewish state established a few decades back near Uganda has changed a lot in the last twenty years he was away.From the airplane, Tirosh can clearly see the wall being built in order to separate Palestina from Uganda, keeping Palestinians isolated from African refugees. Howe...

4.5 out of 5 starsUnholy Land is a stunning achievement. It is packed to the brim with engaging ideas and features a captivating story that I could not stop puzzling over. It will certainly find itself in my Top 10 of 2018 when the year comes to a close.In the early 20th century, a group of expeditioners traveled to the border of Uganda to inspect a piece of land that was under consideration as a potential site for a Jewish homeland. This site had no holy significance, which made it a difficult

This book was another amazing mindfuck from the brain of Mr. Lavie Tidhar and I loved it! It's weird, self-referential, thought-provoking and tinged with sadness. If Philip K. Dick had been Jewish and written Mieville's "The City & the City" (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...), this is the book he would have written.A writer named Lior Tirosh goes back home to Ararat City, the capital of Palestina - the Jewish state in East Africa. He doesn't know he is being followed, or that anything ab...

Tirosh goes back to his home in Africa, an alternative Palestine bordering Uganda. Which could have happened. Alternative history, what-might-have-beens, detective novel, hints of an autobiography and choices we make or that are taken from us.I am really struggling with writing a review. I am not even sure if I liked this or how much. It certainly is ambitious and has lots of potential and plot bunnies that ran off into the great beyond. And the author has won awards and gets many excellent revi...

4.5 starsAnother book that reminds me that I definitely have to read up on Jewish mysticism.There was so much packed into those pages that I sometimes lost the overview. Yet it is a terrificly weird, fantastical concept that at the same time deals with very real problems.The three POVs were executed in first, second and third person which worked astonishingly well.It is definitely a book that has to be read a second time to get all the details.Out of the SF crime noir novels I've read so far, th...

Another wonderful literary scifi from Tidhar, who never fails to amaze me. He writes with the literary panache combined with a deep love for and knowledge of science fiction and fantasy as Michael Chabon. Unholy Land is an exploration of borders - specifically, of the borders of the Jewish homeland - and of how identity with place, and of a people with a place, affects us, and of how history and nation are stories that we tell. It brought to mind Mieville's The City & the City or the TV series C...

I received this book for free from the Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.The nitty-gritty: Tidhar's latest is a challenging but ultimately satisfying read that deals with histories, both real and imagined.Reading a Lavie Tidhar book is like being in a fever dream. Events, characters, places and impressions swirl around you, creating a sense of unease, or confusion, or sadness. Tidhar pieces the parts of his stories...