You can't expect an easy novel by this great writer. Several stories connected, with lots of different scenarios, from paradisiac islands to Siberian prisions, and a great sense of wonder. I still have to think about some parts of the story.

My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Tachyon Publishing for an advance copy of this new historical, science fiction-aly thriller, with a bit of mathematics, autofiction, futurism parody, and much more.
True disclosure. This text mentions a book called Lode Stars that might have come out in the year 1962. I swear that I had a book that I read a few times called Lode Stars, with a blue background cover, a Del Rey imprint in the corner, Lode Stars in a big title, a cover blurb I can't remember, an author I can't remember, a creature or a space suit attached by hose or line to a space ship with a large yellow or gold sun in the foreground. I can see this as clear as day. Can remember liking the book, but can't remember anything about this. I've looked all over the place, boxes of old books, the Internet, but it remains a mystery, like the book mentioned in the novel. I can't shake this memory at all. Even typing this makes me think about the book, and enjoying it, and still I can't remember who, what, where or why. As this book, The Circumference of the World is by Lavie Tidhar, one of the best, and most interesting writers out there, I feel honored that he somehow mined my memories, for his story.

The book starts with a young woman born on the island of Vanuatu, Delia Welegtabit. Delia found that she had a gift for math, and was one of the view people to read a science fiction book entitled Lode Stars, by the writer Eugene Hartley, who was based on Vanuatu during World War II, wrote pulpy science fiction, but was more famous for the self-help religion he started. Delia lives in London with her husband, both teachers, but her husband is consumed with making a mathematical breakthrough by the age of 30, and the fact his wife read Lode Stars, which features a character named after his wife Delia. When her husband disappears, Delia hires a young book scout to find both her husband and a copy of Lode Stars, a man by the name of Daniel Chase. Chase has a problem with seeing faces, which makes looking for her husband difficult, but his efforts make him cross paths with a Russian gangster names Oskar Lens, who read Lode Stars while in a gulag in Russia, a book that changed his life, and drives him to find it again.

I was going to skip an intro to the book, because there is so much to take in and I could not convey in a paragraph or even twenty. For a smaller book, there is a tremendous amount going on. Tidhar brings in the weirdness of the early Golden Age science fiction writers, the bookshops that filled London with books of mystery and space, many that are gone. Tidhar's story covers outer space, and more importantly inner space, that sense that life is more than we are living it, and there is a clue somewhere somehow, but we just can't find it. For the nerd there are tons of references from classic books the Heechee, the Galactic Britannica of Asimov, real people, and fake people sharing conversations that might have happened somewhere else, or maybe they happened here. Tidhar has such a gift in creating characters that seem real, mixing them with real people makes the story stronger, and hit that much harder. Combined with his lack of fear in writing, and the sheer audacity of his ideas, makes for a powerful book. This is a book about loss, the fear of being a parent, not living to potential, and realizing like a modern Scaramouche that the world is mad, and laughter is sometimes the only solution.

A book that is easy to recommend for everything that it deals with, math, science, science fiction, thrills and speculation. People who like books that make one think, or books that make a person think and yet really touch a reader will enjoy this. Fans of Lavie, Tidhar, like myself will be in awe, as this book really hit so many buttons with me. I can't see what his mind comes up with next.

This is an easy one to rate highly, and it will likely gather many positive reviews. This author is experienced and knows how to write a good story with interesting characters. If you like his earlier work, you'll like this.

Thanks very much for the free copy for review!!

It's a good book, with excellent writing, and mind-bending turns. That said, the plot feels slightly unfocused at times, and the metacommentary won't appeal to everyone.

I've read a few of Lavie Tidhar's books, and have enjoyed them. But The Circumference of the World is in almost a completely different category. This genre-bending book follows a number of different stories, protagonists, and styles as it pieces together the tale of Eugene Charles Hartley, a science fiction author whose mysterious novel is at the centre of various searches for the truth of the universe. At times a noir detective story, a science fiction epic, a crime thriller, and a biography, Tidhar does a masterful job spinning these terribly disparate characters and stories into a cohesive whole.
I don't want to give too much away, but here's the gist: Delia is looking for a book written by science fiction recluse Eugene Charles Hartley. Hartley's book, Lode Stars, both holds the key to the answers of the universe and doesn't exist, depending on whom you ask. Delia looks for help from a rare book dealer, who runs afoul of a gangster who is suffering an existential crisis, who wants to find a copy of the book, whose protagonist is also Delia, who is searching for her father. It sounds wildly confusing, but Tidhar wrangles everything into a beautiful, engaging story told through various perspectives with different styles. At the heart of everything is Hartley, who seems to know everyone in sci-fi's Golden Age of publishing and whose story might be the key to the universe.
I enjoyed this book immensely. Refreshing, engaging, interesting, and terrifically well-written.

What if I were to hand you a book that would disappear once you had finished reading it? You'd probably say Amazon can do this anytime they want since they only sell us the right to read an electronic copy of a book, but not the book itself, and they can erase it from our e-readers anytime they want.

You wouldn't be wrong. But what if I told you that this book, called LODE STARS, by pulp author Eugene Charles Hartley, has encoded within it the means to defend ourselves against the Eaters, entities that destroy humans who are reconstituted memories that live within black holes, called the "Eyes of God"? Would you want a copy of this book? Would you read it? Would you believe it?

Yep, Lavie Tidhar's fertile imagination is at it again. The same mind that gave us THE ESCAPEMENT (which may still have readers scratching their heads - in a good way) brings us THE CIRCUMFERENCE OF THE WORLD, a novel that starts out innocently enough with the story of a young girl in love with mathematics, but makes its way to intergalactic space and the weirdness of black holes - among other things.

The story jumps to the year 2001, where Delia Welegtabit, that young girl now all grown up, married to mathematician Levi Armstrong who is obsessed with explaining the workings of the universe through mathematics. That's not the only thing he's obsessed with. As you might guess by now, the object of his obsession is the aforementioned LODE STARS. After he disappears searching for it Delia hires rare book dealer Daniel Chase to find him. Chase suffers from face-blindness (prosopagnosia) which makes him an interesting choice to go looking for Levi. In the process of looking for Levi, Chase gets interested in LODE STARS, and focuses his search on rare book shops hoping he can turn up a copy which will in turn help him find Levi. Who he does find is one Oskar Lens, a Russian underworld figure with a criminal past, which includes a stint at a prison in Siberia. Lens also wants to find a copy of LODE STARS, because he wants to protect himself from the Eaters.

Eventually, we get to meet Hartley, a short story writer who never quite made it to the big time, although he hobnobbed with all the big names of the pulp era. Tidhar is well known as a writer who is fond of the history of the field, and in THE CIRCUMFERENCE OF THE WORLD he is not shy about having Hartley interact with some of the biggest names in the field at the time. In a call out to the Church of Scientology, Heinlein tells Hartley "You know...if you really want to make a million bucks, Gene, you should start your own religion." Hartley does just that, starting the Church of the All-Seeing Eyes. Hartley does a lot more name dropping along the way. We not only hear about Asimov and Clarke, but Bradbury and A.E. Van Vogt also get shout outs. John Clute and Nick Mamatas get mentioned as well. We also get a glimpse into Hartley's thoughtful and philosophical side. While recounting an early Westercon, Hartley says "You have to understand - we were more than
writers, we were prophets of a new age. We could see the future, we could imagine it and give it shape."

We also end up within LODE STARS itself, as a version of Delia (yeah, so Delia is looking for a book that has herself as a character in it, but doesn't know it), while looking for something called "The Occlude", finds a stash of "Ancient obsolete objects of all kinds piled up everywhere", and the list is, well astounding. Without giving too much away, she discovers items from stories from Asimov, Herbert, Van Vogt, Pohl, and others. Tidhar is clearly having fun rooting around science fiction's rich history, which Hartley himself is doing with the pages of LODE STARS.

Much like THE ESCAPEMENT, there is no direct path to the ending, nor does the ending give a neat resolution to the mystery of Hartley and LODE STARS. But then again, it's not clear that the book is about those things. Tidhar is a master of misdirection, his novels tend to be a lot deeper that what appears at the surface, and THE CIRCUMFERENCE OF THE WORLD is no different. The novel is a great, enjoyable, winding ride, and anyone who likes Tidhar's work should enjoy it.

I wish I could say I liked this more than I did. But I didn't. The intellectual premise is sound and intriguing, and the research impeccable (though I lament the occlusion of the brilliant Harry Harrison, whom I guarantee you was at many of these sci-fi parties), but, sadly, it was lacking in execution. There is no doubting the quality of the prose - the first part of the book is beautiful - but Tidhar makes a classic mistake which is at the heart of much sci-fi: the contact point, the event horizon in understanding between Writer and Reader (or alien and human). And (again, sadly) even the hardened sci-fi afficionado may find this tough going, despite the manly, hugely enjoyable, nods to the Golden Age.
I received the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinions, many thanks to Netgalley.

This book is a story within a story, a love letter to pulp sci-fi, an exploration of reality, all my favourite things. As you read each part, another piece of the puzzle satisfyingly falls into place: Delia and her missing mathematician husband, the book detective who can't see faces, the Russian mobster, and the mysterious book and its author.

I devoured it in like four hours and I can't wait to reread it. It's such a clever, thought-provoking book, one that I will have trouble describing but will definitely recommend. I enjoyed the author's style and will definitely be reading his other works.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tachyon Publications for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review!

I requested a digital copy in order to sample the prose on my phone (since I don't have a eReader) before requesting a physical copy for review. My review will be based on the physical ARC I read (if I qualify)

Tidhar's Circumference of the World (2023) is a genre-splitting poetic expression that pays homage to classic science fiction with call-outs and appearances by Campbell, Heinlein, and others. There are several rather loosely-connected sections to the book, which is actually a book about a book, a book that disappears as it is read and which few even believe ever existed. For those who believe in its existence, finding it is fraught with many kinds of peril, not the least of which is loosening one's grounding in what appears to be this reality. Lode Stars was written by the infamous Eugene Charles Hartley, legendary pulp science-fiction writer and founder of the Church of the All-Seeing Eyes. In Hartley’s novel, a doppelganger of Delia searches for her missing father in a strange star. On the way, we question the nature of reality and the nature of what it means to be human. Perhaps in the end, it is merely our consciousness that really exists and the rest is just a dream, a fantasy, an artificial construct. Perhaps we have yet to find our way out of the matrix. "There were men - they were always men- who dreamed of understanding God. Einstein, Hawking, or that evolutionary biology guy." "'But maybe humans are not capable of fully understanding the universe'" and "maybe its hubris to think that we can.'"

Something not of this Earth narrates the birth of an albino girl in what is not quite yet the nation of Vanuatu. Years later, her mathematician husband disappears, and Tidhar's fascination with unlikely detectives sees a face-blind book dealer hired to track the missing man down. In Surbiton. That's woven around an elegy for the bookshops of London at the turn of the century, and after all these years of Iain Sinclair rhapsodising about places from before my time, it's good to see Borders and the Fantasy Centre remembered the same way. A legendary novel that disappears once read is crucial to the case, a novel which may or may not even exist, written by an untrustworthy hack science fiction author who screwed over Jack Parsons and went on to found an iffy religion - any resemblance &c is not remotely coincidental. The notion that those sinister clowns might actually have hit on a terrible truth is brilliant for SF-horror, of course, but it's not new, having previously been the premise of underrated Vertigo series Clean Room. Then again, mixing and matching is very much par for the course here; once we get to read some of the notorious book within the book, it puts its cards on the table with a room full of spindizzies, ansibles, General Products hulls, Stroon, and other Golden Age impedimenta. And if those names mean nothing to you, the subsequent section composed largely of letters between people like John W Campbell, Alfred Bester and Heinlein, all forged with a pretty broad brush, will really leave you cold. I haven't even mentioned the gulag interlude, have I? Not that this is the first time Tidhar has told a story from a mix of perspectives, with sudden shifts of angle - but for all that the central image is powerful (and I do mean central - the black hole at the heart and end of all things), and I'm intrigued by the cosmic horror spin he puts on simulation theory, this time I feel like it might have added up to less than the sum of its parts. Though part of the problem may be that I'm still bristling at the notion, mentioned more than once in connection with characters' fear of the night sky, that living in London can mean going years without seeing the Moon - an idea as far from lived experience as anything ever perpetrated back in the day by Asimov. Ah well, maybe that's the proof I'm actually doing this for the first time.

(Netgalley ARC)

"In our language, the word for book is the word for people, is the word for food."
I love books about books. THE CIRCUMFERENCE OF THE WORLD begins with a woman's hunt for a book which does not exist, opens into a dreamscape of mobsters, legendary pulp writers, and galactic travellers, and leaves the reader burning with even more questions. It certainly delivers on the mystery. This book is a dialectic of discovery and being, and a reminder of the importance of stories to our humanity.

Delia Welegtabit is from Vanuatu and her birth is recounted, the local pidgin spelled out dialectically, related to English but not a form most speakers would recognize since it also has Polynesian and French included I thinks The birthing is pretty accurate to anyone who has experienced one that didn’t involve an epidural. When Delia is handed to her momma, we discover she is an albino.

This is sci-fi and is set sometime in the future. Delia now lives in London. She finds a copy of book that doesn’t exist, one Lode Stars by Eugene Charles Hartley released in 1962. Coincidently the main characters name is Delia.

Ship of Theseus idea in relation to ourselves, expertly put into words. Math as God idea, what is called science fiction. Why we are here, of course a terrible question without religion. What is reality, is this a simulation?

Levi Armstrong is lovers of Delia’s. He’s a mathematician and fanatic about it and his goal of doing something great before he turns 30. He seems to be connected a bad man, a monster. She also had Malachi back on her home island, he is also an albino I believe like Delia.

There seems to be some entity or collective at the end of time that cannot see Delia for some reason. She is occluded.

There are several parts to this. The second starts with the hook seller recounting meeting Delia in first person. The guy is off because he can’t see peoples faces, at least not normally. It’s curious what she hears and doesn’t from him, and he is put into a role like in a book even though it’s not him.

The third is about Oskar Lens past, specifically his time in prison in Siberia. He seems crazy, he thinks some people are those who are simulating the original Lens in a black hole. It’s a weird mix of dying earth and big idea, like Implied Spaces or House of Suns but contemporary. It’s a gnostic take on the world.

There are also parts from published works by Eugene Hartley. There is a mention to the Encyclopedia Galactica Foundation. Honestly the mix of reality to fiction to the far future is super cool. And again a part that is Hartley’s biography.

Expertly crafted, bordering on magical realism and sci-fi. It’s oddly trippy at times, I never use that term lightly. It’s a question of reality, and would it even matter if reality was not what we thought it was? Institution vs belief, great thought provoking ideas.

It’s a good mindacrewer, almost like pulp and paying obvious homage to them.

This book goes deep into the perception of time. Filled with a variety of characters including a fictional book inside this book, the tale takes us from small islands into black holes.

TBH, I think I would've liked this book more in paper format so I could flip back and forth between sections. In e-format it's so much harder to do so. It's not that this is Infinite Jest, rather there are parts begging to be re-read as you say A-ha!

Lavie Tidhar is a force to be reckoned with. This will become a classic sci fi story.

At times it felt like I was reading Nick Harkaway, at other times classic 50s sci-fi. A weird and delightful mixture that will make you think about some of the fundamental questions of existence for which there can be no definitive answers.

A great follow up to Neom that plays with the meaning of reality. It follows a broad group of loosely connected characters which, while providing interesting and unique perspectives, leads to the plot feeling unmoored. The vividly imagined world of Vanuatu is easily the most compelling detail of the story, being almost a sixth character in the depth of its expression. I wanted more of a concrete resolution for each of the characters, but suppose the brevity and uncertainty of each interlude plays into the dreamy, ephemeral tone of the novella as a whole.

I’ve read Lavie Tidhar before and liked it very much. Now it was time to fall in love. What can I say? I love clever books and I cannot lie. And Tidhar in this novel absolutely dazzles with his cleverness.
I also love books about books and writers. Naturally. In this novel, Tidhar invents a golden age science fiction author who buys into his own fiction and ends up inventing a religion. (That sounds vaguely familiar, no? ;) ) The book that started it all becomes a much-searched-for near-mythical impossible-to-obtain object. And a cast of fascinating original characters get obsessed with looking for it.
The book is told from each of their perspectives, plus the biographical tale of the author and the oh-so-appropriate dénouement. That’s a lot to pack into just 256 pages. But not for an author of Tidhar’s caliber. Boy, can that man write. There’s such beauty and succinctness to his narration.
I dislike oversized overblown narratives as much as I love clever books—a lot. And this story is just about perfect in both length and execution. Because it’s too good to put down for long and is easily possible to read in one day as I did.
Impossible to genre class this one; science fiction, sure, but also so much more. A grand adventure. A love letter to science fiction. A pure joy to read. A stunning puzzle of a book. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.

A chase for a book that disappears on being read, in a world that may or may not be real… a vibrant, engaging premise - sadly let down by the book’s execution.

But first, the good. The premise really is something, and the book thoughtfully poses big questions about how we know that what we’re experiencing is real - questions it knows better than to take a firm stance on. The first perspective is genuinely fascinating too - it’s not difficult to believe that Lavie Tidhar has spent time in Vanuatu based on the detail and the warmth for the setting and characters.

But this short novel soon hops onto the next viewpoint around which the story spins, and the the next, and the next. There’s surprisingly little plot, and what there is is often doled out with brevity as well as a lack of depth and, ironically enough, realism. Five viewpoints spread across a modest 250 pages, all covering across loosely related events, doesn’t give the reader enough time or nuance to buy-in with many of the characters. The elements themselves are disparate in quality too: while Delia and Oskar’s tales are intriguing, the attempt to make Daniel’s vague comes across as amateurish and the epistolary component feels like a very light re-skin of certain real life events.

All in all… while this book promises much, I think the reality is that others have done it better. If you want a story-within-a-story, Rian Hughes’s XX pulls that off with more success. If you want delightfully weird and open, Phillip K Dick’s Ubik reigns supreme. And the book that doesn’t-exist-but-did-it? is handled with more skill by Jeremy Dronfield in The Alchemist’s Apprentice.

Ultimately this is a 3/5 for me. Thank you to Netgalley, Tachyon Publications and Lavie Tidhar for the opportunity to read an ARC of this upcoming book in exchange for an honest review.

7/10

"Is life as we know it a reconstruction? Are we no longer alive, but trapped inside the event horizon of a black hole? Is that what you believe?"

This is a tale of individuals who share a common connection - a book penned by an American author in the 1950s. The book somehow came up with the true nature of reality and then coded it into a novel, which is cleverly woven into its storyline.

"We can start this anywhere. With Oskar Lens, with Daniel, even with Delia Welegtabit..."

I've read a few works by Lavie Tidhar before, and I always enjoy his writing style and creativity. However, I must confess that this particular book was a bit difficult to follow. I would recommend starting with another book by this author.

Thanks to Tachyon Publications via NetGalley for giving me a chance to read The Circumference of the World by Lavie Tidhar. I have given my review solely based on my personal viewpoint and completely honest.

The Circumference of the World basically centres around the search for a book that disappears once read, but the novel covers a lot of ground across a few main characters, a number of locations & time frames, and told in a combination of first and third person.

It's quite an ambitious novel and different to anything I've read of the author's previously; with big metaphysical concepts and the timelines as mentioned, from the 1920's to 10,000 light years away. It touches on theories like the Anthropic Principle, the Fine Tunes Universe theory and the Fecund Universes theory, weaving these scientific viewpoints into the story.

Much of the back half of the novel has a definite nod to the Golden Age of SF, with the author character interacting with people like Heinlein, Asimov, van Vogt, etc. which gives it a realistic feel.

Of note to me personally was that one of the main characters was born in Vanuatu, and the description of daily life was spot on - the author lived there for a year, and I lived there in my childhood for 4 years as well! The descriptions of the coconut trees, bush knifes, black and White Sea snakes, the smell of fires at night, kava, etc. all brought back strong memories.

If I was to pick a negative it would be that maybe it's a bit too ambitious, trying to fit all these concepts into a ~250 page story is challenging and some of it feels a bit rushed (the author himself described it a couple of years ago as "a big, messy, ambitious manuscript that I’ve been working on for a long time.") So it wouldn't be something I'd recommend to newcomers to the author, but it's a must read for those familiar, or up for a challenge.