Photo: Kevin Nixon. © Future Publishing 2013

NPR’s Book Concierge Guide To 2016’s Great Reads includes Lavie Tidhar’s beautiful CENTRAL STATION.

If you read only one science-fiction book this year about a spaceport in the middle of embattled Tel Aviv, it should be this one. If you read only one book about the religion of robots, the evolution of the Internet, magical children and data vampires, Central Station has to be it. The stories will gut you. The language will make you wonder why you even bother speaking English. It is one of the most beautiful books of the year, absolutely the most grab-you-by-the-heart engaging, and so, so smart that Lavie Tidhar can scatter a hundred brilliant ideas like pennies on the ground — like he has so many of them in his pockets that he can just throw them away, leaving them for anyone to pick up.

TOR.COM reviewer Niall Alexander names the book as one of the years best.

CENTRAL STATION by Lavie Tidhar rewrote the rules of the short story collection to unforgettable effect by seamlessly soldering together thirteen disparate windows into the lives of the disaffected folks who live at the base of the titular spaceport.

Adam Ferraresi at GIRL WHO READS placed the novel on Top 5 Science Fiction Books You MUST Read This Fall.

Tidhar does a marvelous job of depicting his vision of Earth’s future, and after a few pages, you’re completely immersed in his semi-dystopian, realistic version of Tel Aviv, many years from now. The novel itself is little more than multiple short stories that Tidhar has been releasing throughout the years, although very carefully selected and interwoven to create a whole greater than the sum of its parts. If you’re partial to apocalyptic, dystopian Sci-Fi, you should definitely give this one a read.

For more info about CENTRAL STATION, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by Sarah Anne Langton