The Circumference of the World

by Lavie Tidhar

Caught between realities, a mathematician, a book dealer, and a mobster desperately seek a notorious book that disappears upon being read. Only the author, a rakish sci-fi writer, knows whether his popular novel is truthful or a hoax. In a story that is cosmic, inventive, and sly, multi-award-winning author Lavie Tidhar (Central Station) travels from the emergence of life to the very ends of the universe.

“Ingeniously constructed and stylistically protean, this seven-course banquet of a novel glistens with the Golden Age of science fiction, even as it nourishes our neurons with a marvelous thought experiment.”
— James Morrow, award-winning author of Shambling Towards Hiroshima

Delia Welegtabit discovered two things during her childhood on a South Pacific her love for mathematics and a novel that isn’t supposed to exist. But the elusive book proves unexpectedly dangerous. Oskar Lens, a science fiction-obsessed mobster in the midst of an existential crisis, will stop at nothing to find the novel. After Delia’s husband Levi goes missing, she seeks help from Daniel Chase, a young, face-blind book dealer.

The infamous novel Lode Stars was written by the infamous Eugene Charles 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 system. But is any of Lode Stars real? Was Hartley a cynical conman on a quest for wealth and immortality, creating a religion he did not believe in? Or was he a visionary who truly discovered the secrets of the universe?

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy, Time Travel, Speculative Fiction, Books About Books, Science Fiction Fantasy

258 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 5, 2023

About the author

Lavie Tidhar was raised on a kibbutz in Israel. He has travelled extensively since he was a teenager, living in South Africa, the UK, Laos, and the small island nation of Vanuatu.

Tidhar began publishing with a poetry collection in Hebrew in 1998, but soon moved to fiction, becoming a prolific author of short stories early in the 21st century.

Temporal Spiders, Spatial Webs won the 2003 Clarke-Bradbury competition, sponsored by the European Space Agency, while The Night Train (2010) was a Sturgeon Award finalist.

Linked story collection HebrewPunk (2007) contains stories of Jewish pulp fantasy.

He co-wrote dark fantasy novel The Tel Aviv Dossier (2009) with Nir Yaniv. The Bookman Histories series, combining literary and historical characters with steampunk elements, includes The Bookman (2010), Camera Obscura (2011), and The Great Game (2012).

Standalone novel Osama (2011) combines pulp adventure with a sophisticated look at the impact of terrorism. It won the 2012 World Fantasy Award, and was a finalist for the Campbell Memorial Award, British Science Fiction Award, and a Kitschie.

His latest novels are Martian Sands and The Violent Century.

Much of Tidhar’s best work is done at novella length, including An Occupation of Angels (2005), Cloud Permutations (2010), British Fantasy Award winner Gorel and the Pot-Bellied God (2011), and Jesus & the Eightfold Path (2011).

Tidhar advocates bringing international SF to a wider audience, and has edited The Apex Book of World SF (2009) and The Apex Book of World SF 2 (2012).

He is also editor-in-chief of the World SF Blog , and in 2011 was a finalist for a World Fantasy Award for his work there.

He also edited A Dick and Jane Primer for Adults (2008); wrote Michael Marshall Smith: The Annotated Bibliography (2004); wrote weird picture book Going to The Moon (2012, with artist Paul McCaffery); and scripted one-shot comic Adolf Hitler’s I Dream of Ants! (2012, with artist Neil Struthers).

Tidhar lives with his wife in London.

Reviews

[Melissa ~ Bantering Books · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lavie Tidhar’s The Circumference of the World and I did not get along. I will accept some of the blame for our butting of heads, though, because I chose to alternate between my digital review copy and a library audiobook. But I never should’ve even tried the audio – the story is so complicated that you must have the words of it in front of you.

I followed along fine at first, and I liked the story I was reading and listening to, which basically boils down to a mathematician, a book dealer, and a mobster all looking for a book that may or may not exist. These individuals also may or may not be in the same realities – I never quite figured that part out – and to make things even more confusing, there’s a narrative from the missing book mixed in, making it difficult to know what is what in Tidhar’s novel.

The different perspectives and narratives result in a frustrating read, especially because the pieces never really come together at the end. I waited for that a-ha moment to hit where everything clicks into place and makes sense, but it never happened. And now I’m left feeling as if I missed out because Tidhar raises some interesting questions about the nature of reality and whether we humans are truly alive or instead stuck in some artificial existence. I would’ve liked to think more on it had all my bandwidth not been so busy sorting the story.


My sincerest appreciation to Lavie Tidhar, Tachyon Publications, and NetGalley for the digital review copy. All opinions included herein are my own.

[The Speculative Shelf · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading a new Lavie Tidhar novel is always a treat. You can count on engaging prose paired with an inventive story and The Circumference of the World certainly fits that bill.

Jumping between seemingly unrelated narrative threads, Tidhar spins a tale about an elusive novel that galvanizes everyone in its orbit. We rarely stick with one thread long enough to reach a resolution, but in the end, the sections tie together in an intriguing way.

If you’re looking for a brisk read from a unique voice in science fiction, give this one a shot!

My thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

See this review and others at The Speculative Shelf and follow @specshelf on Twitter.

[S. ≽^•⩊•^≼ I'm not here yet · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.
Pub Date 05 Sep 2023

[Trish · Rating 5 out of 5]

OK so. I picked this up after my wingman buddy-reader was going batshit over it. Never heard of the book before, never heard of the author before.

What can I say about this book? First off: it's crazy. It's very imaginative and combines themes I never thought could be successfully combined.

We have three MCs: Delia, a mathematician. Daniel, a book seller. Oscar, a mobster.
Delia discovered a book when she was a child. A book that disappears when it has been read. A book written by Eugene Charles Hartley back in the 1950s, an infamous author who also founded a cult (I am told Eugene is based off several golden age SF writers, but definitely off Hubbard - you know, of Scientology fame). So Delia is obsessed with the book.
Oscar, meanwhile, is obsessed with science fiction in general - and suffering from an existential crisis (that tickled me to no end). He wants to get his hands on this mysterious book as well.
Daniel, on the other hand, gets drawn into this mess by Delia after her husband has disappeared and she wants Daniel's help. THe interesting thing about Daniel, for me, was that he is face-blind (and yes, I looked up how that works in real life).
Another noteworthy thing (amongst many) is that in Eugene's book, a character that could be Delia is searching for her missing father like the real-world Delia is searching for her missing husband. Only in space.

But that is just the characters. The book is also amazingly meta. And it interweaves science with mysticism / religion as well as mental illness of all things! We are thus taken into different eras to different points in humanity's history, following three different threads that don't seem connected at all at first. It was maddening how quickly we also jumped from one to the other and back, never getting much information and certainly no resolution, but always circling closer and closer and closer ... and closer.

For me, the most amazing thing was that even in the end, we still can't be 100% sure of what is real and what isn't here. Was Eugene a conman or maybe even truly touched by something divine? I guess it's up to each reader to make up their own mind.

Beyond that, I hardly have words to describe this story that, while not being very long, was choke-full of incredible details and written in a writing style that swept me along like a strong current while also leaving me semi-disoriented (in a good, fully immersive kinda way).

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.'"

[Kara Babcock · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another story about stories, this time a metafictional romp through a Scientologyesque religion and the end of the universe. Lavie Tidhar’s The Circumference of the World is imaginative and, dare I say, quite a bit wacky; however, it never coalesced into something I would call enjoyable. Thanks to NetGalley and Tachyon Publications for the eARC.

Delia is a mathematician from Vanuatu, though now she lives in London. Her boyfriend’s disappearance causes her to start looking for a book so rare some think it doesn’t exist. This pulp science-fiction novel is at the centre of a cult-like church that believes reading the book conveys protection against the “Eaters,” mysterious creatures connected to black holes (I am keeping the details vague to avoid spoilers here). Delia enlists the help of a book detective, essentially, who then falls in with a gangster, who then … you know what, it’s turtles all the way down.

The best and perhaps also worst aspect of The Circumference of the World for me was the structure of the narrative. We leave Delia in the first part of the book to follow Daniel, and then leave him to follow Oskar, and there is also an interstitial moment where we are in the Lode Stars story itself, which may or may not be real or even more real than the rest of this story. The way that Tidhar plays with the flexible nature of reality and fiction is skillful and thought-provoking. The scenes set within Lode Stars, in a far, posthuman future, demonstrate some really neat thinking about the nature of humanity and the cosmos. The wider novel as a whole dances around notions of the simulation hypothesis, albeit coming at it from a very different angle than we might be used to.

This is all to the good. Where the book failed to work for me was the characters themselves. The narration often felt stilted, and I had trouble connecting to most of the main characters. Although I like the segmented structure of the book, I wish we had come back to Delia and spent more time with her than we did. Overall, the book itself felt both too long and too short—with characters and plots being picked up and then dropped without resolution.

File this under “some amazing science fiction happening here but in a way that never comes together as a single coherent story.”

Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter.

[Christina Pilkington · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars rounded up

Lode Star, an elusive novel written by the pulp science fiction writer Eugene Charles Hartley, draws together an unlikely group of people: a mathematician, a book dealer, a mobster and a woman searching for her missing father and husband.

But what is Lode Star? Is it a guide to immortality as those from the religious group the Church of the All-Seeing Eyes believe? Did Hartley create this religion because he truly discovered the secrets of the universe or is he just a common conman?

This is a hard book to review. I’m very conflicted in my feelings. Some parts fascinated me, others bored me. Some parts had imaginative world building, other parts felt flat and it was hard to picture what was going on.

Here are a few things to consider when deciding if this book is right for you.

First, it has an unusual structure. For a very short book, just over 250 pages, it has quite a few perspectives. There’s also a book within a book and letters. I really like books with unusual structures, but I felt like the order in which the story was told could have been restructured to capture my interest better, especially in the beginning.

Second, it’s heavy on the philosophy and low on the character building. A lot of science fiction is written this way- I’m thinking of The Three Body Problem here- and I can enjoy stories like that, but sometimes I wanted to connect with the character a little more. I did enjoy the theory questioning if we live in reality or if we’re just reimagined and recreated pieces of data from something long ago dead and gone.

The middle section of the novel focused on the mobster character, Oskar Lens, and his background. I really had to push to get through this section, but I can see other readers enjoying in much more than I did.

Lastly, since most the book is fairly abstract, it might not get interesting for you until the last third of the book. The book within a book sections were my favorite! It finally had the inventive worldbuilding I’ve come to expect from Tidhar. It was also very meta at the end and made me think that if I reread the book I would enjoy and appreciate it more.

If you’ve enjoyed Tidhar’s novels in the past, I’d give this one a try. I’m glad I read it and tried something a bit outside my comfort zone.

*Thanks to Tachyon Publications for the gifted physical copy. All opinions are my own.

[DivaDiane SM · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book very much. Full review to come. In the meantime, thanks to the publisher and Lavie Tidhar for providing this copy for me to read in exchange for an unbiased review.

[Ian Mond]

If you’ve read a chunk of Lavie’s work, you’ll know he loves his Golden Age science fiction. There’s nothing reactionary about it. He’s clearly been shaped by those early pulp works. This novel is the culmination of that. A love letter to the Golden Age, but one that doesn’t shy away from the flaws of the authors who developed the genre's tropes. At the heart of the story is the search for a novel that no longer exists. The Lode Stars - written by an unashamedly overt analogue for L. Ron Hubbard - speculates that we are not real and God is watching us through black holes (or Lode Stars of the title). Tidhar does take the piss out of Hubbard and Scientology, but that’s a side dish. What the novel is really about is something that Niall Harrison has noted in his criticism, that the Golden Age of Science Fiction never delivered on its promise, something that became all the more apparent after September 11. It’s brilliant stuff, with Tidhar playing with perspectives and different styles of writing. A bit of detective fiction, a bit of historical fiction, a bit of brutal Siberian prison fiction, a bit of pulp science fiction (there’s an excerpt from the lost book in question) and a bit of epistolary (letters between the luminaries of the genre, which are revealing and hilarious). On the cover, Daryl Gregory says that Lavie Tidhar is a genius. Hard to disagree.

[Tomislav · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hermia:
God speed, fair Helena. Whither away?
Helena:
Call you me fair? That “fair” again unsay.
Demetrius loves your fair, O happy fair!
Your eyes are lodestars, and your tongue's sweet air
- A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare.

In software, when a symbolic name is given more than one meaning, which can be differentiated only by context, this is known as overloading. Lavie Tidhar’s new speculative fiction novel The Circumference of the World is chock full of overloading, and reading it involves the pleasurable literary experience of making connections.

It describes a fictional SF novel named “Lode Stars,” written by Tidhar’s fictional Golden Age SF writer Eugene Charles Hartley. Hartley is a hard-drinking, womanizing bastard of a hack, interested primarily in accumulating personal wealth, that rubs elbows with Van Vogt, De Camp, and many other known names of the era. He is also founder of the Church of the All-Seeing Eyes, one belief of which is that our lives are really taking place on the event horizon of the ultimate singularity at the end of time, reconstructed from information saved through-out the duration of the universe. As in the apocryphal story of L. Ron Hubbard, Hartley was inspired to found his religion in a conversation with Robert Heinlein.

“Lode Stars” also happens to be the title of a short story previously written by Tidhar and published in 2010 in an anthology, The Immersion Book of SF.

Part Four of The Circumference of the World is the text of Hartley’s “Lode Stars,” fictionally published in 1962. It is just not clear to me whether Tidhar’s Lode Stars is the same as Hartley’s Lode Stars, but the dual reference is typical of the overloading here. Certainly, this is not the first time a fictional SF book becomes a central concept within a real SF book – for example, The Man in the High Castle has "The Grasshopper Lies Heavy," and Station Eleven has "Dr. Eleven."

The novel is structured as a sequence of stories, layered in time throughout the twentieth century. Some are fictionally contained within one another, and might contain overlapping characters. In the opening story, Delia is a late twentieth century mathematician in London, born in Vanuatu, and married to Levi. Levi is a collector of Golden Age SF, and seeks a copy of Hartley’s elusive Lode Stars. The problem is that all copies of Lode Stars seem to have disappeared, perhaps one page at a time as it was transcribed. A Russian mobster is also seeking the book, and Levi disappears. Delia enlists the aid of Daniel Chase, a book dealer who was working with Levi, to find him. The disappearing nature of the book seems to verify the premises of Hartley’s made-up religion. Then the reader needs to be prepared to set each story aside but remember it, while engaging the next layer. The only further overloading I might mention is that the main character of Hartley’s Lode Stars is also named Delia.

I read an Advance Reader Copy of The Circumference of the World in trade paperback format, which I received directly from Tachyon Publications in exchange for an honest review on social media platforms and on my book review blog. This new title is scheduled for release on 5 September 2023.

[Laura (thenerdygnomelife) · Rating 2 out of 5]

I tried this book first in print and then in audio and struggled in both forms. The plot seemed to jump around much like a dream, making it a bit hard to follow. The cover is gorgeous and I think I wanted to love it just for that reason alone!

[Molly · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is for anyone who loves the characters in science fiction’s Golden Age—on and off the page.

[urwa]

Absolutely insufferable.

DNF @ 27%

It was painful getting through the 70 or so pages I read of this book. Might not be the sole reason for the book slump but the blame does lie in part here. I absolutely hated the narration style and the entire narratorial voice came off as snobby and pretentious which is the one thing I most hate in spec fic novels. I don't care how mind-blowing your plot or idea is, can not deal with obnoxious storytelling. I was probably not the target audience for this but with the way marketing works these days, it's hard to actually figure out what a book is really about apart from the buzzwords attached to it.

Before Reading:
"Caught between realities, a mathematician, a book dealer, and a mobster desperately seek a notorious book that disappears upon being read."

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I want to read another of Tidhar's novels, The Escapement, but the library doesn't have it so I borrowed this one instead. The Circumference of the World is largely metatextual, being based in the mileu of 'golden age' sci-fi writers as they transitioned from stories for pulp magazines to novels. Sci-fi that comments on how sci-fi used to be written and by whom. The twist is that a golden age writer starts a religion, or uncovers the real truth of the universe, or writes characters who come to life, or possibly all three. The narrative slips in and out of different story layers: the author, the fiction, people searching for the author and/or a copy of his book. I have to say, this is not the most compelling execution of that story-within-a-story structure that I've come across. It was fun spotting references to classic sci-fi that I read in my teens (stroon! spindizzies! etc) and the writing is often vividly descriptive. I also enjoyed the presence of Ghis, a sentient swarm of bees. However I didn't find myself compelled by the plot, nor involved enough to develop an opinion about which of its layers constituted 'reality'. The layers are told in a range of formats: diary, epistolary, first person, third person. Perhaps I found it a bit too fragmentary to really grab me, despite my interest in the history of sci-fi. The ideas are intriguing, but the stakes felt too diffuse so I was rather underwhelmed.

[Joe Karpierz · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Kate Hyde · Rating 3 out of 5]

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 many, hugely enjoyable, nods to the Golden Age.
I received the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinions, many thanks to Netgalley.

[Arden · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked the premise of this novel, but this felt... half done. There is a ton of history of these characters, with only brief glimpses of their interactions together. Two of the men who get the most page time (one of whom is a large, central figure of the not-a-plot) are just awful people, and their sections were unenjoyable, made worse by the usage of misogynistic language. I kept reading thinking something was going to happen - surely at least *one* of the plot points being set up would be developed in full, but this felt like truly nothing happened. Just a bunch of description of people's lives done in a way that wasn't even that interesting. The prose was incredibly repetitive at parts, and underdeveloped and bland in others.

[Borja · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una nueva religión nace aquí. Una historia a través de los siglos que empequeñece al ser humano.

[David Agranoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now I don’t want to be accused of Hyperbole in two Lavie Tidhar book reviews in a row. Well, three if you count the glowing 10th-anniversary review and Podcast interviews I did over at Dickheads for the World Fantasy award-winning Osama. It has only been three months since Neom kicked my butt and snuck into my top five reads last year. To say I loved the vibe of the book is an understatement.

The Circumference of the World is one of those novels that is a love letter to the genre. It benefits from nerdy insider knowledge of the Golden Age of Science Fiction. An era I have studied deeply, having within weeks of reading this read Fredrick Pohl’s autobiography, I don’t know how this book would work for somewhere that doesn’t know that Pohl went to Poker games at Horace Gold’s apartment before taking over Galaxy magazine from him. Lavie Tidhar knows this stuff and while he has always created science fiction that lovingly feels like it was lost from that era this novel is a mirror to the golden age.

I didn’t read the back cover copy and went into it cold. My only hesitation in recommending this novel is that some of the genius will be lost on some modern readers. The in-jokes, the sly statements on the Golden Age, and in particular L.Ron Hubbard. Long after The Hubbster started a religion movies and fiction have made satire of the old pulpster who grew tired of writing Science Fiction and created his religion. Long before Paul Thomas Anderson made The Master with Hollywood resources Philip K. Dick mocked the new religion in the 50s with a short story called The Turning Wheel. Tidhar has pink-beamed his way into Dickian fiction before with Osama and Neom.
While this novel has a feeling of an earlier era, it comments on the era when Phil was collecting pulps. That said the novel opens with a modern feeling, Delia Welegtrabit lives in the South Pacific, isolated a bit she discovers a love for math and science that came from reading a lost Science fiction novel Lode Stars she pulled off the shelf, and is told it doesn’t exist. The book which inspired a cult, is not acknowledged to exist for high-ranking people in the cult and once Delia’s husband Levi starts looking for the murders gangsters come into their lives.

Lode Stars the book in question was written by our Hubbard stand-in Eugene Charles Hartley, while The Master does a character study of the Hubbard stand-in, in this novel is not Hartley but the magic of the book the power of Science Fiction being explored here. It all takes on a meta-shift as early as page 18.

“The cover of the book depicted a swirling clouds of stars, sucked inexorably in nebula whorls, towards a malevolent black eye that dominated the centre of the page.
The title, Lode Stars, was etched above it.
The book was published in America, in 1962. Its Heroine was herself, Delia
The name of the author was Eugene Hartley.”

Hubbard has been fictionalized by his fellow science fiction writers like Anthony Boucher since 1940’s Rocket To The Morgue. This fictional take is the founder of the Church of the All-Seeing Eyes and is a fascinating character study for sure. I feel like the text of the golden age and what the novels and fiction say about the era in this case. The novel starts in a world where Lode Stars was a novel and as it continues the walls of reality disappear and we end up in the charming feeling of this lost novel, Tidhar enjoying every second of writing as Hartley. In the Lode Star part of the book he is writing a delightfully old-school fake novel filled with easter eggs for Herbert, Van Vogt, Asimov, and PKD.

"She saw the window of the Solar Spice and Liquors Company, An Isher Weapons shop, and an outlet of the respected Encyclopedia Galactica Foundation." Even Stanley Weinbuam's SF Hall of Fame-worthy Martian character Tweel gets a shout-out.

Tidhar is writing outside a traditional narrative as the main character of the novel is the book inside the book. From London with the collectors trying to find it and the powerful moment of the Russian prisoners who happen the book. The Prisoners had no idea the Soviet Union fell and were so accustomed to prison that they were afraid of the world and Levi didn't want to leave without Lode Stars.

The walls of reality are at question. This why Dickheads don't mind if his novels feel real? Martian Time-Slip is surreal and impossible, that is not the role of that novel. The Circumference of the World is a question in the form of a science fiction novel. How does the genre relate to our ideas of reality?

"Because you see," Levi said, "None of this matters, this expansion into space and living longer, and building machines that could think - none of this matters if none of this is real. If we are ourselves but copies, echoes of who we once were. In that case," He said, still smiling, delighted with the notion and himself.

This novel is a powerful work of meta-fiction, we can compare it to PKD, which is a compliment around here but it is a pure product of Lavie Tihar's genius. His blend of imagination, genre history and ability to blend into thought experiments is what makes him one of my favorite modern writers. This novel is not for everyone but for the people in the crosshairs this is bullet straight the science fictional parts of the brain. I loved it.

[Corvus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading Lavie Tidhar's The Circumference of the World was like walking through a dream, or perhaps a nightmare depending on your view of things. I don't mean reading about a dream. I mean it felt like dreaming feels- where many things are off or confusing or seem not quite right, but also feel quite real and make sense at the same time. It is difficult to describe without spoiling the story and what is revealed as it moves forward. It is one of those books that seems to hop around too much, but closer to the end, the bigger picture is revealed to the reader, making the whole thing seem just right.

Something about this book that is interesting to me is the use of the culture- and actual people, real and fictional- from the golden age of science fiction in the mid 1900s. The whole feel of that pulp era was captured really well, misogyny, conformity to great-man, narratives, and all. Well, I wasn't alive until the 80s, but it captured my impressions from my parents bookshelves and reading the books from and about that time period. There are sections that include (fictionalized) conversations between well known authors whose names and works I recognized. But, upon reading the entire book and skimming some reviews, there were apparently also characters woven in from that era of stories. Being less familiar with them, I did not recognize this. I imagine it could be quite a joyous experience for someone who is more familiar. I still don't know which characters were borrowed (with permission) and which were crafted.

The style of this book hops genres all over the place, but is still tied together by Tidhar's prose. It begins like a vintage sicfi-fantasy novel that turns into a bizarre noirish story of a bookseller turned detective. Further forward we have authoritarian regime survival historical fiction, hard scifi, mystery, autobiography, and more. Each time I thought I was grasping what would be revealed, I was surprised in new ways. I do think it actually could have been longer. Sometimes it transitioned so fast that I would have liked more time spent in certain places.

Now, I will say, I don't know if this book is for everyone because it has so much of... everything. If you aren't one to appreciate bizarre breaks from single narrative structures, this may not be for you. Me? I loved it every step along the way, and especially when it became clear why reading it felt so dreamlike. You will have to discover that for yourself.

This was also posted to my blog.

[Daniela · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

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

[Uvrón · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m confident this book makes a lot of sense to Lavie Tidhar, but from outside his brain I’m not really sure what he’s doing with this mixology of Golden Age sci fi, Scientology, noir plot, and theology. Most of that I’m just not into enough to follow him with much excitement, especially when men and misogynists take up so much room. The ingredient I share his interest in the most, black hole physics, is not that interesting to me because it’s too familiar—proving that authors can never win.

I actually do like the short story at the center of the book a lot more than the meta trimmings around it, and how it connects to religious philosophy. I could definitely see myself liking this book a lot more if I discussed it with people, sat with it, and reread it at a faster pace. (Although I only took eleven days apparently, it’s been too full and exciting a time for me to focus on this!)

I’ve been giving books a lot of points for potential like that, but I’m staying within my own experience and rating it 3 stars. I can’t be rating all my books 4 and 5 stars this year just because I’m happy now—where would that lead? Grateful authors?? The cultivation of a generous spirit??? Sounds dangerous!

[Graisi · Rating 1 out of 5]

Thank you Lavie Tidhar, Netgalley, and Tachyon Publications for this free ARC in exchange for a review.

I'm not sure how I managed to finish this novel. I guess I was just curious if it was going to go anywhere.

It didn't.

It was vague, and lacked characterization. I was bored, and forced myself to finish it. This really just seems like more of an idea of a novel, and not a fully fleshed out one.

I won't be reading anything else by this author.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a hard one to wrap my head around.

The premise is that an author from the Golden Age of science fiction wrote a book, where he supposedly encoded great secret truths about God and the universe. Except maybe he didn’t, and it’s all just people finding meanings that aren’t there. Except maybe the book never existed in the first place, because almost no one has ever seen a copy, and the only semi-reliable cases where one appeared ended abruptly when the book dealer in question ended up dead.

There are a variety of main characters here, and it’s difficult to say who among them might be the “main” character. There’s an albino woman from the South Pacific island where the author in question spent WWII. There’s her husband, a math professor terrified he’ll never make that grand contribution that will help him achieve mortality. There’s the face-blind used book dealer turned investigator trying to track down the husband after he disappears. There’s a Russian mobster who threatens him into searching for a copy of the book. And there’s flashback sequences of journals and letters written by the author and his contemporaries (including folks like Robert A. Heinlein and John W. Campbell).

We also get a few chapters from this book, which might not ever have existed in the first place.

The author, I eventually figured out, is based to some degree on L. Ron Hubbard. A religion, or possibly a scam, was founded based on his writings: the Church of the All-Seeing Eyes of God.

(As an aside, it took me a little bit to figure out that he was based on Hubbard. I was thrown by the name of the religion, which made me think of the Church of All Worlds that got started based on *Stranger in a Strange Land*. This confused me, because Heinlein is a character within *The Circumference of the World*. It wasn’t until the Church of the All-Seeing Eyes of God bought a cruise ship that I realized it was Scientology, not the Church of All Worlds.)

(As another aside: it’s very funny to me that I had a moment of “Oh, this is the *other* religion based on mid-twentieth century pulp science fiction.”)

Anyway. The book alternates between the present (actually 2001), where various actors are looking for the book; the 40s and 50s, when science fiction was in its golden age; and a middle section coming from the book in question.

The flashback sequences were very well done. I know more than a little about the period and the players, and I think Tidhar did a great job of capturing both the optimism and the confidence/cockiness of the genre of the time (as well as the sexism and racism of guys like Campbell and Heinlein).

The excerpts from the book-within-the-book were fantastic. If you told me it was something written from that time period, I would believe you. I honestly want to read this book in its entirety.

The Russian mobster’s flashbacks to his time in the Soviet gulags were interesting, and again were well crafted, but also rather brutal.

But overall, I didn’t particularly *enjoy* this book. It felt a little pretentious, in a Jonathan Franzen-esque fashion. I don’t like feeling like a book is over my head. This was my second try at Tidhar, and I doubt I’m going to try a third.

My blog

[Karissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I got a copy of this as an ebook through NetGalley to review.

Thoughts: I liked this but didn't love it as much as some of Tidhar's other books. It gets pretty abstract at points and can be a bit hard to follow. It is interesting food for thought and beautifully written though.

The book is broken into different parts that follow different characters. At first we follow is Delia, a math professor whose husband, Levi, goes suddenly missing after obsessing over a book called Lode Stars. Then we follow Daniel Chase, a young book dealer that Delia comes to for help when her husband goes missing. Next we hear from Oskar Lens a mobster obsessed with finding Lode Stars. Then we also hear from Eugene Hartley himself as he writes Lode Stars and then back to Delia but this is Delia as shown in the book Lode Stars as she journeys back to Earth.

The theory that goes throughout the book is around a religion that was created from the Lode Stars book that speculates that everything in the world is a construct and nothing is really real anymore. There is some theory that the world is being recycled through black holes (I may have misunderstood this theory, it's a bit ambiguous). The story kind of twists around itself as we journey through space and time and reality to mostly end up back where we started.

I enjoyed the beautiful writing and found this very readable. However, it can be hard to follow at times and ends up being a bit ambiguous. It's one of those books that I think you have to read through a few times to really understand everything that is happening here. I enjoyed it but I didn't love it and I probably won't pick it up again.

My Summary (4/5): Overall this was interesting and provides some intriguing food for thought. However, it's also a bit twisty, turny...hard to follow...and ambiguous. Some of the theories explored here are unique and interesting, but it takes some effort to try and understand what happens in the end. This isn't my favorite Tidhar book, I liked "The Escapement" better. However, it did feed my itch for a unique and different read...which is something Tidhar excels at.

[Tina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this arc from NetGalley in exchange for a fair review.

A slightly confounding (in a good way) but fascinating ode to classic sci-fi, The Circumference of the World is a lyrical blend of homage and invention.

Eloquent and beautifully written, the novel introduces a complex concept that was fun to tease out. Despite the variety of characters in the short novel, all were interesting and the story moved at a great pace.

As someone who reads (and reviews) a lot of classic sci-fi, these aspects of this story were a pleasant surprise. I was not expecting a good chunk of the novel to be a story written as a classic sci-fi (that rang closest to Samuell Delany in style, if I had to pick) and fictional communication between real classic sci-fi writers.

I do wonder how much people who aren’t acquainted with that genre and 50s/60s sci-fi writers would get out of it. To be honest, despite having read books by pretty much all the authors included in the novel, I wasn’t super into that part of the story. This could be because I enjoy classic sci-fi as a relic of the past (despite or perhaps because of their sometimes problematic elements and, often, bad science. They're hilarious!), so attempts to create one in our day and age is like cooking stew over a stove versus a firepit. The modern version might be better crafted, but that's not really why I'm eating it. I'm not saying that part of the story wasn't well done, it just didn't work for me.

I also wasn’t entirely sure what “the point” was in terms of the various other tangents. Delia, yes, but Chase and the mobster I wasn't sure about. We’re given a sci-fi writer who supposedly created a religion - was that a bit of a dig at Scientology? - as well as a very lofty concept of the world being a construct. As I understood it, the idea was something akin to our existence being a memory, the last fleeting essence of humanity as we’re pulled into a black hole? It’s possible I misinterpreted it though.

Either way, those who enjoy classic sci-fi will likely enjoy this book, as would anyone who prefers cerebral sci-fi.

[Joy D · Rating 3 out of 5]

Delia is a woman from Vanuatu. Her husband Levi has become obsessed with a book that is thought to hold the answers to questions about the nature of reality. This book, entitled Lode Stars, written by pulp Sci-Fi writer Eugene Hartley, cannot be found and may not even exist. Hartley (clearly based on L. Ron Hubbard) established a religion based on the ideas in the book. The underlying belief is that reality is based upon reconstructed memories whirling inside a black hole. When Levi goes missing, Delia approaches Daniel Chase, a young, face-blind book dealer, for help. Another main character is mobster Oskar Lens, who has also become obsessed with finding Lode Stars. Eugene Hartley makes an appearance late in the book, and then the storyline circles back to Delia.

This book is an homage to the Golden Age of Science Fiction. It is rather abstract and can occasionally be hard to follow. It is a matryoshka doll of stories within stories. It has an inventive structure, and the concept is intriguing; however, I found it hard to get immersed in it, perhaps due to the shifting storylines among the various characters without ever really knowing how they are all connected. I am sure this type of patchwork storytelling will appeal to some readers and turn off others. I found myself somewhere in the middle. I liked it from a conceptual angle, and the writing is strong, but for me, the experience of reading it was more a mental exercise without much emotional involvement.

[T.S.S. Fulk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ended a bit abruptly, but an interesting story using post-modern (or should I say metamodern) multiple points of view, including fictional letters between famous pulp sci-fi authors and editors. Throughly enjoyable.

[Dan Trefethen · Rating 3 out of 5]

The main character is a thinly disguised portrait of L. Ron Hubbard, pulp science fiction writer and religious founder. The plot revolves around a book dealer looking for a missing brother, but it's really a chance for Tidhar to exercise his imagination and knowledge of the Golden Age SF authors, their tight community, feuds and loves. (I love the idea of Kingsley Amis getting into a fist fight with Fred Pohl over the Three Laws of Robotics. I don't know if it really happened, but it should have.)

It's a fast read, and some of the fun bits are the letters that Tidhar pretends were sent between various authors and editors. (John W. Campbell is shown in all his imperious ways.)

This is really only a book that a fan of vintage SF would appreciate, but for those people it's a lot of fun.

[Stuart Gordon · Rating 1 out of 5]

It is my opinion that there is a Good Lavie Tidhar, who writes fine literary fiction and science fiction and an evil Lavie Tidhar, who writes crap and then sells that crap based on his reputation.

This book was written by the evil Lavie Tidhar.