Lavie Tidhar was raised on a kibbutz in Israel. He has traveled 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 Hebrew Punk (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.
Books in order of publication:
An Occupation of Angels – 2005
HebrewPunk – 2007
The Apex Book of World SF – 2009
The Tel Aviv Dossier – 2009
The Bookman (Bookman Histories # 1) – 2010
Camera Obscura (Bookman Histories # 2) – 2010
Jesus and the Eightfold Path – 2010
Osama – 2011
Gorel and the Pot-Bellied God – 2011
The Great Game (Bookman Histories # 3) – 2012
The Apex Book of World SF 2 – 2012
The Violent Century – 2013
Martian Sands – 2013
A Man Lies Dreaming – 2014
Selfies – 2014
The Apex Book of World SF 3 – 2014
Jews versus Zombies – 2015
Jews versus Aliens – 2015
Central Station – 2016
The Old Dispensation – 2017
Unholy Land – 2018
Yiwu – 2018
In Xanadu – 2019
By Force Alone – 2020
New Atlantis – 2020
Judge Dee and the Limits of the Law – 2020
The Candy Mafia – 2020
Judge Dee and the Three Deaths of Count Werdenfels – 2021