Three wise men came from the East for the infant Jesus in The New Testament. Three brave companions accompany the Buddha in the Chinese classic A Journey to the West. Could they have been the same three? Guided by a star, three strange companions arrive in the barbarous land of Judea to seek a newborn child–a possible messiah to some, and the reincarnation of the Budda to others. When the child’s life is threatened, his family and new guardians escape to Egypt, returning years later, to a Jewish land on the cusp of annihilation by the Roman Empire. Once a general in the Judean army, now a Roman agent, Josephus Flavius is sent by Caesar back to his home land to observe and report on the actions of the troubling young man now preaching sedition in the Galilee – a boy with the unsettling powers of kung-fu. . . Their lives would collide in a cataclysmic confrontation between Romans and Jews, between empire and rebels–and change the world forever. . . REVIEWS: “inspired and fantastical” – Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine “A vivid and gonzo reimagining of the life of Jesus. . . hugely entertaining” – Locus Magazine
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.
