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Osama (novel)

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Osama
Cover of Osama
AuthorLavie Tidhar
LanguageEnglish
GenreAlternate History, Metafiction
PublisherPS Publishing
Publication date
2011
Media typeBook

Osama is a 2011 alternate history metafictional novel by Lavie Tidhar. It was first published by PS Publishing.

Synopsis

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In a world without terrorism, a private detective is hired to locate Mike Longshott, the mysterious author of a popular series of novels about a vigilante named "Osama bin Laden".

Reception

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Osama won the 2012 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel.[1]

Publishers Weekly described it as "offbeat and enigmatic", but with "less than rigorous internal logic".[2]

The Guardian saw conceptual parallels to Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle, emphasizing that Tidhar's goal is to "show that behind every manufactured enemy, is a real human being".[3]

in Locus, Gary K. Wolfe observed that although Longshott is supposed to be a pulp fiction writer, the excerpts of Longshott's works (depicting various real-world instances of terrorism) "aren’t pulpish at all" but rather are "rendered in a crisp, journalistic prose" — unlike the rest of the novel, which is in a "deliberately pulp-noir style".[4] Strange Horizons noted the possibility that "the entire story may be little more than [the detective's] opium-induced hallucination."[5]

References

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  1. ^ Lavie Tidhar's Osama wins World Fantasy Award, by Charlie Jane Anders, at Io9; published November 4, 2012; retrieved June 23, 2018
  2. ^ Osama, reviewed at Publishers Weekly; published March 3, 2011; retrieved June 23, 2018
  3. ^ The political possibilities of SF, by Damien Walter, in The Guardian; published October 11, 2011; retrieced June 23, 2018
  4. ^ Gary K. Wolfe reviews Lavie Tidhar, in Locus; published September 25, 2011; retrieved June 23, 2018
  5. ^ Osama by Lavie Tidhar, reviewed by Michael Levy; at Strange Horizons; published September 12, 2011; retrieved June 23, 2018
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