Mythical expedition of experienced explorers who went missing in the GUILDS OF ASHKELON universe while searching for the mythical PACMANDU.

X

Xanadu

Secretive compound of the Banu Qattmir (an outshoot of CLAN AYODHYA) in the Xanadu region of Titan. It holds most of the Titanic Cores. The three tenets of the Banu Qattmir are:

Security through Physicality.

Security through Redundancy.

Security through Obscurity.

Y

Year of Dragon

See DRAGON’S HOME

YITH

Humans with corrupted or hostile-intrusion-ridden NODES, turning them into shambling living corpses. It is suggested the YITH are a (perhaps accidental) by-product of the QUIETUDE.

Yiwu

Town in Eastern China, which manufactures the cheap everyday goods that most of the Earth needs—and indeed buys there. Yiwu is otherwise best known for its mysterious Lottery, in which the winner is guaranteed “their true heart’s desire”—sometimes with unexpected results. Little is known of the Lottery, though its secretive organisation is believed to be present across the inhabited worlds.

Z

Zion, missing asteroid of

Asteroid in the Belt whose occupants used a novel form of distributed small-world network utilising smoke particles as data carriers. It is believed the network was susceptible to outside interference, of what was once suggested to be a possibly alien source but may now be considered an outreach by the QUIETUDE. The Zion asteroid, utilising exo-fitted motors, subsequently went missing on an unknown trajectory.

ZOROASTER

Ancient prophet and spiritual leader. Founder of Zoroastrianism.

About the Author

Internationally renowned author Lavie Tidhar has been compared to Philip K. Dick by the Guardian and to Kurt Vonnegut by Locus. He works across genres, combining detective and thriller modes with poetry, science fiction, historical, and autobiographical material.

Tidhar’s breakout novel Central Station received the John W. Campbell Memorial Award and the Neukom Literary Arts Award; it was nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke and Locus awards. Central Station has been translated into more than ten languages and won a Nebula Award in China.

Tidhar’s next novel, Unholy Land, was a Prix Planète SF winner, shortlisted for the Locus, Campbell, Sidewise, and Dragon awards, and was on best of the year lists from NPR Books, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly. Tidhar’s 2021 novel, The Escapement, received the Special Citation for the 2021 Philip K. Dick Award and was a Publishers Weekly Top-10 Forthcoming Fantasy Title, a Foreword Book of the Day, and on the Locus Recommended Reading list. His other awards include the World Fantasy and British Fantasy Awards for his novel Osama, a British Science Fiction Award for Best Nonfiction, and the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize for A Man Lies Dreaming.