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Cloud Permutations
The world of Heven was populated, centuries ago, by Melanesian settlers from distant Earth. It is a peaceful, quiet world—yet it harbours ancient secrets. Kal just wants to fly. But flying is the one thing forbidden on Heven—a world dominated by the mysterious, ever present clouds in the skies. What do they hide? For Kal, finding the answer might mean his death—but how far will you go to realise your dreams?
- GenresScience Fiction
119 pages, Hardcover
First published July 1, 2010
1 person is currently reading
65 people want to read
About the author
Lavie Tidhar
398 books730 followersLavie 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
August 15, 2019
An interesting Sci fi story. We have Kal and his friend Bani going on adventures on their planet Heven, which seems to be based on the islands of Vanuatu. It's not really my genre, but many people will like it.
February 8, 2011
I stumbled into a #hashchat on Twitter, where World SF blog creator, GUD contributor, and prolific writer @LavieTidhar was answering questions from the audience. If the Library of Congress was on the ball with their Twitter archive, or I had a better memory, I could amaze you with the brilliance of my question. As it is, I will try to impress you with the brilliance of the book that I won with that lost-to-posterity question.
'Cloud Permutations' is part myth, part science fiction adventure. Its roots are both broad and deep; they nurture a story that is personal, well-defined, and brilliantly textured and contextualized, yet still archetypal.
Tidhar draws from his experience in the remote islands of Melanesia to paint for us one possible permutation of the clouds. Heven is a world populated, centuries ago, by Melanesian settlers from distant Earth. They have been cut off, due to unknown circumstances (a trope Tidhar has pulled off beautifully before), and their day-to-day life has grown to fill those circumstances as /kastom/. There is one rule above all others, core to keeping the peace: you will not fly.
Kalbaben and his best friend, Vira, go against the /kastom/ of Heven and pay a heavy price, Kal's first step towards a prophecy he ill understands. He is banished to the merchant-island Tanna, given to remote relatives. There, he is befriended by an ostentatious and crafty albino, Bani, who takes him under his wing.
The adventure they embark on is not easy, nor just, nor kind, nor innocent, but it is told with a rich brush, in language, in interaction, and in scope. The world of Heven has many histories, touched on lightly in parts, and heavily in others. Tidhar borrows from many standard sfnal tropes, and makes something unique of them: in blend, tone, and setting.
The story that is told most directly, the life of Kalbaben, is sweet or bitter-sweet depending on how you choose to read it. It ends perhaps a touch too simply, except 'Cloud Permutations' has many more stories besides, and Tidhar weaves them in a tapestry worth reading for its many ragged layers.
'Cloud Permutations' is part myth, part science fiction adventure. Its roots are both broad and deep; they nurture a story that is personal, well-defined, and brilliantly textured and contextualized, yet still archetypal.
Tidhar draws from his experience in the remote islands of Melanesia to paint for us one possible permutation of the clouds. Heven is a world populated, centuries ago, by Melanesian settlers from distant Earth. They have been cut off, due to unknown circumstances (a trope Tidhar has pulled off beautifully before), and their day-to-day life has grown to fill those circumstances as /kastom/. There is one rule above all others, core to keeping the peace: you will not fly.
Kalbaben and his best friend, Vira, go against the /kastom/ of Heven and pay a heavy price, Kal's first step towards a prophecy he ill understands. He is banished to the merchant-island Tanna, given to remote relatives. There, he is befriended by an ostentatious and crafty albino, Bani, who takes him under his wing.
The adventure they embark on is not easy, nor just, nor kind, nor innocent, but it is told with a rich brush, in language, in interaction, and in scope. The world of Heven has many histories, touched on lightly in parts, and heavily in others. Tidhar borrows from many standard sfnal tropes, and makes something unique of them: in blend, tone, and setting.
The story that is told most directly, the life of Kalbaben, is sweet or bitter-sweet depending on how you choose to read it. It ends perhaps a touch too simply, except 'Cloud Permutations' has many more stories besides, and Tidhar weaves them in a tapestry worth reading for its many ragged layers.
October 5, 2021
For some reason this has sat on my shelves unread for many years. I don't know why.
It's a beautiful entry into Lavie's Continuity. A planet settled by people from Earth, in particular from Vanuatu and other Pacific Islands, with a seemingly heavenly oceanic/island culture, with magical technologies and a kid with an urge to fly - except that's something the "clouds" won't allow.
It's a "science fantasy" in a sense - a kind of quest/coming-of-age tale, but with technology at its base. The exploration of a big world with mysterious artefacts is highly reminiscent of Paul McAuley at his best, but it's definitely Lavie at his best.
I adore this setting, all the stories of the Conversation and Continuity, whether the Tel Aviv spaceport, the early South-East Asian biopunk stuff, or other pieces like this. I hear there's another novel in this universe coming out next year from Tachyon - can't wait!
It's a beautiful entry into Lavie's Continuity. A planet settled by people from Earth, in particular from Vanuatu and other Pacific Islands, with a seemingly heavenly oceanic/island culture, with magical technologies and a kid with an urge to fly - except that's something the "clouds" won't allow.
It's a "science fantasy" in a sense - a kind of quest/coming-of-age tale, but with technology at its base. The exploration of a big world with mysterious artefacts is highly reminiscent of Paul McAuley at his best, but it's definitely Lavie at his best.
I adore this setting, all the stories of the Conversation and Continuity, whether the Tel Aviv spaceport, the early South-East Asian biopunk stuff, or other pieces like this. I hear there's another novel in this universe coming out next year from Tachyon - can't wait!
April 10, 2024
It's strange that I enjoyed this so much. The protagonist, Kal, seemed to be fine with being ignorant and just dragged along by his friend and their fate. Normally that would bug me, but there was a kind of dreamy groove to Kal's life and the world was very welcoming despite the threats that kept him land-bound. I particularly liked the ending, which seemed to reframe the story as a kind of fable or parable, the message a mystery just on the edge of being obvious.
October 23, 2021
In the far future, on a sea world settled by people from Oceania, a boy wants to fly but it is forbidden. The story itself, told as a legend, did not draw me in that much but the setting did: the world with its islands and also the language of Bislama, which was new to me but fun to decipher.
February 3, 2013
This hybrid storytelling works for this story, which seems ensconced between two genres. Cloud Permutations is more science fiction than it is fantasy. The setting consists of a secondary world, which has been colonized centuries ago and fashioned to meet human needs. The inhabitants know their history. Man is at peace with the environment, the atmosphere reminding the reader of tribal life, but technology is also a constant.
However, Tidhar also introduces elements of the fantastic: the native flora and wildlife are exotic and tickle the imagination, because they flirt with the familiarity of our own world, but then depart so smoothly and become unknown. The majestic Hilda Lini, with which the first settlers have come into contact, has acquired mythological glory. Clouds have been rumoured to possess sentience and even forbid flying with a death sentence. This is what happens to Kal’s childhood friend Vira, who dares to commit a tabu and construct a kite with Kal in order to fly.
Heven is a land of computers and a land of prophecies. Its seas host giant squids with an IQ high enough to do biddings after the necessary sacrifices have been done and shuttles with complex A.I that are fully operational after eons. An engineered floating island navigates the oceans and a monolithic tree reaches for the clouds, while its roots sink deep into the depths of water. That last element reminded me of Kaaron Warren’s Walking the Tree. Part of the pleasure was discovering what Tidhar had written next in this world, which reminded me of Le Guin’s exquisite Hainish Cycle, where technology and mystical alien worlds have been married beautifully.
Whole review is here: http://www.innsmouthfreepress.com/?p=...
However, Tidhar also introduces elements of the fantastic: the native flora and wildlife are exotic and tickle the imagination, because they flirt with the familiarity of our own world, but then depart so smoothly and become unknown. The majestic Hilda Lini, with which the first settlers have come into contact, has acquired mythological glory. Clouds have been rumoured to possess sentience and even forbid flying with a death sentence. This is what happens to Kal’s childhood friend Vira, who dares to commit a tabu and construct a kite with Kal in order to fly.
Heven is a land of computers and a land of prophecies. Its seas host giant squids with an IQ high enough to do biddings after the necessary sacrifices have been done and shuttles with complex A.I that are fully operational after eons. An engineered floating island navigates the oceans and a monolithic tree reaches for the clouds, while its roots sink deep into the depths of water. That last element reminded me of Kaaron Warren’s Walking the Tree. Part of the pleasure was discovering what Tidhar had written next in this world, which reminded me of Le Guin’s exquisite Hainish Cycle, where technology and mystical alien worlds have been married beautifully.
Whole review is here: http://www.innsmouthfreepress.com/?p=...
November 13, 2012
I can't resist something as unusual as science fiction that’s rooted in the cultures and language of the Pacific Islands – I don’t believe Bislama appears anywhere else on my bookshelves. Lavie Tidhar’s premise for Cloud Permutations is interesting too: on a colony world that has its cultural boundaries defined by clouds, Kal, a boy who want to fly, finds himself pulled onto a quest to find out the truth about his planet Heven and the colonists’ lost history. The novel comes in three parts all of which are interesting in different ways from the set-up to the sensawunda resolution, however it’s the second part that somehow feels the weakest because it seems to aspire to being nothing above and beyond a simple young-adult adventure, yet the first and third parts achieve much more so admirably. Tidhar has also crammed many familiar SF themes into this work; the end result is very good but it still left me wishing he had somehow gone deeper and explored Kal’s understanding of what he is discovering, something that seems to be consciously left out in order to preserve the novel’s central mystery. Certainly this is a highly original science fiction novella, but it’s also one that left me needing a little more than I was given.
January 3, 2012
"Cloud Permutations" lives up to the hype. I found myself caught up in the world from the start. It is a short book so it does not take long to read. "Planetary romance" is a classic form in science fiction. It describes a rousing adventure on another world. One of the old school authors of this genre was Leigh Brackett with her Eric John Stark adventures. I hope to read and review some of her work later this year. Tidhar does a solid job of settling up the mystery. You won't want to put this down once you start reading it.
While reading this story, I was taken back to 1976 and an issue of Analog that came in the mail. That issue featured a novella by George R. R. Martin and Lisa Tuttle that was called "The Storms of Windhaven". It was later expanded into a novel. The combination of Martin and Tuttle's styles hooked me with the first page. Both stories deal with someone who wants to fly on an alien world.
The two stories are different (Tidhar's stylistically is closer to a Cordwainer Smith tale) but both are excellent. Maybe more writers need to explore this type of planetary romance.
Highly recommended.
While reading this story, I was taken back to 1976 and an issue of Analog that came in the mail. That issue featured a novella by George R. R. Martin and Lisa Tuttle that was called "The Storms of Windhaven". It was later expanded into a novel. The combination of Martin and Tuttle's styles hooked me with the first page. Both stories deal with someone who wants to fly on an alien world.
The two stories are different (Tidhar's stylistically is closer to a Cordwainer Smith tale) but both are excellent. Maybe more writers need to explore this type of planetary romance.
Highly recommended.
September 30, 2013
I enjoyed this book even though it never really clicked with me. The mish-mash of Pacific Island culture, mysticism and SF was nice. I was bothered by a few elements that repeated in the book ( e.g. setting up a critical moment in the plot and then wrapping the resolution in how foggy the details were to Kal ). I couldn't tell if these were intentional, yet clumsy motifs or poor editing.
March 16, 2011
I fell in love with this book - didn't want it to end.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews