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Central Station
Neom
Machines roam the desert in search of purpose; works of art can be deadlier than weapons, and improbable love transcends the sands of time. From the multiaward-winning universe of Central Station, a complex desert-city of the future’s inhabitants rediscover passion while at the brink of revolution.
“Can we just all admit now that Lavie Tidhar’s a genius?�
—Daryl Gregory, award-winning author of Spoonbenders
The city known as Neom is many things to many beings, human or otherwise. Neom is a tech wonderland for the rich and beautiful; an urban sprawl along the Red Sea; and a port of call between Earth and the stars.
In the desert, young orphan Saleh has joined a caravan, hoping to earn his passage off-world from Central Station. But the desert is full of mechanical artefacts, some unexplained and some unexploded. Recently, a wry, unnamed robot has unearthed one of the region’s biggest mysteries: the vestiges of a golden man.
In Neom, childhood affection is rekindling between loyal shurta-officer Nasir and hardworking flower-seller Mariam. But Nasu, a deadly terrorartist, has come to the city with missing memories and unfinished business.
Just one robot can change a city’s destiny with a single rose—especially when that robot is in search of lost love.
“Can we just all admit now that Lavie Tidhar’s a genius?�
—Daryl Gregory, award-winning author of Spoonbenders
The city known as Neom is many things to many beings, human or otherwise. Neom is a tech wonderland for the rich and beautiful; an urban sprawl along the Red Sea; and a port of call between Earth and the stars.
In the desert, young orphan Saleh has joined a caravan, hoping to earn his passage off-world from Central Station. But the desert is full of mechanical artefacts, some unexplained and some unexploded. Recently, a wry, unnamed robot has unearthed one of the region’s biggest mysteries: the vestiges of a golden man.
In Neom, childhood affection is rekindling between loyal shurta-officer Nasir and hardworking flower-seller Mariam. But Nasu, a deadly terrorartist, has come to the city with missing memories and unfinished business.
Just one robot can change a city’s destiny with a single rose—especially when that robot is in search of lost love.
256 pages, Paperback
First published November 8, 2022
27 people are currently reading
2,912 people want to read
About the author
Lavie Tidhar
377books721followersLavie 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.
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 187 reviews
April 13, 2023
I enjoyed this, especially in the second half, when the story came together. But overall, I was underwhelmed. There are a few ideas I loved—the terrorartists, for example, who turn mass death into art, highlighting one of the book's most interesting themes: the aesthetic qualities of extreme violence (a topic beaten to death in cinema but rarely explored as gently or whimsically as here). On the whole, however, I found the world building unconvincing. The mind-boggling scale of technological change Tidhar imagines is not adequately reflected in the book’s cultures or characters, which makes the setting feel shallow—a series of painted backdrops rather than a world. The prose is lovely, but weighed down at times by a certain false profundity. “Things change. Journeys end,� etc. etc.
If a book doesn’t feel lived in by its own characters, how on earth am I, a mere reader, supposed to take up residence? But I am being far too harsh. There is plenty of excellent writing here, and a good story, and ample imagination, and playfulness. I'm glad I read it.
If a book doesn’t feel lived in by its own characters, how on earth am I, a mere reader, supposed to take up residence? But I am being far too harsh. There is plenty of excellent writing here, and a good story, and ample imagination, and playfulness. I'm glad I read it.
November 19, 2022
"Somewhere between Bethlehem and Mecca lay Neom, city of futurity, where fortunes are made, and faiths are lost."
Leave it to Tidhar to write a far-future sci-fi fable about a messianic robot.
Honestly, that could be the whole review: if that concept doesn’t intrigue you, or if you’ve read Tidhar before and don’t get excited that he explored that idea, I’m not sure what else I can say that should convince you to read “Neom�. It expands the world-building encountered in “Central Station�, with robots, deep space exploration, off-planet colonies, data vampirism and a planet slowly recovering from multiple wars and climate-related disasters.
But Lavie Tidhar is not a hard sci-fi guy: his writing is rich in deeply human emotions and longing, even when his characters are not really humans. In “Neom�, he focuses on a handful of characters who lead ordinary lives at the periphery of a huge, luxurious city by the Red Sea. But their quiet existence will change when a robot walks into a flower market and is offered a rose by Mariam, a woman who works multiple little jobs in the city. This interaction is the spark that ignites a fire no inhabitant of Neom could have expected.
As usual, the settings Tidhar dreams up are rich, beautiful, squalid and romantic all at once; they have a dream-like quality, but also feel very real, which is a fine balancing act on his part. “Neom� is a novella, so we only really get a glimpse at his characters, but I finished the book longing to spend more time with them, to see where they will go from here.
Obviously, I am a huge fan of this man’s work, and I think everyone should read it, but this may not be the best place to start. However, once you have explored Tidhar’s catalogue a bit more, this short book is an amazing addition to an already impressive collection.
Leave it to Tidhar to write a far-future sci-fi fable about a messianic robot.
Honestly, that could be the whole review: if that concept doesn’t intrigue you, or if you’ve read Tidhar before and don’t get excited that he explored that idea, I’m not sure what else I can say that should convince you to read “Neom�. It expands the world-building encountered in “Central Station�, with robots, deep space exploration, off-planet colonies, data vampirism and a planet slowly recovering from multiple wars and climate-related disasters.
But Lavie Tidhar is not a hard sci-fi guy: his writing is rich in deeply human emotions and longing, even when his characters are not really humans. In “Neom�, he focuses on a handful of characters who lead ordinary lives at the periphery of a huge, luxurious city by the Red Sea. But their quiet existence will change when a robot walks into a flower market and is offered a rose by Mariam, a woman who works multiple little jobs in the city. This interaction is the spark that ignites a fire no inhabitant of Neom could have expected.
As usual, the settings Tidhar dreams up are rich, beautiful, squalid and romantic all at once; they have a dream-like quality, but also feel very real, which is a fine balancing act on his part. “Neom� is a novella, so we only really get a glimpse at his characters, but I finished the book longing to spend more time with them, to see where they will go from here.
Obviously, I am a huge fan of this man’s work, and I think everyone should read it, but this may not be the best place to start. However, once you have explored Tidhar’s catalogue a bit more, this short book is an amazing addition to an already impressive collection.
November 9, 2022
PUBLICATION DAY!
“The hardest thing to kill is truth.�
This is Central Station, As far as the future and who can say how distant that is?
Beyond Central Station, in the old Saudi desert, where a vast spaceport links Earth to the teeming world of the solar system, there is a city called Neom.
This is a time after mad artists who took delight in destruction and death, making mass death and destruction into art for serving falsehood, a time after assassin robots and in the time of the robotic world.
But this is not the story, STORY is about a few ordinary people in an accidental encounter caus great danger, wake up WAR!
Mariam did not consider herself in the least bit old. It was more of that in-between time, when life finds a way to remind you of both what you’d lost and what lay still ahead.
Mariam had grown up in a city for the rich and the rich needed the poor in order to be rich. Neom was the sole green point across the harsh and unforgiving sand. And one of the things Mariam does for a living is being a florist.
“Flowers fascinate me,� the robot said, ignoring the question. “How humans use them as symbols. As a declaration of love, for instance. Or to signify mourning.�
This was a beautiful book, I am always fascinated by Lavie Tidhar's writing style, the emotion flowing on, the heart you hear its broking sound, it is rare, unique.
Many thanks to Tachyon Publications via NetGalley for giving me chance to read this great book, I have given my honest review.
Pub Date 09 Nov 2022
“The hardest thing to kill is truth.�
This is Central Station, As far as the future and who can say how distant that is?
Beyond Central Station, in the old Saudi desert, where a vast spaceport links Earth to the teeming world of the solar system, there is a city called Neom.
This is a time after mad artists who took delight in destruction and death, making mass death and destruction into art for serving falsehood, a time after assassin robots and in the time of the robotic world.
But this is not the story, STORY is about a few ordinary people in an accidental encounter caus great danger, wake up WAR!
Mariam did not consider herself in the least bit old. It was more of that in-between time, when life finds a way to remind you of both what you’d lost and what lay still ahead.
Mariam had grown up in a city for the rich and the rich needed the poor in order to be rich. Neom was the sole green point across the harsh and unforgiving sand. And one of the things Mariam does for a living is being a florist.
“Flowers fascinate me,� the robot said, ignoring the question. “How humans use them as symbols. As a declaration of love, for instance. Or to signify mourning.�
This was a beautiful book, I am always fascinated by Lavie Tidhar's writing style, the emotion flowing on, the heart you hear its broking sound, it is rare, unique.
Many thanks to Tachyon Publications via NetGalley for giving me chance to read this great book, I have given my honest review.
Pub Date 09 Nov 2022
February 19, 2023
4.0 Stars
This was a lovely piece of science fiction, set in the world of Central Station. I haven't read that novel yet, but I definitely want to now.
In terms of pacing, this one is very slow. In fact, the plot really takes a backseat to the worldbuilding. This is where the book shines. I loved spending time in this world. Through this short novel, the author explores so many themes from economic class to personhood.
I would recommend this one to readers who enjoy intellectual science fiction that explores ideas in a quiet, yet fascinating way.
Disclaimer I received a copy of this book from the publisher.
This was a lovely piece of science fiction, set in the world of Central Station. I haven't read that novel yet, but I definitely want to now.
In terms of pacing, this one is very slow. In fact, the plot really takes a backseat to the worldbuilding. This is where the book shines. I loved spending time in this world. Through this short novel, the author explores so many themes from economic class to personhood.
I would recommend this one to readers who enjoy intellectual science fiction that explores ideas in a quiet, yet fascinating way.
Disclaimer I received a copy of this book from the publisher.
November 17, 2022
I was starting to get worried as even if I've read many five stars this year no one particular was standing out to perhaps becoming "the best read of 2022". But now finally I've found one contender. Hooked me from the start and was the most emersive and intruiging audiobook of the year. Definitely need to read more from Lavie Tidhar. Luckily my bookapp as qa few more books
June 19, 2023
I'm going to be participating in a discussion about this book in a few days, and don't want to overthink things ahead of time, so a short not-much-of-a-review will have to suffice.
What I liked best about this book was how it evoked a future Earth--and solar system--full of age, conflicts, and mysteries both unnknowable, and potentially knowable. The approach to the characters was similar. The plot was fairly simple, but I liked how it ended with a feeling .
I was pleased to see that Tidhar was inspired by Cordwainer Smith's short stories. The glossary at the end showed some of the imagination that went into his future history, and was enjoyable to read all by itself. . . although, as often happens with SFF glossaries, my energy started flagging about halfway through the alphabet.
What I liked best about this book was how it evoked a future Earth--and solar system--full of age, conflicts, and mysteries both unnknowable, and potentially knowable. The approach to the characters was similar. The plot was fairly simple, but I liked how it ended with a feeling .
I was pleased to see that Tidhar was inspired by Cordwainer Smith's short stories. The glossary at the end showed some of the imagination that went into his future history, and was enjoyable to read all by itself. . . although, as often happens with SFF glossaries, my energy started flagging about halfway through the alphabet.
June 21, 2023
I really enjoyed this a lot. Its subtle, lyrical, allegorical prose; its hopefulness; it’s humor; and its inventiveness were all extremely welcome. I look forward to seeking out more of Tidhar’s work.
April 17, 2023
This has the disjointed feel of a fix up novel, yet Tidhar manages to brilliantly weave together the disparate threads in unexpected ways. A "golden man" robot messiah, terror art, long forgotten wars whose relics lie buried beneath the desert sands and still threaten the present, glaring juxtapositions of the ancient and futurity and long journeys that lead full circle are all ingredients in the grand themes of rebirth, self discovery and compassion.
November 6, 2022
*4.5 rounded up*
After reading Central Station a few years ago and loving it, I was beyond excited to read Tidhar’s latest sci fi novel, Neom, set in the same world. Tidhar has always been a writer with an amazing imagination, so I had high expectations for his latest story.
And I have to say he delivered! Tidhar’s a masterful world-builder, especially if you are reading this book with the context of Central Station in mind. But even if you haven’t read Central Station, it’s still an immersive, literary sci fi, rich in ideas and creativity.
From mecha to giant buried robots, from desert nomads to a boy and his jackal companion, Tidhar’s creates a rich and detailed world in a short amount of time. His fictional city, Neom, is based on the construction and vision of a real life city also called Neom, which plans on incorporating smart city technology but also placing a high value on the environment. Tidhar envisions what a city like this might be like in a world set in the not too distant future.
While I do think that Tidhar’s character work is the weakest part of his writing, each character brought something interesting into the overall conversation of the book. All the character development was subtle and nuanced. The characters were used to discuss thought-provoking ideas and expand on the rich themes being explored.
If you love literary science fiction, if you love a slow story rich in detail and ideas, and if you appreciate an author who places a high premium on originality, that I’d highly recommend picking up Neom.
*Thank you so much to NetGalley and Tachyon Publications for the digital arc. All opinions are my own.
After reading Central Station a few years ago and loving it, I was beyond excited to read Tidhar’s latest sci fi novel, Neom, set in the same world. Tidhar has always been a writer with an amazing imagination, so I had high expectations for his latest story.
And I have to say he delivered! Tidhar’s a masterful world-builder, especially if you are reading this book with the context of Central Station in mind. But even if you haven’t read Central Station, it’s still an immersive, literary sci fi, rich in ideas and creativity.
From mecha to giant buried robots, from desert nomads to a boy and his jackal companion, Tidhar’s creates a rich and detailed world in a short amount of time. His fictional city, Neom, is based on the construction and vision of a real life city also called Neom, which plans on incorporating smart city technology but also placing a high value on the environment. Tidhar envisions what a city like this might be like in a world set in the not too distant future.
While I do think that Tidhar’s character work is the weakest part of his writing, each character brought something interesting into the overall conversation of the book. All the character development was subtle and nuanced. The characters were used to discuss thought-provoking ideas and expand on the rich themes being explored.
If you love literary science fiction, if you love a slow story rich in detail and ideas, and if you appreciate an author who places a high premium on originality, that I’d highly recommend picking up Neom.
*Thank you so much to NetGalley and Tachyon Publications for the digital arc. All opinions are my own.
May 15, 2022
In Neom, Tidhar returns to the world of the Central Station spaceport outside Tel Aviv, but this time concentrating on the hinterlands along the Red Sea where a new city on the Arabian peninsula was created. A robot leftover from the last war wanders into town and visits a woman in a flowershop, digs up a man of gold, and enjoys (sort of) a strawberry milkshake in a malt shop. The plot doesn’t get much more dense than that, not even when a wandering boy and a jackal wander into town. Think poetic visions rather than galloping around the plot track. Life, the Universe, and Everything in a damn nutshell.
May 3, 2023
Stars: 3 out of 5
I'm not sure how I feel about this book. The prose is beautiful, and some of the themes are sufficiently nostalgic to be interesting. It also feels heartfelt. In a way, it reminds me of a mosaic. Each individual piece is like a gem, beautiful and shiny on its own. But when you try to put all those gems together to form a picture, you realize that they don't quite fit, that the author was more interested in those individual gems than in telling a coherent story.
There are too many points of view, and even though some of those characters are interesting in their own right, we don't spend enough time with them to really get to know them. We just hop to another shiny gem, then another. Which makes these encounters only surface deep. We simply don't get to know these characters well enough to care what happens to them, not that any of them ever were in serious danger to start with.
And that's my second complaint about this story - there are no stakes, there is no tension, there is no danger. At no point in the narration did I have the impression that the characters were dealing with a life and death situation, or something life-altering, or heck, even important. We have all these weapons, and robots, and echoes from past wars all over the place, but the story lacks teeth. Even the climax of the story, when the golden man is awake and all those weapons are headed for the city, is written in such a way that there is no tension to it... Probably because you can't really care for characters you aren't invested in.
Seriously, what was the point of this book? To proselytize about the human condition and what makes us an individual versus a machine? Other books have done this better and kept the tension going. To reflect on the consequences of war and the emotional toll it has on all participants? Again, there are better books about that as well. I would suggest reading by Ian M Banks, for example.
The worldbuilding is interesting, with hints and past wars and events that I would have loved to explore more. Humanity has pretty much colonized the whole solar system, as well as the deep oceans on Earth... yet the desert and the city of Neom feels very 21st century Dubai. Are you telling me that hundreds of years into the future, when we terraformed Mars and the Moon, we still haven't figured out how to restore our own ecosystem?
Another issue is that the characters don't seem to "live in" the advanced word that is described to us. It's more like they have been dropped into it without being fully integrated. They act and behave like people from our century, instead of humans who have augments and implants and all the advanced technologies. In fact, there is very little of those technologies shown in day to day life.
So this leaves me with a conundrum - I enjoyed the writing, but the story is utterly forgettable. In fact, I can't even name any of the characters now that I've finished it.
PS: I received an advanced copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I'm not sure how I feel about this book. The prose is beautiful, and some of the themes are sufficiently nostalgic to be interesting. It also feels heartfelt. In a way, it reminds me of a mosaic. Each individual piece is like a gem, beautiful and shiny on its own. But when you try to put all those gems together to form a picture, you realize that they don't quite fit, that the author was more interested in those individual gems than in telling a coherent story.
There are too many points of view, and even though some of those characters are interesting in their own right, we don't spend enough time with them to really get to know them. We just hop to another shiny gem, then another. Which makes these encounters only surface deep. We simply don't get to know these characters well enough to care what happens to them, not that any of them ever were in serious danger to start with.
And that's my second complaint about this story - there are no stakes, there is no tension, there is no danger. At no point in the narration did I have the impression that the characters were dealing with a life and death situation, or something life-altering, or heck, even important. We have all these weapons, and robots, and echoes from past wars all over the place, but the story lacks teeth. Even the climax of the story, when the golden man is awake and all those weapons are headed for the city, is written in such a way that there is no tension to it... Probably because you can't really care for characters you aren't invested in.
Seriously, what was the point of this book? To proselytize about the human condition and what makes us an individual versus a machine? Other books have done this better and kept the tension going. To reflect on the consequences of war and the emotional toll it has on all participants? Again, there are better books about that as well. I would suggest reading by Ian M Banks, for example.
The worldbuilding is interesting, with hints and past wars and events that I would have loved to explore more. Humanity has pretty much colonized the whole solar system, as well as the deep oceans on Earth... yet the desert and the city of Neom feels very 21st century Dubai. Are you telling me that hundreds of years into the future, when we terraformed Mars and the Moon, we still haven't figured out how to restore our own ecosystem?
Another issue is that the characters don't seem to "live in" the advanced word that is described to us. It's more like they have been dropped into it without being fully integrated. They act and behave like people from our century, instead of humans who have augments and implants and all the advanced technologies. In fact, there is very little of those technologies shown in day to day life.
So this leaves me with a conundrum - I enjoyed the writing, but the story is utterly forgettable. In fact, I can't even name any of the characters now that I've finished it.
PS: I received an advanced copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
July 24, 2023
This felt like a series of short stories. I'm not sure what it added up to, but individually, I liked the stories.
CONTENT WARNING:
Things to appreciate:
-SF about refugees. SF is often a "safe space" to explore modern issues, and this one tackles life in, say, Syria, or Palestine. An interesting take from a person who often intersects a love of their Jewish faith and SF as a whole. I think this was in many ways very smart.
-Characters. Lots of very sympathetic and poignant characters.
-World. Dark, fascinating, well conceived place based on the current planned city of Neom
Things that didn't work for me:
-Strong biblical reference. What was the point of this inclusion? I have theories, they just don't jive with the rest of the story.
-How things jive in the story. They just don't. Each aspect is interesting, I just don't see the connective tissue among all the threads.
Definitely interesting with lots to discuss, just needed a stronger through-plot.
CONTENT WARNING:
Things to appreciate:
-SF about refugees. SF is often a "safe space" to explore modern issues, and this one tackles life in, say, Syria, or Palestine. An interesting take from a person who often intersects a love of their Jewish faith and SF as a whole. I think this was in many ways very smart.
-Characters. Lots of very sympathetic and poignant characters.
-World. Dark, fascinating, well conceived place based on the current planned city of Neom
Things that didn't work for me:
-Strong biblical reference. What was the point of this inclusion? I have theories, they just don't jive with the rest of the story.
-How things jive in the story. They just don't. Each aspect is interesting, I just don't see the connective tissue among all the threads.
Definitely interesting with lots to discuss, just needed a stronger through-plot.
November 3, 2022
Neom is an unusual case where there are some interesting ideas in world-building, and moments I connected with what was happening with characters. But overall I found myself bored and wanting a more compelling narrative to tie together the disparate characters and pieces of the world. This is science fiction, set in a futuristic version of the Middle East where much of humanity has left earth, there are robots walking about, and relics of past ages being unearthed and sold to collectors.
This touches on oft-explored sci-fi questions of humanity versus AI and what makes someone a person, though I can't say I found anything particularly fresh in this version of it. There are seeds of ideas and characters that have potential, but they never went anywhere that made me truly invested in the story. The prose is nice, the setting of these desert cities well-evoked, but even with the ending which I think is intended to be climactic, I'm left wondering where the emotional impact is. And I think that's really the problem for me- this book isn't bad, I just found it to be rather bland. Which is unfortunate. I received a copy of this book for review from the publisher, all opinions are my own.
This touches on oft-explored sci-fi questions of humanity versus AI and what makes someone a person, though I can't say I found anything particularly fresh in this version of it. There are seeds of ideas and characters that have potential, but they never went anywhere that made me truly invested in the story. The prose is nice, the setting of these desert cities well-evoked, but even with the ending which I think is intended to be climactic, I'm left wondering where the emotional impact is. And I think that's really the problem for me- this book isn't bad, I just found it to be rather bland. Which is unfortunate. I received a copy of this book for review from the publisher, all opinions are my own.
May 30, 2023
Neom is my first by Tidhar. He’s won many sci-fi awards: Campbell, Clark, World Fantasy, British Sci-Fi and Fantasy, Xingyun, Neukom, etc. I’m not surprised. Neom fizzes with big ideas ala William Gibson, though to his immense credit they are all (mostly) in service of story vs Gibson’s penchant for throwing in every random thought that pops into his head, narrative be damned, the The Peripheral for example.
The first 2/3 of Neom is fascinating. Its setting is the now being constructed in the northwest corner of Saudi Arabia on the shore of the Red Sea, centuries into the future. In the book, the city is characterized as little more than an airport for decades before being completed, and that’s about where the actual Neom stands today. Begun in 2017 and planned for completion in 2030, it is today an airport and two buildings. Note Saudi Arabia’s equally ambitious The Line project, a 170-kilometre-long (110 mi) linear smart city through the Arabian desert is supposed to begin at the current Neom. In Tidhar’s book, it’s never built, which feels correct.
The Neom in the book matches the vision of the current Neom: an ultra high tech smart city for the uber rich, served by an underclass of non Saudi migrants and poor, mirroring Saudi Arabia’s current social structure. In Neom, we meet Miriam, a poor servant girl, Mukhtar, an antiques and artifacts dealer, Sharif, a fixer of all things mechanical, specializing in robots, and Nasir, a policeman who does little more than issue littering citations because in Neom there are few laws and the rich can only be prosecuted by other rich. They are wonderful. Well drawn and alive with hopes and dreams.
Outside Neom is as today the desert. Centuries of war have turned most of the rest of the Middle East into a wasteland, populated by a few bedouins, the occasional caravan, and crawling with AI driven war machines and unexploded ordinance - UXO’s. The region is also populated by “art installations,� created by terror artists with weapons of mass destruction, for example Dahab where an “artist� set off a time dilation bomb that centuries later within its time bubble is still exploding, shrapnel still flying, and people still dying at a glacial pace. From this region, comes Saleh, an orphan boy who has taken from the Dahab bubble a dangerous prize. Add in a late arriving robot assassin from the stars and Tidier has all the elements for scintillating read. Except�
The later third evolves into a quasi-biblical tale that simply goes no where. The premise is interesting: Terrorartist Nasu asks:
I won’t give away the ending, but suffice to say it is far less than you might imagine. And pretty pointless. So, a novel of great promise unfulfilled - 3.5 stars when it could have been 4 or 5. But even so a fascinating read. On my buy, borrow, skip scale: a strong borrow. I’ll certainly read more of Tidhar.
I’ll close with a quick word about Tidhar’s writing. Unlike most novelists, Tidhar’s writing is delightfully spare and unadorned. Succinct. Description is at a minimum. The vast majority of the narrative is revealed via dialogue. A refreshing change from the bloat in most novels today wherein a 200 page story is expanded to 400 or even 800 pages to no purpose other than word/page count (see Stephenson, Gibson, GRR Martin, Sanderson, et. al). Tidhar’s writing feels old-school and I like it.
The first 2/3 of Neom is fascinating. Its setting is the now being constructed in the northwest corner of Saudi Arabia on the shore of the Red Sea, centuries into the future. In the book, the city is characterized as little more than an airport for decades before being completed, and that’s about where the actual Neom stands today. Begun in 2017 and planned for completion in 2030, it is today an airport and two buildings. Note Saudi Arabia’s equally ambitious The Line project, a 170-kilometre-long (110 mi) linear smart city through the Arabian desert is supposed to begin at the current Neom. In Tidhar’s book, it’s never built, which feels correct.
The Neom in the book matches the vision of the current Neom: an ultra high tech smart city for the uber rich, served by an underclass of non Saudi migrants and poor, mirroring Saudi Arabia’s current social structure. In Neom, we meet Miriam, a poor servant girl, Mukhtar, an antiques and artifacts dealer, Sharif, a fixer of all things mechanical, specializing in robots, and Nasir, a policeman who does little more than issue littering citations because in Neom there are few laws and the rich can only be prosecuted by other rich. They are wonderful. Well drawn and alive with hopes and dreams.
Outside Neom is as today the desert. Centuries of war have turned most of the rest of the Middle East into a wasteland, populated by a few bedouins, the occasional caravan, and crawling with AI driven war machines and unexploded ordinance - UXO’s. The region is also populated by “art installations,� created by terror artists with weapons of mass destruction, for example Dahab where an “artist� set off a time dilation bomb that centuries later within its time bubble is still exploding, shrapnel still flying, and people still dying at a glacial pace. From this region, comes Saleh, an orphan boy who has taken from the Dahab bubble a dangerous prize. Add in a late arriving robot assassin from the stars and Tidier has all the elements for scintillating read. Except�
The later third evolves into a quasi-biblical tale that simply goes no where. The premise is interesting: Terrorartist Nasu asks:
Could you make faith into a program? Could you code belief. Religions propagated much like viruses. They evolved, spread, died. They were a constant like disease or death or new ideas. Religion was part of people. And what were robots but beings cast in humanity's mould?What might an army of AI driven war machines do with religion?
I won’t give away the ending, but suffice to say it is far less than you might imagine. And pretty pointless. So, a novel of great promise unfulfilled - 3.5 stars when it could have been 4 or 5. But even so a fascinating read. On my buy, borrow, skip scale: a strong borrow. I’ll certainly read more of Tidhar.
I’ll close with a quick word about Tidhar’s writing. Unlike most novelists, Tidhar’s writing is delightfully spare and unadorned. Succinct. Description is at a minimum. The vast majority of the narrative is revealed via dialogue. A refreshing change from the bloat in most novels today wherein a 200 page story is expanded to 400 or even 800 pages to no purpose other than word/page count (see Stephenson, Gibson, GRR Martin, Sanderson, et. al). Tidhar’s writing feels old-school and I like it.
May 19, 2022
Every time I turn around Lavie Tidhar has published another novel. I’ve only had the chance to read , which I loved, but each book he puts out sounds imaginative and entirely original. With Neom, Tidhar returns to the world of his most popular book, . Having not read it, I was unsure if I’d be missing the proper context to evaluate this one, but Neom works perfectly well as a standalone story.
Neom is (or at least was) a techno-paradise in the Arabian Peninsula, surrounded by remnants of the endless wars that once ravaged the desert. We’re introduced to several inhabitants of Neom and its surrounding environment. These folks, both human and robot alike, grapple with surface level post-war scars/memories and ones that must be, both literally and figuratively, dug up.
This was superb and I’m in awe of Tidhar’s vision. He’s conjured up a futuristic city that feels simultaneously ultramodern and also run down. The rich histories of the region and its cultures are seamlessly interwoven into the fabric of this fully-realized world. Tidhar writes beautifully, as well. The chapters fly by as the seemingly disparate lives and motivations of the characters tidily intertwine, as Tidhar explores the nature of belief, memory, and love.
I’ll surely seek out more of Tidhar’s back catalog, including Central Station, as well as whatever he thinks up next. He’s clearly producing some really outstanding science fiction right now.
See this review and others at .
Neom is (or at least was) a techno-paradise in the Arabian Peninsula, surrounded by remnants of the endless wars that once ravaged the desert. We’re introduced to several inhabitants of Neom and its surrounding environment. These folks, both human and robot alike, grapple with surface level post-war scars/memories and ones that must be, both literally and figuratively, dug up.
This was superb and I’m in awe of Tidhar’s vision. He’s conjured up a futuristic city that feels simultaneously ultramodern and also run down. The rich histories of the region and its cultures are seamlessly interwoven into the fabric of this fully-realized world. Tidhar writes beautifully, as well. The chapters fly by as the seemingly disparate lives and motivations of the characters tidily intertwine, as Tidhar explores the nature of belief, memory, and love.
I’ll surely seek out more of Tidhar’s back catalog, including Central Station, as well as whatever he thinks up next. He’s clearly producing some really outstanding science fiction right now.
See this review and others at .
November 7, 2022
Fantástica novela situada en el universo de Central Station. Con muchas ganas de que Tidhar vuelva a él.
March 10, 2025
Wow. More of an appendix than a sequel to Central Station. But it's clear Tidhar has struck gold. This is his future Future History. The writing style is like Bradbury and Iain Banks had a robot baby that is both cute and has a miniature black hole for a heart. It is that good, and that weird.
June 10, 2023
Although this book stands alone, it was still kind of another one of my series-sampling audio listens because I had read that there was another previously-written book set in the same universe. If I had enjoyed this a lot, I might have planned to go back and read both books in publication order in a print format someday, after waiting to see if the author intended to write more in the setting. I didn’t enjoy this very much though, so I’m really glad I didn’t let it eat into my currently limited print reading time.
Audio Narration
The narrator is Rasha Zamamiri. Her style didn’t work well for me. I felt like she tried too hard to be dramatic, and it didn’t mesh well with how I personally would have interpreted the text. For example, she often made characters sound confused or shocked or amazed when I didn’t think the actual words of the story justified it. I was frequently distracted by that.
I also had some trouble distinguishing character voices. The text was probably perfectly clear if read in print where you can see the paragraph breaks, but it didn’t always identify who was speaking in a way that came through clearly for an audiobook if the narrator didn't use more distinctive voices.
Story
The story is set on Earth in the distant future. Many robots and other mechanical creatures, some of which were sentient, were created to help fight wars in the distant past. Now most of that old technology is broken or lost to time, but there are still some creatures wandering around, including a sentient robot who plays a large role in events.
The story didn’t hold my attention well at all, and it seemed to rely on a series of coincidences. For a while I thought somebody was manipulating events, but I think that wasn’t actually the case. Saleh’s story interested me a little, but it was only a small slice of the book and I wanted more background and details than what was provided. The world-building was interesting and creative, but that in itself wasn’t enough to hold my attention. I might actually have enjoyed it more if it were longer, with more fleshed out stories to pull me into the world more deeply and to give me a greater investment in the characters. On the other hand, if I didn’t enjoy it in this short form, a longer form might have just felt more torturous.
I think I may have missed some things due to inattention, or else not everything was followed through on. For example, it was never clear to me exactly what happened to . But I truly spaced out a lot during this audiobook, so I wouldn’t trust any of my plot-based complaints about the story. All the answers may have been there and I just failed to listen to them.
At least it was short at only a little over five hours. It did feel like an awfully long five hours, though!
Audio Narration
The narrator is Rasha Zamamiri. Her style didn’t work well for me. I felt like she tried too hard to be dramatic, and it didn’t mesh well with how I personally would have interpreted the text. For example, she often made characters sound confused or shocked or amazed when I didn’t think the actual words of the story justified it. I was frequently distracted by that.
I also had some trouble distinguishing character voices. The text was probably perfectly clear if read in print where you can see the paragraph breaks, but it didn’t always identify who was speaking in a way that came through clearly for an audiobook if the narrator didn't use more distinctive voices.
Story
The story is set on Earth in the distant future. Many robots and other mechanical creatures, some of which were sentient, were created to help fight wars in the distant past. Now most of that old technology is broken or lost to time, but there are still some creatures wandering around, including a sentient robot who plays a large role in events.
The story didn’t hold my attention well at all, and it seemed to rely on a series of coincidences. For a while I thought somebody was manipulating events, but I think that wasn’t actually the case. Saleh’s story interested me a little, but it was only a small slice of the book and I wanted more background and details than what was provided. The world-building was interesting and creative, but that in itself wasn’t enough to hold my attention. I might actually have enjoyed it more if it were longer, with more fleshed out stories to pull me into the world more deeply and to give me a greater investment in the characters. On the other hand, if I didn’t enjoy it in this short form, a longer form might have just felt more torturous.
I think I may have missed some things due to inattention, or else not everything was followed through on. For example, it was never clear to me exactly what happened to . But I truly spaced out a lot during this audiobook, so I wouldn’t trust any of my plot-based complaints about the story. All the answers may have been there and I just failed to listen to them.
At least it was short at only a little over five hours. It did feel like an awfully long five hours, though!
June 11, 2023
‘Neom� by Lavie Tidhar felt like it was incomplete to me. But what plot that does exist is marvelous. The author created a wondrously imagined city, Neom, populated by bio-mechanically enhanced people with some new and a lot more of repaired technology. There are many varieties of robots, most of them abandoned and banished by people in past wars, making homes in the nearby Saudi desert. Tidhar takes his time in introducing characters (my favorite is an enhanced jackal called Anubis) and in describing the postwar Middle East environment they live in.
Neom is a very very old city in the far future, so it’s full of mixed-up patched-together places and technology. But it’s still obviously quite vibrant with local commerce and services.
The book posits a number of horrible wars have happened with terrible diseases unleashed which have run their courses. Deadly robots, sentient and simple AI varieties, roam about the Saudi desert, lost and forlorn, wearing out, directionless now that their original war-time controllers are long gone. They appear to be seeking purpose. A starship has crashed into the sands at some point a long time ago, but no one knows where it is from or who built it, or cares. There are rumors a race of beings or something is out there, far out there, in the solar system, but no one really cares a lot about that, either. Robots that have been given human minds (and who can pass as real humans) have explored many of the solar system’s planets and moons, along with humans. This is a future where everything appears to me to be a little tired, somewhat jaded and worn, but people are getting on with their lives. The robots are very sad, but not people.
However, after giving readers a thoroughly delightful tour of Neom and the Saudi desert, and cleverly arranging for each of the many protagonists to unknowingly work as agents that help connect plot dots in a mysterious plan, the author seemingly in a rush ends the story in a quick finish.
I have copied the book blurb:
”Machines roam the desert in search of purpose; works of art can be deadlier than weapons, and improbable love transcends the sands of time. From the multiaward-winning universe of Central Station, a complex desert-city of the future’s inhabitants rediscover passion while at the brink of revolution.
“Can we just all admit now that Lavie Tidhar’s a genius?�
—Daryl Gregory, award-winning author of Spoonbenders
The city known as Neom is many things to many beings, human or otherwise. Neom is a tech wonderland for the rich and beautiful; an urban sprawl along the Red Sea; and a port of call between Earth and the stars.
In the desert, young orphan Saleh has joined a caravan, hoping to earn his passage off-world from Central Station. But the desert is full of mechanical artefacts, some unexplained and some unexploded. Recently, a wry, unnamed robot has unearthed one of the region’s biggest mysteries: the vestiges of a golden man.
In Neom, childhood affection is rekindling between loyal shurta-officer Nasir and hardworking flower-seller Mariam. But Nasu, a deadly terrorartist, has come to the city with missing memories and unfinished business.
Just one robot can change a city’s destiny with a single rose—especially when that robot is in search of lost love.�
I really liked the world-building and the characters, but I felt the book ended too abruptly. The novel is a speculative mix of hard science fiction and AI robot development, but it also was a lot of cozy-level thrills, imho, a surprise! It is being called a future history by many reviewers, and I agree with that. There are a lot of hidden references to other novels (and even a biblical myth), and I think the book as a result feels tongue-in-cheek.
While this short novel is full of amazing marvels engineered in the inventive mind of Lavie Tidhar, I think Tidhar’s imagination has been upstaged by the Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman's.
The city of Neom is being built right now in Saudi Arabia, not kidding, this is real:
”Neom (styled NEOM; Arabic: نيوم, romanized:Niyūm, Hejazi pronunciation:[nɪˈjo̞ːm]) is a planned smart city in Tabuk Province in northwestern Saudi Arabia. The site is north of the Red Sea, east of Egypt across the Gulf of Aqaba and south of Jordan. The total area of Neom is 26,500km2 (10,200sqmi). The city's plans include multiple regions, including a floating industrial complex, global trade hub, tourist resorts and a linear city—all powered exclusively by renewable energy sources.
Developers intend for the majority of the city to be completed by 2039. Experts have expressed skepticism about the ambitions of the megaproject. Saudi Arabia originally aimed to complete major parts of the project by 2020, with an expansion completed in 2025, but then fell behind schedule. By July 2022, only two buildings had been constructed, and most of the project area remained bare desert.
The project's estimated cost exceeds $500 billion. On January 29, 2019, Saudi Arabia announced that it had established a closed joint-stock company named Neom. The company is wholly owned by the Public Investment Fund and is solely dedicated to developing the economic zone of Neom.
Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman announced plans for the city at the Future Investment Initiative conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on October 24, 2017. He said that it would operate independently from the “existing governmental framework� with its own tax and labour laws and an "autonomous judicial system." Egypt announced in 2018 that it would contribute some land to the Neom project.
Klaus Kleinfeld was announced by Muhammed bin Salman as the inaugural director for the Neom project upon its launch. In 2018, Kleinfeld signed Gladstone Place Partners LLC to handle communications services for the Neom project for a fee of $199,500 plus expenses of $45,000. On July 3, 2018, Kleinfeld was announced as an advisor to bin Salman and Nadhmi Al-Nasr as the new director of Neom, both roles taking effect on 1 August 2018.
The initiative to create the city of Neom emerged from Saudi Vision 2030, a plan to reduce Saudi Arabia's dependence on oil, diversify its economy and develop public-service sectors. Plans call for robots to perform functions such as security, logistics, home delivery and caregiving and for the city to be powered solely with wind and solar power.
The first phase of the project is scheduled for completion by 2025.�
This is a promotional video made by the Saudis:
There is a lot of controversy about this project, and a lot of doubt if Neom will be finished at all, but construction is happening as I write this review.
The weirdest part of Neom is a development called “The Line�:
In January 2021, the project unveiled plans for The Line, a linear city 170 kilometres (110mi) long and 200 metres (660ft) wide within the Neom area. The design for The Line was further modified in July 2022, scrapping the original idea for multiple buildings on a linear plan, instead combining the buildings into one continuous structure with an entirely glass mirror exterior. The car-free city is planned to be large enough to house nine million residents within walkable communities, with all basic services within a five-minute walking distance.�
However, The Line is not the only planned complex that is linked to Neom. There will be a port, an airport, a floating industrial complex, an outdoor skiing destination, a luxury resort, and a huge agricultural farm of genetically engineered crops.
Let’s hope the wars that Tidhar is predicting in his novel ‘Neom� remain in the fictional realm.
Neom is a very very old city in the far future, so it’s full of mixed-up patched-together places and technology. But it’s still obviously quite vibrant with local commerce and services.
The book posits a number of horrible wars have happened with terrible diseases unleashed which have run their courses. Deadly robots, sentient and simple AI varieties, roam about the Saudi desert, lost and forlorn, wearing out, directionless now that their original war-time controllers are long gone. They appear to be seeking purpose. A starship has crashed into the sands at some point a long time ago, but no one knows where it is from or who built it, or cares. There are rumors a race of beings or something is out there, far out there, in the solar system, but no one really cares a lot about that, either. Robots that have been given human minds (and who can pass as real humans) have explored many of the solar system’s planets and moons, along with humans. This is a future where everything appears to me to be a little tired, somewhat jaded and worn, but people are getting on with their lives. The robots are very sad, but not people.
However, after giving readers a thoroughly delightful tour of Neom and the Saudi desert, and cleverly arranging for each of the many protagonists to unknowingly work as agents that help connect plot dots in a mysterious plan, the author seemingly in a rush ends the story in a quick finish.
I have copied the book blurb:
”Machines roam the desert in search of purpose; works of art can be deadlier than weapons, and improbable love transcends the sands of time. From the multiaward-winning universe of Central Station, a complex desert-city of the future’s inhabitants rediscover passion while at the brink of revolution.
“Can we just all admit now that Lavie Tidhar’s a genius?�
—Daryl Gregory, award-winning author of Spoonbenders
The city known as Neom is many things to many beings, human or otherwise. Neom is a tech wonderland for the rich and beautiful; an urban sprawl along the Red Sea; and a port of call between Earth and the stars.
In the desert, young orphan Saleh has joined a caravan, hoping to earn his passage off-world from Central Station. But the desert is full of mechanical artefacts, some unexplained and some unexploded. Recently, a wry, unnamed robot has unearthed one of the region’s biggest mysteries: the vestiges of a golden man.
In Neom, childhood affection is rekindling between loyal shurta-officer Nasir and hardworking flower-seller Mariam. But Nasu, a deadly terrorartist, has come to the city with missing memories and unfinished business.
Just one robot can change a city’s destiny with a single rose—especially when that robot is in search of lost love.�
I really liked the world-building and the characters, but I felt the book ended too abruptly. The novel is a speculative mix of hard science fiction and AI robot development, but it also was a lot of cozy-level thrills, imho, a surprise! It is being called a future history by many reviewers, and I agree with that. There are a lot of hidden references to other novels (and even a biblical myth), and I think the book as a result feels tongue-in-cheek.
While this short novel is full of amazing marvels engineered in the inventive mind of Lavie Tidhar, I think Tidhar’s imagination has been upstaged by the Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman's.
The city of Neom is being built right now in Saudi Arabia, not kidding, this is real:
”Neom (styled NEOM; Arabic: نيوم, romanized:Niyūm, Hejazi pronunciation:[nɪˈjo̞ːm]) is a planned smart city in Tabuk Province in northwestern Saudi Arabia. The site is north of the Red Sea, east of Egypt across the Gulf of Aqaba and south of Jordan. The total area of Neom is 26,500km2 (10,200sqmi). The city's plans include multiple regions, including a floating industrial complex, global trade hub, tourist resorts and a linear city—all powered exclusively by renewable energy sources.
Developers intend for the majority of the city to be completed by 2039. Experts have expressed skepticism about the ambitions of the megaproject. Saudi Arabia originally aimed to complete major parts of the project by 2020, with an expansion completed in 2025, but then fell behind schedule. By July 2022, only two buildings had been constructed, and most of the project area remained bare desert.
The project's estimated cost exceeds $500 billion. On January 29, 2019, Saudi Arabia announced that it had established a closed joint-stock company named Neom. The company is wholly owned by the Public Investment Fund and is solely dedicated to developing the economic zone of Neom.
Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman announced plans for the city at the Future Investment Initiative conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on October 24, 2017. He said that it would operate independently from the “existing governmental framework� with its own tax and labour laws and an "autonomous judicial system." Egypt announced in 2018 that it would contribute some land to the Neom project.
Klaus Kleinfeld was announced by Muhammed bin Salman as the inaugural director for the Neom project upon its launch. In 2018, Kleinfeld signed Gladstone Place Partners LLC to handle communications services for the Neom project for a fee of $199,500 plus expenses of $45,000. On July 3, 2018, Kleinfeld was announced as an advisor to bin Salman and Nadhmi Al-Nasr as the new director of Neom, both roles taking effect on 1 August 2018.
The initiative to create the city of Neom emerged from Saudi Vision 2030, a plan to reduce Saudi Arabia's dependence on oil, diversify its economy and develop public-service sectors. Plans call for robots to perform functions such as security, logistics, home delivery and caregiving and for the city to be powered solely with wind and solar power.
The first phase of the project is scheduled for completion by 2025.�
This is a promotional video made by the Saudis:
There is a lot of controversy about this project, and a lot of doubt if Neom will be finished at all, but construction is happening as I write this review.
The weirdest part of Neom is a development called “The Line�:
In January 2021, the project unveiled plans for The Line, a linear city 170 kilometres (110mi) long and 200 metres (660ft) wide within the Neom area. The design for The Line was further modified in July 2022, scrapping the original idea for multiple buildings on a linear plan, instead combining the buildings into one continuous structure with an entirely glass mirror exterior. The car-free city is planned to be large enough to house nine million residents within walkable communities, with all basic services within a five-minute walking distance.�
However, The Line is not the only planned complex that is linked to Neom. There will be a port, an airport, a floating industrial complex, an outdoor skiing destination, a luxury resort, and a huge agricultural farm of genetically engineered crops.
Let’s hope the wars that Tidhar is predicting in his novel ‘Neom� remain in the fictional realm.
June 3, 2023
Loved it. Loved the setting, the writing and the story. Robot love in a super interesting, distant future.
Hmm, I should probably say more...
One thing that struck me after I was done is that this is a rare book for me where ALL of the characters seemed to fit exactly where they needed to be and to be exactly what they needed to be. I usually find at least one of the ancilary characters a miss but not in Neom.
Hmm, I should probably say more...
One thing that struck me after I was done is that this is a rare book for me where ALL of the characters seemed to fit exactly where they needed to be and to be exactly what they needed to be. I usually find at least one of the ancilary characters a miss but not in Neom.
September 22, 2022
3.5/5
Neom should appeal to fans of literary science fiction and slow narratives. This story is about many things, such as the robot's search for a lost love. The world building is rich and imaginative, and the characters'personal stakes are high, making their arcs relatable. I liked the book, although I admit it took me some time to finish it because it's a moody read.
Neom should appeal to fans of literary science fiction and slow narratives. This story is about many things, such as the robot's search for a lost love. The world building is rich and imaginative, and the characters'personal stakes are high, making their arcs relatable. I liked the book, although I admit it took me some time to finish it because it's a moody read.
December 9, 2022
I loved Lavie Tidhar's Central Station so much. Such a sensitive and beautiful work. This book is a great addition to the oeuvre. It's sweet, and sensitive and beautiful. It was WAY too short though, and ended just when it got a little interesting. All told very little happens, except the build up to a monumental event.
That being said the characters and world building are all incredible. It's one of the richest worlds out there. And it is particularly refreshing to read a whole book without ever mentioning the West. It's rather free of Western serotyping. The Middle Eastern feeling is very satisfying. A different perspective that needs more airtime.
Bring us more please Mr Tidhar!
That being said the characters and world building are all incredible. It's one of the richest worlds out there. And it is particularly refreshing to read a whole book without ever mentioning the West. It's rather free of Western serotyping. The Middle Eastern feeling is very satisfying. A different perspective that needs more airtime.
Bring us more please Mr Tidhar!
March 2, 2023
This is a weird SF novella or small novel about men, robots and gods in Sinai desert. I read it as a part of the monthly reading for March 2023 at SFF Hot from Printers: New Releases group. The book was published in 2022 and is eligible for genre awards.
The book is set in the same universe as his 2016 Locus and Clarke’s award-nominated novel x. However, if the former (which I reviewed here) is about a space port between Haifa and Tel Aviv, this is about a new city of Neom, located on the banks of the Red Sea (past the Gulf of Aqaba and the Straits of Tiran, in the old Saudi desert province that was once called Tabuk), next to Sinai desert.
The story starts with Mariam de la Cruz, whose parents settled here hoping for a new better life. Now her father is dead, her mother has dementia and she works on a several jobs to make ends meet. As she goes from her housekeeping job, she sees a dead robot�
The story shifts to a boy named Saleh Mohammed Ishak Abu-Ala Al-Tirabin (only the first name is used for the rest of the story), who meets a Green Caravanserai on the Ghost Coast of the Sinai Desert. He and his family scavenged artifacts in the desert, but someone, possibly an old military robot (Israeli robotnik) killed his father and others leaving him alone, but is a possession of an exterior case of an ancient ‘terror artform� time-dilating bomb� Elias from the Caravanserai takes him in.
There are several more characters and as the story goes by, their path merge and a world after long-ago wars and current people and places slowly constructs itself brick by brick in reader’s mind. It is a slow read, even if some events may be world-breaking, the lenses so to speak are on ordinary characters and their daily life. One has to be is a mood to read this book, for it isn’t a usual SF. Just like the first book, this one is full of homages to different classic SF works, like by and by , as well as allusions (I guess) to computer games (namely, GECK from Fallout II). Some pieces are to ‘wave� to a knowing reader, like:
“I am a robot,� the robot said. “I must make myself useful.�
“Your skill set is somewhat restrictive,� Mukhtar said.
“It is useful.�
“You kill people?�
“A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. . . . I try to follow the Way of Robot when I can. Of course, the Laws were only ever a philosophical concept, and I must live in the world as it is, not as we may wish it to be.�
The book is set in the same universe as his 2016 Locus and Clarke’s award-nominated novel x. However, if the former (which I reviewed here) is about a space port between Haifa and Tel Aviv, this is about a new city of Neom, located on the banks of the Red Sea (past the Gulf of Aqaba and the Straits of Tiran, in the old Saudi desert province that was once called Tabuk), next to Sinai desert.
The story starts with Mariam de la Cruz, whose parents settled here hoping for a new better life. Now her father is dead, her mother has dementia and she works on a several jobs to make ends meet. As she goes from her housekeeping job, she sees a dead robot�
The story shifts to a boy named Saleh Mohammed Ishak Abu-Ala Al-Tirabin (only the first name is used for the rest of the story), who meets a Green Caravanserai on the Ghost Coast of the Sinai Desert. He and his family scavenged artifacts in the desert, but someone, possibly an old military robot (Israeli robotnik) killed his father and others leaving him alone, but is a possession of an exterior case of an ancient ‘terror artform� time-dilating bomb� Elias from the Caravanserai takes him in.
There are several more characters and as the story goes by, their path merge and a world after long-ago wars and current people and places slowly constructs itself brick by brick in reader’s mind. It is a slow read, even if some events may be world-breaking, the lenses so to speak are on ordinary characters and their daily life. One has to be is a mood to read this book, for it isn’t a usual SF. Just like the first book, this one is full of homages to different classic SF works, like by and by , as well as allusions (I guess) to computer games (namely, GECK from Fallout II). Some pieces are to ‘wave� to a knowing reader, like:
“I am a robot,� the robot said. “I must make myself useful.�
“Your skill set is somewhat restrictive,� Mukhtar said.
“It is useful.�
“You kill people?�
“A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. . . . I try to follow the Way of Robot when I can. Of course, the Laws were only ever a philosophical concept, and I must live in the world as it is, not as we may wish it to be.�
June 6, 2022
Thanks NetGalley for a copy of this for review
I have no idea what this book was about.
I went into this so excited by the premise, the cover and the setting. And then it was all downhill from there.
Perhaps I have finally stumbled across a piece of scifi that has flown far over my head, perhaps it's just not my cup of tea. But I really didn't enjoy this.
The setting was the only good thing for me - this, like the author's other books, is set in a scifi-version of the middle east and I loved that. It's something I haven't seen in a book before and was so much fun.
But I could not find the plot of this for love nor money. It was a slow and very little happened. I don't understand where it was going - I do see that this is a scifi commentary on the status of human beings' ability, or lack thereof, to treat everyone equally. But ultimately this did not pack the punch I was hoping for.
So many characters, so many random POVs that aren't revisited. So little excitement. Alas.
I have no idea what this book was about.
I went into this so excited by the premise, the cover and the setting. And then it was all downhill from there.
Perhaps I have finally stumbled across a piece of scifi that has flown far over my head, perhaps it's just not my cup of tea. But I really didn't enjoy this.
The setting was the only good thing for me - this, like the author's other books, is set in a scifi-version of the middle east and I loved that. It's something I haven't seen in a book before and was so much fun.
But I could not find the plot of this for love nor money. It was a slow and very little happened. I don't understand where it was going - I do see that this is a scifi commentary on the status of human beings' ability, or lack thereof, to treat everyone equally. But ultimately this did not pack the punch I was hoping for.
So many characters, so many random POVs that aren't revisited. So little excitement. Alas.
February 3, 2023
stunning worldbuilding and left me with a deep ache, wanting more.
June 27, 2022
Lavie Tidhar is an Israeli-born writer, living in the UK. His new short novel, Neom, is a return to the world of his 2016 award-winning fix-up novel . On that future Earth, populated by the descendants of those who travelled to, but failed to emigrate up through the planetary spaceport located near Tel Aviv, there is a city outside the digitally-federated lands of the Judea Palestina Union, on the banks of the Red Sea - Neom. In the past, wars in the region had evolved into fully automated conflicts, so many that nobody can keep track of them all any more. But intelligent and deadly machines still populate the desert.
Mariam de la Cruz lives in the urban sprawl of Neom, holding down a few hourly jobs, sufficient to support herself and the fees of the care facility of her mother. Nasir is an old school friend of Mariam’s, now an ambitionless cop. Salah is a young Bedouin boy possessing an artifact of uncertain value, which he does not know how to sell. He is the only survivor of the Abu-Ala clan, many of whom are now stuck in a time-distortion field triggered by their salvage operations on a former battlefield. Tidhar exposes his gritty, economically depressed world through the eyes of these and other inhabitants of Neom, as they are swept up in a resurgence of forces dispersed and submerged since the time of the last war. It is an engaging story with sympathetic characters, but the real strength is Tidhar’s world-building. For those who watch for such things (like me), there are subtle references to some of the original greats of artificial intelligence in SF � Asimov, Rucker, Clarke, Dick, and even to Moses of the Old Testament. This short novel could be read stand-alone, but I recommend reading both Central Station and Neom.
I read an advance Digital Review Copy of Neom in an ebook format, which I received from Tachyon Publications through netgalley.com in exchange for an honest review on social media platforms and on my book review blog. This new title is scheduled for release on 9 November 2022.
Mariam de la Cruz lives in the urban sprawl of Neom, holding down a few hourly jobs, sufficient to support herself and the fees of the care facility of her mother. Nasir is an old school friend of Mariam’s, now an ambitionless cop. Salah is a young Bedouin boy possessing an artifact of uncertain value, which he does not know how to sell. He is the only survivor of the Abu-Ala clan, many of whom are now stuck in a time-distortion field triggered by their salvage operations on a former battlefield. Tidhar exposes his gritty, economically depressed world through the eyes of these and other inhabitants of Neom, as they are swept up in a resurgence of forces dispersed and submerged since the time of the last war. It is an engaging story with sympathetic characters, but the real strength is Tidhar’s world-building. For those who watch for such things (like me), there are subtle references to some of the original greats of artificial intelligence in SF � Asimov, Rucker, Clarke, Dick, and even to Moses of the Old Testament. This short novel could be read stand-alone, but I recommend reading both Central Station and Neom.
I read an advance Digital Review Copy of Neom in an ebook format, which I received from Tachyon Publications through netgalley.com in exchange for an honest review on social media platforms and on my book review blog. This new title is scheduled for release on 9 November 2022.
April 23, 2024
I'm sure I marked this as read when I did so (Feb. of 2023) but for some reason it was removed.
Another great novella set in a far-future post-war middle-east society. Wonderful world.
Another great novella set in a far-future post-war middle-east society. Wonderful world.
May 30, 2023
I appreciate novels which are anchored in cultures other than my own. Books like that are important representation for some people and an opportunity to expand horizons and understand other perspectives for other people. Win-win.
This novel had some intriguing plotlines going - for example the idea of terror artists. I just didn't care for the execution.
I felt that the different elements of the story didn't connect well to form a coherent story. The pacing was way too slow for me and kept catching myself not paying attention to the story and I had to rewind my audiobook oh so many times. It had too many characters for such a short work and they didn’t have much of personality. The world-building was confusing. If felt like it was set in the past, except it was set in a distant future with intelligent robots and space travel.
I ended up being simply bored 100% of the time.
This novel had some intriguing plotlines going - for example the idea of terror artists. I just didn't care for the execution.
I felt that the different elements of the story didn't connect well to form a coherent story. The pacing was way too slow for me and kept catching myself not paying attention to the story and I had to rewind my audiobook oh so many times. It had too many characters for such a short work and they didn’t have much of personality. The world-building was confusing. If felt like it was set in the past, except it was set in a distant future with intelligent robots and space travel.
I ended up being simply bored 100% of the time.
August 3, 2023
4 1/2 stars. Sci-fi with a nice dose of fantasy like this can be perfect comfort reading for me. There is a coziness to the characters (especially the humans) that reminds me a little of Becky Chambers' books, or Saad Hossein’s , even though the stories are quite different. But there's definitely more to it than that, particularly in the realm of AI.
I love what Tidhar has going on here with far future AI. In the world of this book, human warfare ended several generations ago, and the last wars were physically fought by AI. In the book's present, these robotic AI (called UXO's - short for 'unexploded ordinance') are no longer needed, left to wander the Sinai desert and the Red Sea, along with other creatures, both natural and hybrid.
I love what Tidhar has going on here with far future AI. In the world of this book, human warfare ended several generations ago, and the last wars were physically fought by AI. In the book's present, these robotic AI (called UXO's - short for 'unexploded ordinance') are no longer needed, left to wander the Sinai desert and the Red Sea, along with other creatures, both natural and hybrid.
“� their remnants found ways to survive, just as the flora and fauna did� They had anti-surveillance built into them back when they were new, and they'd mutated since, spawning new reiterations of hardware and code, snatching upgrades out of the digital chatter. They’d been built to adapt and survive, and kill."
UXO's come in all shapes and sizes - some humanoid, some animal-like, some purely machine. Regardless of what they looked like,“� they were smart bombs, - smart enough, as it turned out, not to blow themselves up. Sometimes they went off at random, and a new crater appeared in the desert, and no one knew why they did it. Some of the old timers in Neom said they just grew weary of the years. No one really knew. "
Anyone looking for a traditional story arc, character development, etc. will be disappointed, I think. But this book is more about setting up the world, and I'm fascinated by it. The fantasy is maybe more ascendent than the sci fi.
I'm looking forward to reading more books set in this world - there's so much to explore, so many ways to go. Avenues that got started on. I thought I had already read the first book, , but I realize I've confused it with .
November 18, 2022
4.5 stars.
“Neom� is not a particularly long work, but Lavie Tidhar manages to pack a phenomenal amount worldbuilding into this book, along with fascinating characters. Focusing on three individuals: Mariam, young Saleh, and a robot built long before, Tidhar has their lives intersect in Neom, a slick-seeming city, surrounded by desert and obsessed with the new. People can depart from Neom to Central Station (a book I have yet to read), and the wider, colonized solar system, and all its wild and woolly differences and fascinating expressions of culture and form that have evolved away from earth.
There has also been years of war in the past, in which the robot was a participant, and former squad mate of terrifying war machines that wander the empty desert surrounding Neom.
I can’t even tell you what specifically made me love this book, but I just know I was entranced the whole time I was reading it. I liked Mariam a lot, and how she kept showing up everywhere, thanks to her multitude of jobs (a necessity for many locals) in Neom and the rose she gives to the robot, and what that precipitates. The idea of terrorartists was both intriguing and reprehensible, especially as we see the effects of one terrorartist’s work on young Saleh, whose life takes a dramatic turn consequently. And I LOVED Anubis the noded jackal, who watches a very long-running soap opera from Mars. Then there is the awesomely diverse way life is expressed outwards from Earth�..This book was fantastic!
Thank you to Netgalley and to Tachyon Publications for this ARC in exchange for my review.
“Neom� is not a particularly long work, but Lavie Tidhar manages to pack a phenomenal amount worldbuilding into this book, along with fascinating characters. Focusing on three individuals: Mariam, young Saleh, and a robot built long before, Tidhar has their lives intersect in Neom, a slick-seeming city, surrounded by desert and obsessed with the new. People can depart from Neom to Central Station (a book I have yet to read), and the wider, colonized solar system, and all its wild and woolly differences and fascinating expressions of culture and form that have evolved away from earth.
There has also been years of war in the past, in which the robot was a participant, and former squad mate of terrifying war machines that wander the empty desert surrounding Neom.
I can’t even tell you what specifically made me love this book, but I just know I was entranced the whole time I was reading it. I liked Mariam a lot, and how she kept showing up everywhere, thanks to her multitude of jobs (a necessity for many locals) in Neom and the rose she gives to the robot, and what that precipitates. The idea of terrorartists was both intriguing and reprehensible, especially as we see the effects of one terrorartist’s work on young Saleh, whose life takes a dramatic turn consequently. And I LOVED Anubis the noded jackal, who watches a very long-running soap opera from Mars. Then there is the awesomely diverse way life is expressed outwards from Earth�..This book was fantastic!
Thank you to Netgalley and to Tachyon Publications for this ARC in exchange for my review.
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