Neom: A Novel from the World of Central Station
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4.7 • 3 Ratings
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
Today, Neom is a utopian dream—a megacity of the future yet to be built in the Saudi desert. In this deeply imaginative novel from the award-winning universe of Central Station, far-future Neom is already old. Sentient machines roam the desert searching for purpose, works of art can be more deadly than weapons, and the spark of a long-overdue revolution is in the wind. Only the rekindling of an impossible love affair may slow the inevitable sands of time.
“This is Tidhar at his best: the crazily proliferating imagination, the textures, the ideas, the dazzling storytelling. A brilliant portrait of community and its possibilities.”
—Adam Roberts, author of Purgatory Mount
The city known as Neom is many things to many beings, human or otherwise. It 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 Elias has joined a caravan, hoping to earn his passage off-world. 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.
Lavie Tidhar's (Unholy Land, The Escapement) newest lushly immersive novel, Neom, which includes a guide to the Central Station-verse, is at turns gritty, comedic, transportive, and fascinatingly plausible.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
World Fantasy Award winner Tidhar takes readers back to the fascinating far-future world of 2016's Central Station in this gentle narrative about self-fulfillment and one robot's quest to reunite with a lost love. In Neom, a port city between Earth and space on the shores of the Red Sea, Mariam de la Cruz divides her days between several odd jobs while her nights are spent longing for quietude. Meanwhile, shurta officer Nasir questions the point of law enforcement as he spends most of his time handing out tickets for littering. An unnamed robot reunites these two childhood friends when Nasir and Mariam become entangled in the robot's mission to resurrect a "golden man" of legend. These quiet personal stakes play out against a vividly imagined world where ancient war machines stalk the deserts and seas, terrorist "art installations" explode forever within stasis fields, and the human population in space tell stories of the eldritch creatures inhabiting the Oort clouds. Meanwhile, Tidhar offers a heartfelt exploration of artificially intelligent beings' struggles to find existential meaning while being restrained by both coding and form. Fans of literary sci-fi are sure to be enchanted by the imaginative worldbuilding and tenderly wrought characters.
Customer Reviews
A Novel in the World of Central Station
“Neom” is a newly released novel by Lavie Tidhar that exists in the same future history as his award winning novel “Central Station.”
While “Central Station” was a "fix up" novel of interlinked short stories, “Neom” is a single narrative that is centered around the titular city of Neom which is located on the shore of the Red Sea. This is interestingly enough a real place, that is being developed now in Saudi Arabia. However, in the novel, this is a old place, that has been reinvented and redeveloped numerous times.
This story features the work of terror-artists, which is a defunct form of performance art that uses mass death and destruction as its canvas. The story also involves a robot, that goes into the desert to dig up a mysterious golden man. What this signifies is the central theme of the novel
The world of the future Mid-East isn't one we see much in Science Fiction, but one the author makes into a fascinating setting. The narrative begins like a a mosaic, that brings the various characters into into a single picture. It features robots, cyborgs, others (purely digital evolved beings), police officers, hermits, and normal people. It is a very refreshing take on these themes!
In his afterward, the author shares that he thought he was done with the world of Central Station after writing that book. However, he was surprised to discover he was not. He likewise is unsure if there is more to be written in this future history. I’m hoping he discovers that there are more stories to be told, and if there are, I’ll be there for them!