Neom

A dreamlike fable of a degenerate future.Reminiscent of Dhalgren or Winterlong. I feel the loss of Elias more acutely than I should, but that can be attributed to the genius of the writer.

Book Review: Neom - A Central Station Universe Novel
Author: Lavie Tidhar
Publisher: Tachyon Publications
Publication Date: November 9, 2022
Review Date: May 29, 2022

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

From the 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.

“Lavie Tidhar’s Neom is a stunning return to his world of Central Station.”
—Green Man Review

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.”
———
This is the first I’ve come across author Lavie Tidhar, which is pretty amazing as he is a very prolific writer. I absolutely LOVED this book. Tidhar is a master at world-building as well as character-building that fits in with his created world. He is extremely creative and quite off-beat, even for science fiction.

His creativity reminds me of Dan Simmons, Samuel R. Delany, and John Scalzi.

This book was interesting as much of it took place in the Near East, the areas around Israel and Palestine. Which makes sense since he an Israeli writer. I highly, highly recommend this book, and I intend to look for more writing by the author.

Thank you to Tachyon Publishing for giving me access to this superb book, and best of luck to Lavie Tidhar with his continued writing career.

This review will be posted on NetGalley and Goodreads.

#netgalley #neom #lavidtidhar #tachyonpublications #sciencefiction #speculativefiction

Lavie Tidhar has been one of my favorite authors since I read his Bookman Histories trilogy in the early 2010s. With an output that rivals Adrian Tchaikovsky, Lavie is one of my annual must-reads and I was thrilled to read Neom. Neom is a genre busting tale of robots, orphans, and treasure in the sprawling city of Neom in deserts of the Middle East. This book was one that I found infinitely surprising and I was caught off guard several times by the twists and turns Tidhar pulled off. The other thing that stood out in this book was the hope and optimism woven throughout. Tidhar has always been one of those authors that can write poignant and beautiful books and this one continues that streak. I will definitely be rereading this one for years to come.

A fantastic novel in the universe of Central Station. Tidhar is one of the best writers of science fiction. Review coming soon.

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 Central Station. 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.

Disfruté muchísimo con la lectura de Central Station, así que cuando vi que se ponía a tiro Neom, una novela situada en el mismo mundo, no dudé ni un momento y me puse a leerla.


Nada más comenzar vemos que Lavie ha decidido cambiar el escenario bajándolo a la Tierra, a esa desconocida ciudad llamada Neom, capaz de atraer robots, humanos, drones… La ciudad está descrita a pinceladas, a través de los ojos del estupendo reparto coral que iremos conociendo en los cortos capítulos con que el autor ha organizado la obra, en una suerte de collage que atrae inmediatamente la atención pero que además tiene varias capas de lectura.

Tidhar aprovecha los conceptos que ya conocíamos de sus relatos anteriores para hacer referencias que harán las delicias del lector que ya conoce esta parte de su obra, pero que también sirven como gancho para el que se aproxime por primera vez a ella. El libro es perfectamente disfrutable como obra aislada, si bien es cierto que la recompensa por la fidelidad al autor también existe.

¿Qué se encontrará el lector que se adentre en Neom? Para empezar, la desbordante imaginación del israelí, capaz de crear terroartistas que pretenden perdurar en el tiempo con las atrocidades que comenten, arqueólogos que investigan ruinas que pueden atraparte en el tiempo, robots veteranos de guerra que como se sobrecalienten pueden convertirse en perfectos asesinos… Pero es una imaginación aunada con un dominio de la prosa estupendo, con el manejo de varios idiomas que le permite la creación de vocables que se ajustan como un guante a los nuevos términos que necesita para este mundo tan distinto y tan similar al nuestro.

Hablo de similitudes porque a pesar de estar situada en el futuro habla de temas tremendamente actuales, como la necesidad de gran parte de la población de tener muchos trabajos distintos para poder sobrevivir o la emigración, considerada como la última oportunidad para tanta gente.

Neom es una novela que me ha entusiasmado, así que no dudéis en haceros con ella conforme salga a la venta, estoy segura de que no os decepcionará.

“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

Neom es el nombre de la ciudad futurista e inteligente planificada en el noroeste de Arabia Saudí. Se espera que su energía proceda de energía renovables e incorpore tecnologías de inteligencia artificial de ultimo minuto. ¿Cómo será Neom una vez el cambio climático avance, la sociedad colapse y la tecnología iguale, o incluso supere, a la humanidad? Eso es lo que Lavie Tidhar imagina en esta excelente novela.

Compuesta por capítulos relativamente cortos donde somos testigos de escenas cotidianas, la novela nos presenta una ciudad sobrepasada donde conviven con relativa naturalidad humanos, robots o drones. Desigualdades económicas y raciales se juntan con investigaciones policiales, reflexiones sobre el trato a los inmigrantes y, al mismo tiempo, algunas escenas que al mismo tiempo que sencillas despiertan nuestro sentido de la maravilla.

Muchos de estos capítulos bien podrían ser historias cortas independientes. Otros, alternándose, van formado la trama principal de la novela. Una especie de nuevo testamento bíblico con unos protagonistas inesperados.

Esta novela esta ubicada en el mismo mundo en donde se desarrolla una de las novelas anteriores de Tidhar, Estacion Central. No es imprescindible haber leído aquella para disfrutar casi al completo de Neom. Sin embargo, si no lo habéis hecho os recomiendo hacerlo, ya sea antes o después, mas que nada porque considero Estación Central como una de las mejores novelas de ciencia ficción de los últimos años, aunque también tenga sus detractores. Por otro lado, hay un puñado de referencias en Neom que se disfrutan mucho más si has leído aquella novela.

Neom y Estación Central comparten escenario y espíritu. Una manera distinta de imaginar el futuro, donde lenguas, razas, seres y maquinas convivimos al mismo nivel evolutivo. Una novela, para mi gusto, imprescindible.