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Neom
Lavie Tidhar
“Lavie Tidhar’s Neom is a stunning return to his world of Central Station, twinning the fates of humans and robots alike at a futuristic city on the edge of the Red Sea.” —Green Man Review
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.
ISBN: 978-1-61696-382-8 print; 978-1-61696-383-5 digital formats
Published: November 9th, 2022
Available Format(s): Trade Paperback and Digital Books
Gizmodo’s Sparkling New Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books
A Foreword Book of the Day The Speculative Shelf’s Top 10 Books of 2022 Antick Musings Best Books of 2022 2022 Locus Recommended Reading List
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 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.”
—The Speculative Shelf
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 universe, is at turns gritty, comedic, transportive, and fascinatingly plausible.
“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
[STARRED REVIEW] “In his signature style, Tidhar laces his future-set, fascinating tale with biblical references and nods to science fiction classics, here revitalized with added empathy…. Neom is an extraordinary and compassionate trek into the hearts of AI.”
—Foreword
“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.” —Publishers Weekly
“Yet again, Lavie Tidhar’s future world of Neom is exciting and distinctive, his characters complex and fascinating, and his themes powerful and thought-provoking. He is the best sort of science fiction.”
—Kij Johnson, author of The River Bank
“While the novel is set in the world of Tidhar’s award winning novel Central Station (2016), readers don’t need to have familiarity to enjoy this book of a few characters trying to make it and a robot trying to figure out where he belongs in a human world. The novel is richly built without being overwhelming, and the narrative moves quickly even while juggling several moving parts and mysteries.”
—Booklist
“Neom is a treasure, and Tidhar says that there are so many more stories from this complicated world. Every new one is a compelling chapter in this future history that reflects so much about who we are and the basic things we yearn for.”
—SciFi Mind
“Vivid and techno-mythological, Neom infects you with something special that transcends all the incidents and terrors—a shimmering current of guarded optimism.”
—David Brin, author of Existence, Earth and The Postman
“Lavie Tidhar’s Neom is a stunning return to his world of Central Station, twinning the fates of humans and robots alike at a futuristic city on the edge of the Red Sea.”
—Green Man Review
“Tidhar is a unique voice in science fiction and an author with many awards to his name. An enrapturing conglomeration of philosophy, psychology, and storytelling, the novel melds the what-ifs with a believable and relatable scenario. This is not a sequel so much as another saga in a well-developed and thought-out world. VERDICT Old and new fans alike will adore this fascinating new addition to Tidhar’s future Earth universe, and science fiction buffs would do well to put Tidhar on their radar of must-read authors.”
—Library Journal
“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.”
—The Speculative Shelf
“Always expect the unexpected with Lavie Tidhar, and this welcome return to the sprawling space-operatic world of Central Station delivers oodles of poetry, action, memorable characters, wonderfully bizarre landscapes and wild imagination. No two books by Tidhar are ever the same, but each is a revelation.”
—Maxim Jakubowski, author of The Piper’s Dance
“Lyrical, haunting and hopeful. . . . Neom is a thoughtful, beautifully written story about what we have, what we want, how we achieve our desires, and what, and whom, we are willing to risk for our own benefit.”
—Los Angeles Public Library
“If you are not familiar with the work of the award-winning Lavie Tidhar, this is a great place to start. Before picking up Neom, I had not read his Central Station, which makes use of the same extensive future history. Hence, I must warn you: immediately upon finishing Neom, you may find yourself smitten with the need to plunge into the idea-dense milieu of Central Station. Here’s hoping Tidhar will treat us to more visits to absolutely anywhere in his astounding future, whether that’s on or off our home planet.”
—Analog
“Neom is a real place. A completely batshit crazy place. Nonetheless, Lavie Tidhar, standing on the shoulders of Vance, Smith, and Ballard and others, imagines stories set in that place, a city in a wasteland near the Gulf of Suez, in a future filled with robots and AI and terrorartists and young boys and talking jackals and a wonderful, terrible solar system packed with life.”
—Jonathan Strahan
“Lavie Tidhar’s Neom is a deliciously inventive wild ride through a future Middle East full of unexpected wonders: dutiful jackals, traumatized robots, terrifying terrorartists, caravans of elephants and great slinkying robotic khans, preserves for wild mechas and monasteries that are also singularities. But more than that, the world of Neom is deeply, richly lived in: the past and the present and the future are not just unevenly distributed, they are marbled together—tiny slithering tadpole robots adapted to the fused-glass desert around an ancient crash site, okra and tomatoes frying in a pan, rogue sandworms and grandmothers doing Tai Chi in an urban park, the Oort cloud and milkshakes, Martian soap opera Bedouin actors, a Bazaar of Rare and Exotic Machines equally excited by Atari Pac-Man cartridges and city-obliterating superweapons. It is this eye for detail, this deft touch intermingling now and someday, that makes Neom’s future so vividly real: not just human or gritty or lived-in, but full to bursting with the variety and complexity that characterize life. It is a world anchored by its characters: the bright ambition and yearning of the orphan Saleh, the sensible pragmatism and inexhaustible humanity of the capable housecleaner/flower vendor/receptionist/Tamagotchi shelter volunteer Miriam de la Cruz . . . and the robot, who is obsolete and dangerous, full of grief and mystery and philosophy, and whose obstinate mission beckons us ever forward through Neom’s pages. . . .”
—Benjamin Rosenbaum, author of The Unraveling
“At times Tidhar’s narrative takes on a gentle, ruminative air, and while that helps establish the atmosphere of a convincing, lived-in city, veteran SF readers will also find plenty of playful and affectionate Easter eggs. . . . For all its fearsome ancient ordnance, its economic disparity, and its looming threats, Neom easily joins the list of SF cities we’d like to visit.”
—Locus
“This is set in the same zeitgeist as Central Station, of which I absolutely adored for not just its unabashed hard-SF nature, its robots, its deserts, it’s Tel Aviv atmosphere and post-dystopian nightmare, and its DEEP, deep worldbuilding. I can’t overstate the last enough. It’s RICH. And Neom is, too. Overflowing with imagination, references to fascinating events and people (mostly robots), and places all over the Solar System.”
—Bradley Horner’s Book Reviews
“This is a smart, open-hearted, short SF novel deeply steeped in the history of the robot and mechanical man in SF, and that has plenty of its own changes to ring on those ideas, set, as I said, in a deep, complex, interesting universe of its own.”
—Andrew Wheeler, Antick Musings
“With beautiful precision, the author gathers up the pieces, towards an event bringing the assemblage in futuristic city Neom of ancient warrior machines. Neom is a brilliant feat of imagination and writing that grips from the first page.”
—Watch
“If you haven’t read Neom or its sister book Central Station, you’re missing out. The count of ideas per page, the number of striking images, the beauty of the prose….”
—Daryl Gregory, author of Revelator
“Neom is a wonderful read for any lover of science fiction. For someone who has not yet visited the world of Central Station—Tidhar’s novel from 2016 — it is easy to catch on to the colloquialisms and customs of the story universe. But after reading Neom, new Tidhar fans will surely want to go back for more.”
—Jewish Book Council
“This is great! Like Central Station, a fascinating blend of huge and tiny ideas; quiet and believable, shot through with vivid oddness, and chock-full of allusion to other works. Highly recommended.”
—Jake Casella Brookins, 2022 Bookish Wrap-up
“Another downloading from Tidhar’s fertile imagination. Science fictional ideas and references spin off this in giddy profusion. If you want your fix of the strange and wonderful, even the downright odd, get it right here.”
—ParSec
“The more of Tidhar’s work that I read, the more he becomes one of my favorite writers. No, I haven’t read everything of his, but at some point I feel as if I will catch up and read all of it. He is one of the outstanding writers of modern times in the field of science fiction and fantasy. Neom is a wonderful addition to the field, and it should be read by all.”
—MT Void
5/5 Electric Sheep. “Overall this story and the world it’s set in are amazing to me. It feels as if we got just a snapshot of an event that ultimately might have gone under the radar for most of this world. There was so much of the almost mundanity of life that this felt poignant but small in the ultimate scope in a way that has me wanting more. I am definitely going to download and seek out far more of Mr. Tidhar’s work moving forward.”
—Wayseeker’s Books
“I enjoyed so much about this book; the world-building, the diverse and well fleshed out characters and the plot. This is well worth a read.”
—The Book Lover’s Boudoir
“Neom, in Tidhar’s eponymous book, isn’t a plan for a cutting-edge city in Saudi Arabia that has appalled many, but a fait accompli that is the backdrop of a beautiful and far more interesting story.
—New Scientist
“Brilliantly executed.”
—File 770
“Just as Neom is a cognitive city, Neom is a cognitive novel—a story to think about and, in the end, to appreciate as an innovative work in a genre that is too often stagnant.”
—Tzer Island
“Tidhar’s excoriating alternative history of modern Israel, Neom shows that he has not lost his ability to be insightful and playful. Built on memorable characters in a deeply imagined solar system, contemplative and full of both terror and wonder, Neom is another must-read for science fiction fans.”
—Pile by the Bed
“A mix of dream and dystopia.”
—Scrapping and Playing
“It reads as a memoir more than a plot-driven novel of the results of what was once the dream city of Neom. Now, however, after wars and upheavals, Neom exists as a collector of people, robots, ideas; a place where all sorts of life happens. Take a read and let me know what you think!”
—Frivolous Comma
“A beautiful and touching tapestry, certainly among my favorites of the year.”
—Tar Vol On
On Central Station
John W. Campbell Award Winner Neukom Institute Literary Arts Award Winner
Xingyun Award Winner
Arthur C. Clarke Award, Shortlist British Science Fiction Award, Longlist
Geffen Award nominee, Best Translated Science Fiction Book
Premio Italia, Best International Novel, Finalist
Kurd Laßwitz Preis Shortlist
“Beautiful, original, a shimmering tapestry of connections and images.”
—Alastair Reynolds, author of the Revelation Space series
“A dazzling tale of complicated politics and even more complicated souls. Beautiful.”
—Ken Liu, author of The Paper Menagerie and The Grace of Kings
[STARRED REVIEW] “Readers of all persuasions will be entranced.”
—Publishers Weekly
[STARRED REVIEW] “A fascinating future glimpsed through the lens of a tight-knit community.”
—Library Journal
“If Nalo Hopkinson and William Gibson held a séance to channel the spirit of Ray Bradbury, they might be inspired to produce a work as grimy, as gorgeous, and as downright sensual as Central Station.”
—Peter Watts, author of Blindsight and The Freeze-Frame Revolution
On Unholy Land
Best Books of the Year: NPR Books Library Journal Publishers Weekly UK Guardian Crime Time
“Thoughtfulness, suspense, imagery, and beautiful prose. Highly recommended.”
—Fantasy Literature
“[STARRED] Incredible twists on multiple realities and homecoming. This latest from Campbell and World Fantasy Award winner Tidhar (Central Station) is fascinating and powerful.”
—Library Journal
On The Escapement
Philip K. Dick Award nominee Locus Recommended Reading List Publishers Weekly Top-10 Forthcoming Fantasy Title LitStack Most Anticipated Book Den of Geek Top New Fantasy Book Foreword Book of the Day
“A wild, decadent hybrid of The Dark Tower and Carnivale.”
—Catherynne M. Valente, author of Deathless
“Comic, tragic, and utterly magnificent.”
—Samantha Shannon, author of The Priory of the Orange Tree
“An original masterpiece that is all Tidhar, full of echoes of his earlier stories and novels.”
British Science Fiction, Prix Planète, and World Fantasy Award winning author Lavie Tidhar (A Man Lies Dreaming, The Escapement, Unholy Land, The Hood) is an acclaimed author of literature, science fiction, fantasy, graphic novels, and middle grade fiction. Tidhar received the Campbell, Xingyun, and Neukom awards for the novel Central Station. In addition to his fiction and nonfiction, Tidhar is the editor of the Apex Best of World Science Fiction series and a columnist for the Washington Post. His speaking appearances include Cambridge University, PEN, and the Singapore Writers Festival. He has been a Guest of Honour at book conventions in Japan, Poland, Spain, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, China, and elsewhere; he is currently a visiting professor and writer in residence at the American International University. Tidhar currently resides with his family in London.
1. The City
Beyond Central Station, that vast spaceport that links Earth with the teeming worlds of the solar system, there is a city. The city lies past the Gulf of Aqaba and the Straits of Tiran, in the old Saudi desert province that was once called Tabuk. The founders of the city called it Neom.
In sandstorm season the hot air is cooled down by gusts of wind blown into the wide boulevards of the city. The solar fields and wind farms that stretch from beyond the city proper deep into the inland desert capture all the energy Al Imtidad needs, feeding it back to serve all the city’s needs.
On the shores of the Red Sea the sunbathers gather. The bars are open late. The kuffar sit smoking sheesha as children run laughing on the beach. Suntanned youths kite-surf in the wind. It is said it’s always spring in Neo-Mostaqbal, in Neom. It is said the future always belongs to the young.
Mariam de la Cruz, who came trudging down Al Mansoura Avenue, was no longer so young, though she 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.
Of course she was perfectly fine. But she was minutely aware of the ticking clock of senescence on the cellular level. Or in other words, ageing. Which was a problem in a city like Neom, which had been built and then sold—floated on the stock exchanges of Nairobi Prime and Gaza-Under-Sea and Old Beijing—on the premise that anything can be fixed, made good, made better, that things do not have to remain the way they’d been.
In Neom, everything was meant to be beautiful, ever since the young prince Mohammad of the Al Saud dynasty first dreamed up the idea of building a city of the future in the desert of the Arabian Peninsula and along the Red Sea. Now it was a mammoth metropolitan area.
Al Imtidad, the locals called it. The urban sprawl.
Mariam had grown up there, had never known another place. Her mother came to Neom from the Philippines in search of work, had met Mariam’s father, a truck driver from Cairo who knew the desert roads from Luxor to Riyadh, from Alexandria to Mecca.
He was dead now, her father, had died in a collision on the border of Oman, delivering Chinese goods to the markets of Nizwa. She still missed him.
Her mother had lived on, remarried once, was now in a care facility on the edge of town, in the Nineveh Quarter. Much of what Mariam made went on paying the fees. It was a good place, her mother was well cared for. In the old days families would live together, would look after each other. But now there was only Mariam.
Now she walked, slowly in the heat, cars zooming past her in all directions. Latest model Bohrs, a Faraday roadster, a Gauss II black cab. No one ever named cars after poets, she thought. Her own taste in poetry ran to the neo-classical: Ng Yi-Sheng, Lior Tirosh. They weren’t the most famous, they just . . . were.
The cars swarmed around her, ferrying people every which way. They resembled the movement of fish flocks, the way they flowed independently yet in unison. It was illegal to drive a car in Al Imtidad. They were all run by an inference engine. It was usually the way of things, Mariam had found. People didn’t trust other people for things like driving them, or for making investment decisions, or for medical care.
Unless, of course, it was a matter of status.
Al Mansoura Avenue, on the outskirts of midtown, was a pleasant road with many equally-spaced palm trees providing shade along the pavements on either side. The buildings were only a few stories tall, shops on the ground floor and nice spacious apartments above. Dog-walkers walked other people’s dogs and nannies pushed other people’s babies along the pavements. Cafes were open, blasting out cool air, and the patrons who sat sipping cappuccinos were busy interacting with each other in a meaningful manner, signalling to any passer-by that they were not merely relaxing but engaging in important face-to-face connectivity.
The shuttle plane to Central Station flew low overhead. Mariam passed the cafes, the shops selling cultivated pearls and imported perfumes, anti-drone privacy kits, an artisanal bakery wafting out the smell of fresh sourdough loaves and sticky baklawah. A florist stall sold bouquets of fat red roses. The people who lived on Al Mansoura were the upwardly-mobile, and they lived on hope. Hope was a powerful drug.
Neom
Lavie Tidhar
“Lavie Tidhar’s Neom is a stunning return to his world of Central Station, twinning the fates of humans and robots alike at a futuristic city on the edge of the Red Sea.”
—Green Man Review
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.
Neom
by Lavie Tidhar
ISBN: 978-1-61696-382-8 print; 978-1-61696-383-5 digital formats
Published: November 9th, 2022
Available Format(s): Trade Paperback and Digital Books
Gizmodo’s Sparkling New Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books
A Foreword Book of the Day
The Speculative Shelf’s Top 10 Books of 2022
Antick Musings Best Books of 2022
2022 Locus Recommended Reading List
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 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.”
—The Speculative Shelf
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 universe, is at turns gritty, comedic, transportive, and fascinatingly plausible.
“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
[STARRED REVIEW] “In his signature style, Tidhar laces his future-set, fascinating tale with biblical references and nods to science fiction classics, here revitalized with added empathy…. Neom is an extraordinary and compassionate trek into the hearts of AI.”
—Foreword
“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.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Yet again, Lavie Tidhar’s future world of Neom is exciting and distinctive, his characters complex and fascinating, and his themes powerful and thought-provoking. He is the best sort of science fiction.”
—Kij Johnson, author of The River Bank
“While the novel is set in the world of Tidhar’s award winning novel Central Station (2016), readers don’t need to have familiarity to enjoy this book of a few characters trying to make it and a robot trying to figure out where he belongs in a human world. The novel is richly built without being overwhelming, and the narrative moves quickly even while juggling several moving parts and mysteries.”
—Booklist
“Neom is a treasure, and Tidhar says that there are so many more stories from this complicated world. Every new one is a compelling chapter in this future history that reflects so much about who we are and the basic things we yearn for.”
—SciFi Mind
“Vivid and techno-mythological, Neom infects you with something special that transcends all the incidents and terrors—a shimmering current of guarded optimism.”
—David Brin, author of Existence, Earth and The Postman
“Lavie Tidhar’s Neom is a stunning return to his world of Central Station, twinning the fates of humans and robots alike at a futuristic city on the edge of the Red Sea.”
—Green Man Review
“Tidhar is a unique voice in science fiction and an author with many awards to his name. An enrapturing conglomeration of philosophy, psychology, and storytelling, the novel melds the what-ifs with a believable and relatable scenario. This is not a sequel so much as another saga in a well-developed and thought-out world. VERDICT Old and new fans alike will adore this fascinating new addition to Tidhar’s future Earth universe, and science fiction buffs would do well to put Tidhar on their radar of must-read authors.”
—Library Journal
“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.”
—The Speculative Shelf
“Always expect the unexpected with Lavie Tidhar, and this welcome return to the sprawling space-operatic world of Central Station delivers oodles of poetry, action, memorable characters, wonderfully bizarre landscapes and wild imagination. No two books by Tidhar are ever the same, but each is a revelation.”
—Maxim Jakubowski, author of The Piper’s Dance
“Lyrical, haunting and hopeful. . . . Neom is a thoughtful, beautifully written story about what we have, what we want, how we achieve our desires, and what, and whom, we are willing to risk for our own benefit.”
—Los Angeles Public Library
“If you are not familiar with the work of the award-winning Lavie Tidhar, this is a great place to start. Before picking up Neom, I had not read his Central Station, which makes use of the same extensive future history. Hence, I must warn you: immediately upon finishing Neom, you may find yourself smitten with the need to plunge into the idea-dense milieu of Central Station. Here’s hoping Tidhar will treat us to more visits to absolutely anywhere in his astounding future, whether that’s on or off our home planet.”
—Analog
“Neom is a real place. A completely batshit crazy place. Nonetheless, Lavie Tidhar, standing on the shoulders of Vance, Smith, and Ballard and others, imagines stories set in that place, a city in a wasteland near the Gulf of Suez, in a future filled with robots and AI and terrorartists and young boys and talking jackals and a wonderful, terrible solar system packed with life.”
—Jonathan Strahan
“Lavie Tidhar’s Neom is a deliciously inventive wild ride through a future Middle East full of unexpected wonders: dutiful jackals, traumatized robots, terrifying terrorartists, caravans of elephants and great slinkying robotic khans, preserves for wild mechas and monasteries that are also singularities. But more than that, the world of Neom is deeply, richly lived in: the past and the present and the future are not just unevenly distributed, they are marbled together—tiny slithering tadpole robots adapted to the fused-glass desert around an ancient crash site, okra and tomatoes frying in a pan, rogue sandworms and grandmothers doing Tai Chi in an urban park, the Oort cloud and milkshakes, Martian soap opera Bedouin actors, a Bazaar of Rare and Exotic Machines equally excited by Atari Pac-Man cartridges and city-obliterating superweapons. It is this eye for detail, this deft touch intermingling now and someday, that makes Neom’s future so vividly real: not just human or gritty or lived-in, but full to bursting with the variety and complexity that characterize life. It is a world anchored by its characters: the bright ambition and yearning of the orphan Saleh, the sensible pragmatism and inexhaustible humanity of the capable housecleaner/flower vendor/receptionist/Tamagotchi shelter volunteer Miriam de la Cruz . . . and the robot, who is obsolete and dangerous, full of grief and mystery and philosophy, and whose obstinate mission beckons us ever forward through Neom’s pages. . . .”
—Benjamin Rosenbaum, author of The Unraveling
“At times Tidhar’s narrative takes on a gentle, ruminative air, and while that helps establish the atmosphere of a convincing, lived-in city, veteran SF readers will also find plenty of playful and affectionate Easter eggs. . . . For all its fearsome ancient ordnance, its economic disparity, and its looming threats, Neom easily joins the list of SF cities we’d like to visit.”
—Locus
“This is set in the same zeitgeist as Central Station, of which I absolutely adored for not just its unabashed hard-SF nature, its robots, its deserts, it’s Tel Aviv atmosphere and post-dystopian nightmare, and its DEEP, deep worldbuilding. I can’t overstate the last enough. It’s RICH. And Neom is, too. Overflowing with imagination, references to fascinating events and people (mostly robots), and places all over the Solar System.”
—Bradley Horner’s Book Reviews
“This is a smart, open-hearted, short SF novel deeply steeped in the history of the robot and mechanical man in SF, and that has plenty of its own changes to ring on those ideas, set, as I said, in a deep, complex, interesting universe of its own.”
—Andrew Wheeler, Antick Musings
“With beautiful precision, the author gathers up the pieces, towards an event bringing the assemblage in futuristic city Neom of ancient warrior machines. Neom is a brilliant feat of imagination and writing that grips from the first page.”
—Watch
“If you haven’t read Neom or its sister book Central Station, you’re missing out. The count of ideas per page, the number of striking images, the beauty of the prose….”
—Daryl Gregory, author of Revelator
“Neom is a wonderful read for any lover of science fiction. For someone who has not yet visited the world of Central Station—Tidhar’s novel from 2016 — it is easy to catch on to the colloquialisms and customs of the story universe. But after reading Neom, new Tidhar fans will surely want to go back for more.”
—Jewish Book Council
“This is great! Like Central Station, a fascinating blend of huge and tiny ideas; quiet and believable, shot through with vivid oddness, and chock-full of allusion to other works. Highly recommended.”
—Jake Casella Brookins, 2022 Bookish Wrap-up
“Another downloading from Tidhar’s fertile imagination. Science fictional ideas and references spin off this in giddy profusion. If you want your fix of the strange and wonderful, even the downright odd, get it right here.”
—ParSec
“The more of Tidhar’s work that I read, the more he becomes one of my favorite writers. No, I haven’t read everything of his, but at some point I feel as if I will catch up and read all of it. He is one of the outstanding writers of modern times in the field of science fiction and fantasy. Neom is a wonderful addition to the field, and it should be read by all.”
—MT Void
5/5 Electric Sheep. “Overall this story and the world it’s set in are amazing to me. It feels as if we got just a snapshot of an event that ultimately might have gone under the radar for most of this world. There was so much of the almost mundanity of life that this felt poignant but small in the ultimate scope in a way that has me wanting more. I am definitely going to download and seek out far more of Mr. Tidhar’s work moving forward.”
—Wayseeker’s Books
“I enjoyed so much about this book; the world-building, the diverse and well fleshed out characters and the plot. This is well worth a read.”
—The Book Lover’s Boudoir
“Neom, in Tidhar’s eponymous book, isn’t a plan for a cutting-edge city in Saudi Arabia that has appalled many, but a fait accompli that is the backdrop of a beautiful and far more interesting story.
—New Scientist
“Brilliantly executed.”
—File 770
“Just as Neom is a cognitive city, Neom is a cognitive novel—a story to think about and, in the end, to appreciate as an innovative work in a genre that is too often stagnant.”
—Tzer Island
“Tidhar’s excoriating alternative history of modern Israel, Neom shows that he has not lost his ability to be insightful and playful. Built on memorable characters in a deeply imagined solar system, contemplative and full of both terror and wonder, Neom is another must-read for science fiction fans.”
—Pile by the Bed
“A mix of dream and dystopia.”
—Scrapping and Playing
“It reads as a memoir more than a plot-driven novel of the results of what was once the dream city of Neom. Now, however, after wars and upheavals, Neom exists as a collector of people, robots, ideas; a place where all sorts of life happens. Take a read and let me know what you think!”
—Frivolous Comma
“A beautiful and touching tapestry, certainly among my favorites of the year.”
—Tar Vol On
On Central Station
John W. Campbell Award Winner
Neukom Institute Literary Arts Award Winner
Xingyun Award Winner
Arthur C. Clarke Award, Shortlist
British Science Fiction Award, Longlist
Geffen Award nominee, Best Translated Science Fiction Book
Premio Italia, Best International Novel, Finalist
Kurd Laßwitz Preis Shortlist
“Beautiful, original, a shimmering tapestry of connections and images.”
—Alastair Reynolds, author of the Revelation Space series
“A dazzling tale of complicated politics and even more complicated souls. Beautiful.”
—Ken Liu, author of The Paper Menagerie and The Grace of Kings
[STARRED REVIEW] “Readers of all persuasions will be entranced.”
—Publishers Weekly
[STARRED REVIEW] “A fascinating future glimpsed through the lens of a tight-knit community.”
—Library Journal
“If Nalo Hopkinson and William Gibson held a séance to channel the spirit of Ray Bradbury, they might be inspired to produce a work as grimy, as gorgeous, and as downright sensual as Central Station.”
—Peter Watts, author of Blindsight and The Freeze-Frame Revolution
On Unholy Land
Best Books of the Year:
NPR Books
Library Journal
Publishers Weekly
UK Guardian
Crime Time
“Thoughtfulness, suspense, imagery, and beautiful prose. Highly recommended.”
—Fantasy Literature
“[STARRED] Incredible twists on multiple realities and homecoming. This latest from Campbell and World Fantasy Award winner Tidhar (Central Station) is fascinating and powerful.”
—Library Journal
On The Escapement
Philip K. Dick Award nominee
Locus Recommended Reading List
Publishers Weekly Top-10 Forthcoming Fantasy Title
LitStack Most Anticipated Book
Den of Geek Top New Fantasy Book
Foreword Book of the Day
“A wild, decadent hybrid of The Dark Tower and Carnivale.”
—Catherynne M. Valente, author of Deathless
“Comic, tragic, and utterly magnificent.”
—Samantha Shannon, author of The Priory of the Orange Tree
“An original masterpiece that is all Tidhar, full of echoes of his earlier stories and novels.”
British Science Fiction, Prix Planète, and World Fantasy Award winning author Lavie Tidhar (A Man Lies Dreaming, The Escapement, Unholy Land, The Hood) is an acclaimed author of literature, science fiction, fantasy, graphic novels, and middle grade fiction. Tidhar received the Campbell, Xingyun, and Neukom awards for the novel Central Station. In addition to his fiction and nonfiction, Tidhar is the editor of the Apex Best of World Science Fiction series and a columnist for the Washington Post. His speaking appearances include Cambridge University, PEN, and the Singapore Writers Festival. He has been a Guest of Honour at book conventions in Japan, Poland, Spain, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, China, and elsewhere; he is currently a visiting professor and writer in residence at the American International University. Tidhar currently resides with his family in London.
1. The City
Beyond Central Station, that vast spaceport that links Earth with the teeming worlds of the solar system, there is a city. The city lies past the Gulf of Aqaba and the Straits of Tiran, in the old Saudi desert province that was once called Tabuk. The founders of the city called it Neom.
In sandstorm season the hot air is cooled down by gusts of wind blown into the wide boulevards of the city. The solar fields and wind farms that stretch from beyond the city proper deep into the inland desert capture all the energy Al Imtidad needs, feeding it back to serve all the city’s needs.
On the shores of the Red Sea the sunbathers gather. The bars are open late. The kuffar sit smoking sheesha as children run laughing on the beach. Suntanned youths kite-surf in the wind. It is said it’s always spring in Neo-Mostaqbal, in Neom. It is said the future always belongs to the young.
Mariam de la Cruz, who came trudging down Al Mansoura Avenue, was no longer so young, though she 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.
Of course she was perfectly fine. But she was minutely aware of the ticking clock of senescence on the cellular level. Or in other words, ageing. Which was a problem in a city like Neom, which had been built and then sold—floated on the stock exchanges of Nairobi Prime and Gaza-Under-Sea and Old Beijing—on the premise that anything can be fixed, made good, made better, that things do not have to remain the way they’d been.
In Neom, everything was meant to be beautiful, ever since the young prince Mohammad of the Al Saud dynasty first dreamed up the idea of building a city of the future in the desert of the Arabian Peninsula and along the Red Sea. Now it was a mammoth metropolitan area.
Al Imtidad, the locals called it. The urban sprawl.
Mariam had grown up there, had never known another place. Her mother came to Neom from the Philippines in search of work, had met Mariam’s father, a truck driver from Cairo who knew the desert roads from Luxor to Riyadh, from Alexandria to Mecca.
He was dead now, her father, had died in a collision on the border of Oman, delivering Chinese goods to the markets of Nizwa. She still missed him.
Her mother had lived on, remarried once, was now in a care facility on the edge of town, in the Nineveh Quarter. Much of what Mariam made went on paying the fees. It was a good place, her mother was well cared for. In the old days families would live together, would look after each other. But now there was only Mariam.
Now she walked, slowly in the heat, cars zooming past her in all directions. Latest model Bohrs, a Faraday roadster, a Gauss II black cab. No one ever named cars after poets, she thought. Her own taste in poetry ran to the neo-classical: Ng Yi-Sheng, Lior Tirosh. They weren’t the most famous, they just . . . were.
The cars swarmed around her, ferrying people every which way. They resembled the movement of fish flocks, the way they flowed independently yet in unison. It was illegal to drive a car in Al Imtidad. They were all run by an inference engine. It was usually the way of things, Mariam had found. People didn’t trust other people for things like driving them, or for making investment decisions, or for medical care.
Unless, of course, it was a matter of status.
Al Mansoura Avenue, on the outskirts of midtown, was a pleasant road with many equally-spaced palm trees providing shade along the pavements on either side. The buildings were only a few stories tall, shops on the ground floor and nice spacious apartments above. Dog-walkers walked other people’s dogs and nannies pushed other people’s babies along the pavements. Cafes were open, blasting out cool air, and the patrons who sat sipping cappuccinos were busy interacting with each other in a meaningful manner, signalling to any passer-by that they were not merely relaxing but engaging in important face-to-face connectivity.
The shuttle plane to Central Station flew low overhead. Mariam passed the cafes, the shops selling cultivated pearls and imported perfumes, anti-drone privacy kits, an artisanal bakery wafting out the smell of fresh sourdough loaves and sticky baklawah. A florist stall sold bouquets of fat red roses. The people who lived on Al Mansoura were the upwardly-mobile, and they lived on hope. Hope was a powerful drug.
Other books by this author…
Violent Century, The – Trade Paper
$16.95 Add to cartCentral Station – Trade Paperback
$15.95 Add to cartUnholy Land – Trade Paperback
$15.95 Add to cart