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November 29, 2022

One of the best reads of the year, Lavie Tidar’s NEOM is lush and exquisitely crafted

Rick Klaw blog bill capossere, fantasy literature, gareth d jones, Laura Hiatt, library journal, mary robinette kowal, my favorite bit, neom, new scientist, nonstop reader, review, sally adee, Scrapping and Playing, sfcrowsnest, tar vol on, the fantasy hive

NEOM, Lavie Tidhar’s long awaited return to the universe of the John W. Campbell Award Winner CENTRAL STATION, continues to attract effuse praise from a variety of quarters including Laura Hiatt in Library Journal, Gareth D. Jones for SFcrowsnest, Nonstop Reader, Bill Capossere at Fantasy Literature, Tar Vol on, Scrapping and Playing, and in New Scientist, Sally Adee recommends the book. At both The Fantasy Hive and Mary Robinette Kowal’s My Favorite Bit, Tidhar contributed essays relate to the novel.

Neom by Lavie Tidhar — Cover by Elizabeth Story

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

From the very start, the atmosphere engulfed me as I delved once more into this world of Lavie Tidhar’s imagination. I could almost feel the heat and the glare of the sun as the megalopolis that is Neom is slowly introduced through the eyes of Mariam, one of the city’s poor who holds down several jobs to make a living. This also gives us the perfect opportunity to experience various and disparate aspects of the city through her jaded eyes.
SFcrowsnest

This is such an engaging story, told in such lush and exquisitely crafted prose that I was swept away from the first few pages. At its heart, it’s a story of longing and family, beauty and danger, and a coming of age adventure with a clever and loyal young protagonist who has a dream and a path to follow. There are several disparate plot threads which wind closer throughout the book though it never comes to a clean denouement and resolution. There are glimpses of overarching themes which center around the interplanetary hub from Tidhar’s earlier book but most of the book is word pictures and allegory.
Nonstop Reader

Because, and so far I think I can say this about every Tidhar story I’ve picked up, you should read this book, even if it doesn’t have quite the impact of his best work (and choosing amongst his books for that title would be difficult) and even it is a bit light on plot perhaps for some. But honestly, before reading this, I was at the point where if I could auto-purchase Tidhar book like I auto-pay my bills so that they’re shipped automatically to me as they’re published, I’d sign up for that service, and NEOM would have been a welcome arrival in that system.
Fantasy Literature

But whatever it is, I liked NEOM a lot. I won’t say that every single perspective was jaw-dropping, and I’m not sure there’s a one that’s going to anchor itself in my mind and not let go. But it’s a beautiful and touching tapestry, certainly among my favorites of the year.
Tar Vol on

A novel that kept me reading, moved me to tears for an old automaton being destroyed, love the characters.
I enjoyed it, found it entertaining but it also made me think as the descriptions of NEOM are so similar to those of our world.
Scrapping and Playing

Everything that ignites passion and outrage today will be decrepit and decayed tomorrow. 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

What I realised as I was doing it, though, was that I still loved science fiction. I didn’t really want to quit. I just needed a change. It turns out that when you take out the weird stuff – the “elves and aliens”, as I sometimes call it – well, you start missing them after a while. At least I did. So during the second lockdown in the UK, while I was supposed to be finishing Maror, I went instead back to the world of CENTRAL STATION, and wrote the misadventures of a rather odd robot as it arrives one day in the city of Neom, buys a flower and takes it out into the desert. This book, called NEOM, is out now from Tachyon Publications.
The Fantasy Hive

I was in the middle of our second pandemic lockdown, in the cold of winter and unable to concentrate on the huge literary novel, Maror, that I was supposed to be writing. Instead, the image came to me of a robot and a flower. I didn’t know who the robot was or what it was doing, so I wrote it to find out. The robot confounded me. It bought a rose in the market of the city of Neom, a would-be megalopolis sprawled along the Red Sea, the real-world fever-dream of a Saudi prince. Then the robot took the flower it bought, took it deep into the desert, left it beside a long-forgotten cenotaph of a long-forgotten war, and then it casually stomped on a scorpion with its foot.
My Favorite Bit

October 4, 2022

For all its looming threats, Lavie Tidhar’s NEOM is a city you’d like to visit

Rick Klaw blog central station, clarkesworld, gary k wolfe, junk hounds, lavie tidhar, Locus, neom, sally adee, the last word on nothing, unholy land

Though still over a month from its November publication, reviews roll in for NEOM, Lavie Tidhar’s long awaited return to the universe of the John W. Campbell Award Winner CENTRAL STATION garnered a review from Gary K. Wolfe in Locus and a positive mention from Sally Adee at The Last Word on Nothing in the essay “The future is a myth that is true and false” on science fiction and the future. There’s Always Room for One More includes Tidhar’s UNHOLY LAND among Top Ten Tuesday: Geographic Titles. Clarkesworld (Issue 193, October 2022) offers the new short story “Junk Hounds” in text and audio.

Preorders for NEOM are currently available via the Tachyon site and all finer booksellers.

Nor is it necessary to have read CENTRAL STATION, although it does help flesh out Tidhar’s emerging portrait of a transformed Middle East. 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

There are ways to rescue ourselves from dystopia if we can tear ourselves away from obsessively reading and writing the same stories about it over and over again. If we can make different stories. Take NEOM. The highly decorated SF author Lavie Tidhar has written a book about its future that comes out in November. (I’ve never regretted reading anything by Lavie Tidhar.) Stories can be alchemy. They can transform dystopia from received wisdom, back into into myth.
The Last Word on Nothing

Unholy Land; cover by Sarah Anne Langton — Cover by Sarah Anne Langton

A former Subjective Chaos Kind Of Nominee, UNHOLY LAND is a time-travelling murder mystery and a series of alternate histories (some of which must be averted). Lavie Tidhar has been on my list of authors to read for ages, and this sounds fascinating and – with its themes of walls and border control – entirely on point.
There’s Always Room for One More

The walls were beige and you could see where the rust took hold. A tiny dead robot floated past Amir, feelers drooping. It was the same color as the walls and shaped like a grasshopper. Amir made a grab for it but a hidden maintenance duct sucked it up and it vanished with a soft, almost hungry pop. Other tiny robots crawled along the wall, attempting to repair a recent fracture.

The Heavenly Palace, a hundred years on from its grand opening. Once it was glorious. Now it was just another piece of floating junk.

Amir loved it. He loved the worn grooves in the floor and the faded carpets in the Stargazer’s Lounge. The whistle of the ivory balls in the old centrifugal roulette wheels and the way the bartender still mixed a martini like he was serving it to Neil and Buzz at the Oasis Hotel in Maspalomas after Apollo 11 came back from the Moon. The Heavenly Palace was a junk hound’s Mecca, and if one day the owners decided to stop boosting it and doom it at last to the inevitability of orbital decay, you could bet Amir and every other junk hound in Low Earth Orbit would be swarming over the spoils like locusts.
Junk Hounds