A must-read for science fiction fans, Lavie Tidhar’s thoughtful, beautifully written NEOM is one of the most interesting books of the year
NEOM, Lavie Tidhar’s long awaited return to the universe of the John W. Campbell Award Winner CENTRAL STATION, garners praise from Darly M. at Los Angeles Public Library, Tzer Island, Isaiah Roby for MI Book Reviews, and Pile by the Bed. Tidhar is interviewed on the Coode Street Podcast. Clarkesworld publishes Tidhar’s new Central Station short story “The Smell of Oranges” in both in text and audio.
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
All of this — and much more that I haven’t touched upon — is fascinating. It draws from familiar themes of science fiction without dwelling on them, then peppers the story with new and creative ideas. The novel is short but eventful, always in motion but not driven by action. Perhaps because of its emphasis on robots, but primarily because it is such a quiet novel, Neom reminded me of Clifford D. Simak’s groundbreaking science fiction. 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
If you are looking for something that has warm fuzzy feelings, lots of dialogue that challenges easy thinking, and just lovely writing, I recommend this book. It is one of the most interesting books I have read this year.
MI Book Reviews
Neom appears in a year that has also seen the release of Maror, 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
We’re halfway through December and more than halfway through our Advent Calendar. Today Gary sits down with one of the most interesting and diversely creative writers working in science fiction today, Lavie Tidhar, about his new novels NEOM and Maror, his many other projects, as well as what he’s been reading lately and would recommend.
Coode Street Podcast
On the roof the solar panels were folded in on themselves, still asleep, yet uneasily stirring, as though they could sense the imminent coming of the sun. Boris stood on the edge of the roof. The roof was flat and the building’s residents, his father’s neighbors, had, over the years, planted and expanded an assortment of plants, in pots of clay and aluminum and wood, across the roof, turning it into a high-rise tropical garden.
“The Smell of Oranges”
It was quiet up there and, for the moment, still cool. He loved the smell of late-blooming jasmine, it crept along the walls of the building, climbing tenaciously high, spreading out all over the old neighborhood that surrounded Central Station. He took a deep breath of night air and released it slowly, haltingly, watching the lights of the space port: it rose out of the sandy ground of Tel Aviv, the shape of an hourglass, and the slow moving sub-orbital flights took off and landed, like moving stars, tracing jeweled flight paths in the skies.