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Christian Dittus
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NEOM

Lavie Tidhar

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.

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.

British Science Fiction, British Fantasy, 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.
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Published 2022-11-01 by Tachyon Publications

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Lavie Tidhar's NEOM continues its assault on the best of 2022 lists Read more...

"Wow! What a gut punch! 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. What is most surprising is how easy it is to fall into. It never overwhelms us. -- My rating: 5 of 5 stars" —Bradley Horner "This was the weirdest book I think have ever read, and I loved every minute of it. The weird and strangeness on top of the mystery of what exactly was going on kept me enraptured to the very end." Into the Heart Wyld review of THE ESCAPEMENT “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 “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 “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 “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 “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 “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 “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 “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 deliciously inventive wild ride through a future Middle East full of unexpected wonders” —Benjamin Rosenbaum, author of The Unraveling

“... self-fulfillment and one robot's quest to reunite with a lost love. (...) 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.”