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 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
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.
