Praise for Neom

“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 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

“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. Tidhar writes beautifully.”

—The Speculative Shelf

“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 and the robot, who is obsolete and dangerous, full of grief and mystery and philosophy, and whose obstinate mission beckons us ever forward through Neom's pages.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

“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. Tidhar is the best sort of science fiction.”

—Kij Johnson, author of The River Bank

“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

“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