Neom

By: Lavie Tidhar

Narrated by: Rasha Zamamiri

The city known as Neom is many things to many beings, human or otherwise. Neom 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 from Central Station. 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 terror-artist, 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 if that robot is in search of lost love.

©2022 Lavie Tidhar (P)2022 Dreamscape Media, LLC

The story had a great plot with a satisfying conclusion set in a future Sci-fi world.

The best part about this story is the world building, the robots, the artificial intelligence, the world the humans live in set far in the future. The biggest issue I found with this book was the narrative was difficult to follow. If there were previous books and these characters were already known then this would be far more appropriate but in its current form the character development is minimal. The ending led to a satisfying conclusion and the plot was really good once you figure it out at the end. The narrator didn't use noticeably different voices thus it was difficult to know who was speaking. Many times during the story I find myself wondering if the person being described is a human or a robot and the technical details with the technology was confusing at times. This book would do well to be given the same treatment the Dune books were given: the ancient wars described in full detail thus tying this narrative to modernity. The author could even use characters in this book as main characters in the prequels.

Eclectic cast in the shadow of central station

Lavie Tidhar's Neom is set in his Central Station universe. An eclectic cast of characters, including robots, talking jackals, a terrorartist, and caravanners wander about and interact with one another. Robots are mostly detritus, leftover from prior military times. One robot finds parts of a golden robot who when re-assembled sings and draws in other abandoned robots to the city.

Tidhar lovingly and quite beautifully describes this potpourri of characters. The narration is well done with decent character distinction.

Note: The city of Neom is real and currently under construction.