The novel “Neom” by Lavie Tidhar was published for the first time in 2022.
Neom is a city on the Red Sea, linked to Central Station and therefore to the routes leading into space. Outside Neom lies the desert, which sometimes hides secrets linked to old wars. Old and new are intertwined in various ways; for example, with Bedouins traveling old routes using new technologies.
The discovery of an old war robot raises various questions. Could its reactivation pose dangers even though its war has long been over? What exactly is it programmed to do? A flower offered to it by Mariam may seem like a small gesture, but its consequences can be significant.
There’s a real plan to build a new city called Neom. Unfortunately, reports indicate the practical difficulties of realizing such a mammoth project, even with billionaire funding. Worse still, the workers’ situation seems fitting for a dystopian story. Lavie Tidhar’s version of Neom isn’t a paradise, as it’s a city built for rich people, but it’s not all that horrible for the common people either.
If you have read “Central Station“, you already had the opportunity to savor Lavie Tidhar’s evocative style. After the success of that novel, the author began writing a new story, chapter by chapter. The result is “Neom,” set in the same fictional universe but completely independent of the first novel and some other short stories connected to it.
The plot of this new novel is initially vague: it’s more of an excuse to expand this fictional universe with descriptions of the city of Neom and the surrounding desert, and the introduction of key characters. The future described by Lavie Tidhar is full of technological innovations, but also familiar situations, such as the divide between the city built for the rich and its slums, where ordinary people live as best they can.
It takes a while to start understanding where Lavie Tidhar is going with his tale. According to what the author wrote in the afterword, this is because he began writing this novel without thinking beyond the chapter he was working on.
The plot developments are largely based on the interaction between various, truly diverse characters. Each protagonist has their own goals and motivations, but somehow ends up crossing paths with other, sometimes very different, characters. Not all of them are human, and a strigoi, inspired by the Romanian mythology underlying vampires, briefly appears, sucking data instead of blood in this fictional universe.
Robots and artificial intelligence also play a prominent role in this novel: in particular, an old war robot that is reactivated in the desert and begins its own adventure. A terror artist who transforms weapons of mass destruction into an art form is another character whose actions bear witness to the violent events of the past. All of this reminds us how the consequences of those events can be relevant even long after the end of those wars.
“Neom” is a novel in which Lavie Tidhar gradually develops a consistent story that encompasses the lights and shadows of humanity in that future, which are essentially the same as today. It can be read completely independently of “Central Station” and the other stories set in the same setting, but if you’re fascinated by the author’s vision, I recommend exploring the ramifications you can read about in those works, which lead to space. You can find it on Amazon USA, UK, and Canada.
