Book Review: Neom by Lavie Tidhar

 

Neom by Lavie Tidhar

256 pages, Paperback
Published November, 2022 by Tachyon

 Coming in as a dark horse candidate for the top ten read of the year was a last-minute addition to the reading agenda. Lavie is a former guest of the Dickheads podcast, I had the Israeli-raised science fiction author on for the 10th anniversary of his World-Fantasy award-winning novel Osama. That novel more than any other had the feeling of PKD’s classic alternate history, but what those two novels had in common was a feeling of alternate reality as much as alternate history. That feeling separates those books from more mainstream Alt-history like The Plot Against America or TV shows like For All Mankind.

The first Lavie Tidhar book I read was a book that took place in the same future history of Neom. Central Station and Neom are works of modern Science Fiction that are influenced by the golden age and new-wave writers. This balance of new and old school is something I am constantly looking for in modern science fiction. The agents and publishers these days are looking for something more “modern” and you end up with plain flavored books.

One of the things that gave Central Station that feeling was that it was a fix-up novel made up of various short stories that were connected. In the Golden Age this was a tactic that was required of authors, but it is a rare tactic now. Neom is more interconnected but that golden age feeling filled me with joy while reading. In the afterword, Lavie points to Cordwainer Smith as a major influence but the Dickian vibe drips off the page. I want to point out I don’t make PKD comparisons lightly, there are lots of works influenced by PKD movies. The things that make his books Dickian are things only true Dickheads will pick up. The half-step off reality that comes close to satire. The humor is a key element of this. The themes of religion, and reality in the mirror reflected from this future is what PKD did so well.

In Central Station Tidhar wrote about an Israeli spaceport, staying in the Middle East Neom is the technologically advanced urban sprawl on the coast of the Red Sea, a free city built centuries earlier by a Saudi prince. The setting of the city and that feeling of place drives this book, which has a sense of place for a far future story. It is a story of the Middle East and that is special because it is a part of the world we rarely see represented in genre fiction. The city of technology is interlocked with technological beings, the robots that live in the city.  

Saleh is a character traveling the desert with a caravan attempting to get off world, he finds a robot buried in the desert an artifact of war. Marium is a flower seller, Nasir is a former officer, and a robot who discovers the beauty of a rose are some of the character-driven elements of this novel that are woven together eventually. It is the subtle beauty of this novel.

The scene when the robot buys the rose is excellent and highlights the Dickian questions the novel raises. Like Phil’s best work, this scene uses speculative irony, makes a hilarious joke, uses world-building to establish the universe, and asks major questions in just a few paragraphs. This happens when Mariam asks why they chose a human shape and if they could be a different shape.

“Yes, yes,” the robot said, almost impatiently, she thought.
The robot reminded her of an elderly relative, abrupt at times. To the point of rudeness, as though old people always had too much and not enough to do. “The poet Basho became a toilet on a spacecraft for two hundred years, it is said. It wanted to understand bodily function.”
“I thought Basho was human,” Mariiam said, surprised.
“Well, that is how we tell the tale,” the robot said.
“You have many tales of your own?”
“Some,” the robot allowed. “and you are right, of course, I could transfer my consciousness in some way into another vessel. Even become pure code like the Others. But what would I be, then? I would be changed.”

Much is made of stuff that feels like PKD, but most of that stuff is paranoid Hollywood stuff that is like PKD adaptations and how not very Phil at all. The above passage is as Dickian a thing I have read in a long time. Beautiful speculative writing.

Some of my favorite moments were in scenes when Mariam was moonlighting and cleaning high-rise homes. She got a great view of the city. It gave narrative and organic reasons to explore and explain the city, and it set up many elements that paid off.

“She was alone and content with being alone, and seeing as she was by the water and there was only a thin crowd by the pier, she lit a cigarette – it was Ubiq, high density with data-loaded particles that hit the lungs and went straight to the brain. They helped her think. Sometimes they helped her not to.”

 Yes, the cigarette is a clear homage/easter egg to PDK’s UBIK.  I mean it has Martian Kibbutism like Martian Time-slip and a character like Elvis Mandela feels pulled out of The Simulacra. The book also refers to boppers, creatures I recognized, and the homage to Rudy Rucker is in the text when it is mentioned that the machine lifeforms “were seeded on titan by “Mad” Rucker." That one was great but also as cool as the CL  Moore reference with the data vampire being called Shambleau. I see what you did. I was glad the book came with a glossary because of some rad stuff like Battle Yiddish and The Conversation I might have missed.

Neom is one of the best most underrated recent SF books because it is loaded with all the elements I love about the genre. It took me to another part of the world, it envisioned the future there. It made me smile, laugh, and feel emotions as a product of pure imagination. Most of all it is the questions it raised.

“What do robots dream about?” Nasir said. He climbed in next to her. Laila hit the accelerator and the car swerved, threw sand and dust, and began racing back to the city.
Laila said, “Maybe they dream of Freedom.”