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Neom
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"Neom" Discuss Everything *Spoilers*
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Pasting my comments from elsewhere:I enjoyed Neom, like I did Central Station. I love Tidhar's work in general (in this setting, and elsewhere), and the ways he throws literary references and wild ideas onto the page in a way that at first feels messy, but is very considered.
I've read some reviewers describing this as a dystopia. I disagree. It's a difficult world to live in, with many dangers and uncertainties about the future, but so is our own world. There characters aren't acting as if everything is gloomy - they're just trying to live their lives.
Neom is great moment to moment, but it didn't feel like a novel - I don't know if it works as one. I enjoyed the individual slices of story, and their connections to each other, but wasn't satisfied like I am with a great novel.
One interview I listened to before reading focused on the Three Laws of Robotics reference, which primed me to think it was the focus of the book, rather than a reference.
I caught some of the references to other stories in the Central Station/Future History, such as the lottery in Yiwu, and the map shows the Neo-Neanderthal sanctuary that's been the focus of recent stories. There are references to Simak and other Golden Age(?) authors in some of the character names. There's also a sneaky reference to Tidhar's upcoming animated series about electrical appliances on Mars (in collaboration with Nir Yaniv).
5. How many references/allusions did you catch?I wish I took notes because I remember a number of them but forget the details. Biblical connection to Moses and Jesus. Gold robot parts the water and they all walk through it. Robot messiah. I think the insect robot was left with free will to not follow the messiah into the water. I may be imposing my own worldview on it. The ending seemed like an end times beating swords into plowshares moment taking weapons of war and turning them to peace. Isaiah 2:4 is one reference.
I like what you said, Bobby. I agree. This is the first book or story I've read by this author. I think perhaps if I'd read Central Station first, this might've made more sense to me. But since I didn't really care for it, I won't read anything else of his. I liked our characters, but it all felt very incomplete for each of them, except perhaps Mariam and Nasir.
Agree with the above, except, The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars is what I assumed was the source of the allusion Ori mentions.I'm dissatisfied for similar reasons Ori is. I liked it, but not enough. I have not read Central Station (and do not plan to).
My review, written before looking at this thread, answers the questions fairly well:
I never felt engaged, nor did I find it immersive. I couldn't concentrate and it took me much longer to read than it should have. The glossary took me out of the story instead of answering my questions (I should've just not used it). World-building impressive, characters superficial, plot could've been told in a short story, writing pretentious.
But that's my opinion now. I won't rate it, because group discussion might indeed help me appreciate it more.
[Um, not so much so far, as it turns out. ;]
Mod
I feel like I need to read this one again. A lot happened and I remember much of it distinctly but it hasn't settled into my brain yet in a way that I can speak on.
The Kindle version has an added bit about how it fits into Tidhar's universe plus a glossary which helps show a lot of the references/allusionsI liked it
I will unfortunately join the group of people who weren't impressed with the novel. Maybe I would have liked it more, if I had read Central Station first or understood more of the references (anything apart from biblical references went over my head).I found the world-building somewhat confusing and the characters rather underdeveloped.
There wasn't really anything I outright disliked about Neom. I just mostly felt 'meh' about it.
I agree with the negative opinions here. I was mostly bored, waiting for things to happen. When something finally happened at the end, it didn't feel connected to much of the rest of the story. The characters spent a lot of time saying and doing mundane things. Given that this is a short book, it shouldn't be lingering on the trite.
I'm happy I can give the other side - I liked it a lot. But it's not the kind of book I expected from the publisher's description on GR, which would be more action-packed and grittier. It had almost a cozy feel for me - hint of Becky Chambers. It didn't do any real character development, the humans were a little cartoony - sweet, but I was in the mood for all that. So definitely heavy on the fantasy side of sci fi/fantasy. But what I liked most is his approach to AI characters and issues - I feel like there is a lot to dig into here - future books could have a lot more to say on the existential side of synthetic/robotic/AI life. Like taking ideas raised in Blade Runner (I haven't read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? 1 so I can only reference the movie) and running with them. I think this book was meant to be more of a window into this Tidhar's new world, and I'm intrigued by it. I haven't read Central Station yet, but I definitely will.I've only read one other book by Tidhar Unholy Land which I liked a lot. If somebody wants to try this author again, this one might be a better choice - definitely more action, and grit, and the fantasy element isn't cozy.
My review of Neom has more detail - especially on the writing, which I really liked.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
This was my first book by Tidhar. I enjoyed the book a lot. I agree with Nadine that this book reminded me of Becky Chambers style. I liked the world-building, but also felt confused at times. I still can't quite visualize Neom in my head, which caused me to feel disconnected at times. On the other hand, I could easily visualize the desert and how the robots looked.
I liked the characters, but they didn't stand out. I would have liked to see more depth to them.
I liked books with robots, so overall this was a 4 star read for me. I am open to reading more books by this author in the future.
Yes, more about the robots please!
I’m a little relieved to see there were a few other people who didn’t care for this. I usually avoid even the non-spoiler threads until I’ve finished a book, but I was so bored by this one that I peeked at the non-spoiler thread to see what the reactions were. All the ratings showing in the message headers from the people who had finished it were high in that thread, and the comments seemed generally positive. I don’t always agree with the majority, but I don’t usually feel quite that out of sync with everybody else. But taking into account both threads, it looks like the reactions are a little more evenly split after all, at least so far.I did this in audio, and the narrator didn’t work well for me, so that combined with lack of interest in the story meant I spaced out a lot. I think a lot of things went over my head simply due to lack of attention and my comments will probably reflect that. But to try to answer the questions…
1. What did you think of the world?
This was probably the best part of the book for me. The world-building was creative and made a potentially interesting background for a story, but the story itself didn’t hold my interest.
2. What did you think of the characters?
I was apathetic about all the characters. Saleh’s story was probably the one that interested me the most, at least at the beginning, but it wasn’t very substantial.
3. What worked or didn't for you?
I’m not really sure why, but the story just didn’t capture me at all.
I’m not sure if it was explained in a spot where I spaced out, but I didn’t understand why the evil lady (can’t remember her name) wanted Saleh's friend Elias and what exactly she did to him, other than something bad. I understood that she was suppressing Saleh’s memories somehow, and that she’d tricked him when she said she wouldn’t take anything he wasn’t willing to part with, since he’d been in the process of saying goodbye to Elias, but I didn’t understand why Anubis, who had been observing them from a distance at the time it all went down, never asked Saleh about what happened to Elias or mentioned him at all. Not that I heard, anyway.
This isn't specifically related to the story, but I felt the audio narrator was too melodramatic, making characters frequently sound shocked or surprised or amazed at times when I didn’t think the text itself implied those emotions. But I have a tendency to read text in my head in a more understated manner, so my brain often does battle with the words I’m hearing versus the tone I’m hearing them in when I listen to some of the more dramatic narrators.
4. Overall thoughts?
At least it was short?
5. How many references/allusions did you catch?
No idea. I did catch some, but I’m sure I missed a lot. I’m usually bad at reference catching, though. I actually hadn’t realized that was as deliberate an aspect of the story as it apparently was. I remember a few times feeling like it was over the top, especially one passage that seemed to go on and on with the Shakespeare-like stuff to the point where it seemed less like a homage and more like a parody. But my issues with the narrator may have influenced how I heard it. I liked the shorter and subtler ones, like the robots dreaming of sheep.
I have a feeling that this is more of an eye read book than a listen to book. I felt like the characters really came to life with eye reading especially since I was giving it my undivided attention and not doing something else while listening to it
Neom was a fast read for me and I enjoyed it enough that I read Central Station as well. It's not a book about plot or character development or action, it's more about vibe, world-building, and themes. Central Station was a series of linked short stories and Neom felt a bit like that as well. The universe Tidhar builds contains humanity in all it's messiness, and envisions what might happen in the future, with the evolution of human and the digital and expansion into the solar system. The themes are of family, human connections and community, religion, redemption, the costs of war, the weight of the past and hope for the future. Central Station in some ways reminded me of How High We Go in the Dark, but was way less depressing. Both are linked short stories in a future earth, but How High depicted a lot of alienated characters that tried to make human connections, and mostly failed, set against a backdrop of pandemic and death (I had to read it in small doses). I liked Neom more than Central Station, which had a lot of stories that didn't seem to really have a resolution. I think it works better if you think of it more as slice of life stories.
I thought it ended awfully fast, the last chapters not at all had the same pacing with the previous flow of events. It was too short, too, ended up being a lot of character intros and clever fun world-building and then - splash. My favorite character was the jackal, tired of the desert and his pack. Loved his name. Anubis!
I agree aPril... obviously this isn't an amateur author though so I'm thinking about this pacing and fast ending issue as something intentional. Not sure of exactly what the author's intent is, but I do think there's something.
I really liked this. I found the world and it's inhabitants to be very interesting. Even though I said in the non-spoilers thread that I hadn't read anything by this author before, when I was reading the glossary at the end, I realized I had actually read two other stories by Tidhar set in this world - "Wild Geese" and "Yiwu" - both of which I liked. I definitely plan to go on to read Central Station. I loved how the point of view changed organically, and I was especially fond of the Robot and Mariam. To me, it felt more like reading a really long short story, rather than a novel - like the reader was dropping in and observing this slice of time for these characters and then dropping out again. I enjoyed the references that I picked up on, and I found the story to be hopeful overall. I did think the ending wrapped up a little too neatly, but it didn't bother me that much - the fun of the story for me was more in discovering things about the world and thinking about the ideas that were being explored.
YouKneeK wrote: "I did this in audio, and the narrator didn’t work well for me, so that combined with lack of interest in the story meant I spaced out a lot.."I agree that narrator wasn't really that good. I don't have much time to eye-read, so I have a lot of practice with audiobooks and learned to focus well and retain information as well as with physical books, but this one... I'm not sure, if I would agree that this book is better read with eyes - I think the narrator was just not a good fit. I definitely don't recommend the audiobook for Neom.
Kaia's comment that it felt like a short story may explain most of my perception. I've never cared for short stories and mainly read series. Having time to follow the characters and really get to know them and their world is what I love, so it's quite possible that alone is why this wasn't my cup of tea...both making the one bit of action seem rushed and the characters undeveloped to me.
I'll put myself into the "I liked it" camp on this one. Everything about it is rather sparse, from the characters to the plot to the setting to the writing style, but it feels more like Tidhar set up a basic structure the reader can hang their imagination on rather than something with no real shape, if that makes any sense. And it hit me in the feels once or twice when I wasn't expecting it, particularly when it came to Saleh and Anubis. I suspect people who are focused on "event" might not get a lot out of this--I'm much more of a vibes person and it worked well for me. Like Nadine and Feliciana, I was reminded of Becky Chambers, but that could just be because I finished the first Monk & Robot novella not long before starting it. Tidhar's robots aren't anywhere near as patient with humans as Chambers' are, though. There's the whole "destroyed a city not leaving a single bone intact" thing...
As for allusions, the "parting of the Red Sea" and the messiah figure were pretty blatant. Other than those, because I'm a digital age-poisoned ignoramus, I recognized Pokemon and Digimon, and one or two other references to video games, and that's about all.
If I were reading this with a literary group, I would wonder if this novel were satire.https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/28/ma...
Since I am reading with a SFF group, I wonder if this novel is dystopian with a splash or two of satire.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-de...
Chapter 12: The Shake.Robot has followed Nasir into Bashir's Shakes. Robot
Nasir: I worry that whatever it is you are doing will have ramifications for my city. We have few laws in Neom, but we do have order.
Robot: Order. in your pirate utopia. I visited Nirrti the Black on Titan, you know. There was less order, but more honesty there.
Yep. Dystopia (and Satire).
Cynda, care to elaborate on why you think this is a dystopia? (I wrote above that I disagree with that categorization)
Yes Ori. Let me think about this.
Here's my response Ori. I agree with you that this story is not utopia/dystopia. However whatever genre this is--perhaps New Weird--there are themes that thread through the story:Utopia/Dystopia
maybe a bit of satire
Romance
Emotions
Spirituality.
Neom (the actual project) is currently marketed as a Utopian city of the future. In the novel, it's just ... a place. With the same problems with have now, just of a different kind, and people are still living their lives, having both good and bad experience. This is why I don't see it as a dystopia - it's not some grim vision of the future.As a thematic element, I think it compares the promises with what Neom became, and some characters (the robots) perhaps find their own utopia in the end.
Yes, let's just talk about the world of the story.In any utopia, there is dystopia/In any dystopia, there is utopia. In our book Neom, the utopian aspects include youth and peace in an oasis created out of the desert. The dystopian aspects include talk the war talk, the increasing power and human aspects of robots and other nonhuman life/life-ish forms. What become the utopian aspect of the robots entering the ocean is because they felt out of p!ace which indicates dystopia. The robots were unhappy, unhappy enough to call forth the Golden Man to lead them. For the robots, Neom is an unhappy place, maybe even miserable. Perhaps robots do have enough thought and feeling here in Neom to want to leave.
Ori wrote: "Cynda, care to elaborate on why you think this is a dystopia? (I wrote above that I disagree with that categorization)"I lean a bit towards dystopia because of all the abandoned war robots and the terrorism artist
CBRetriever wrote: "I lean a bit towards dystopia because of all the abandoned war robots and the terrorism artist"Maybe the difference is I'm treating "dystopia" as a genre, and this doesn't fit for me. I don't consider it a "Dystopian novel".
The equivalent of a minefield (unexploded ordnances, UXOs) or a warzone near where you live, or terrorism - actual things we have now - doesn't turn a setting into a dystopia. These things are not a defining characteristic of structure of the society under which people live. Most of the characters want nothing to do with them - they don't want to go into the desert, they stay far away from the terrorists and the affected areas.
Ori wrote: "the affected areas."quite a few dystopian books have islands of normality surrounded by affected areas. And it seems to me that a lot of the affected areas were caused by a war and even Neom itself is profiting from those affected areas
but we can agree to disagree in this case. I really enjoyed the book in part because I had moments to close my eyes and imagine the situations (fill in the blanks so to speak) which I don't think I would have if I'd listened to it
To me, it felt like the story took place after the dystopian part. The wars had been over for a while and people were living with the aftermath, but this story itself was more hopeful. I agree with Ori that it was more of just of a place to me, with good and bad. Certainly the bad elements from the past impacted the lives of the current residents, but they mostly felt distant to me, and the characters who were long lived, like the golden man and the robots, made different, more positive decisions than they had in the past.
I agree, Kaia. I could never be sure, but it does seem that we're more in the Rebuilding phase of the cycle, after a deeply dystopian period. I felt optimism and hope, from and for the people and for the machines.
Whole new conversation. Still keeping my comments to the actual story and not the planned/real city.
I notice that "Neom" sounds like a computer powering up. This indicates that the story is more about the robots than the humans. Maybe the narrator is a computer/AI bot writer. What if the AI bot writer believes that this world of Neom and outlying areas are really just a 3-D computer program. This is a thought thread that could work. . . . Could explain some things that happen. . . . .but I don't want to give it all away. . . . . What do others think?
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https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
On October 3, there's an online author event about Tidhar's latest science fiction novel The Circumference of the World.https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/...
It's 1 PM Los Angeles time. You need to register in advance:
https://lapl.zoom.us/meeting/register...
Last time there was an online author event in this tour, no one came (and I got the timezone wrong), so don't make it awkward for me to be the only one 😄
The novel is revolves a mysterious book that contains the secret to how the universe works. It's written by a fictional L Ron Hubbard and is inspired by Scientology. It is both profound/serious and playful, with many cameos by SF luminaries, and an homage/critique of the the golden age.
If this sounds interesting, you're welcome to join!
I liked it til 2/3 through, and then it started spinning out of control for me, around chapters 15) The Visit and 16) The Crossing where Nasu shows up. (I did not realize Nasu was the fortune teller until YouKneeK pointed it out above.)Nasu seemed so powerful she was more like a mini-goddess than a person, and it became more fantastical to me, stopped making sense.
At first I liked the references to other SF writers because it was fun recognizing them and I felt clever for seeing them. C.L. Moore, Cordwainer Smith, Isaac Asimov, Alfred Bester (Fondly the maniacal robot, humming and stabbing people, hehe.) Then there were so many it seemed like the author was doing it as a challenge to make himself feel clever, that was less enjoyable than for me to do so! By the time Mariam smoked an Ubiq ( Ubik ) there were too many for me to believe in. I would prefer a few, realistic ones.
I liked many of the characters: Mariam, Saleh, Anubis the Jackal, Elias, Nasir and Laila, Mukhtar the merchant, Sharif the mechanic, robots... so I was a little disappointed when, for me, the story became too weird instead of cohering.
I was watching for a Star Wars reference to imply that the Golden Man was C-3PO."Hey Mister! Are you going to space?"
Did the little girl who interacted with several characters mean anything? I wondered if she might turn out to be connected to Nasu's past or something projected from the pendant Nasu retrieved from the vault... then I couldn't find a connection so maybe she was just comic relief.
Bonnie wrote: "Then there were so many it seemed like the author was doing it as a challenge to make himself feel clever, that was less enjoyable than for me to do so!"Maybe my relative ignorance of SF was an advantage, because I recognized only a couple of things in passing and they weren't enough to be intrusive.
I'm reading Ready Player One and in comparison this book is a paragon of restraint when it comes to extra-textual references. :D
SciFi and Fantasy Book Club
Books mentioned in this topic
Ready Player One (other topics)Ubik (other topics)
The Circumference of the World (other topics)
Neom (other topics)
Central Station (other topics)
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1. What did you think of the world?
2. What did you think of the characters?
3. What worked or didn't for you?
4. Overall thoughts?
5. How many references/allusions did you catch?
Non-spoiler thread here: First impressions