Neom

World Fantasy Award winner Tidhar takes readers back to the fascinating far-future world of 2016’s Central Station in this gentle narrative about self-fulfillment and one robot’s quest to reunite with a lost love. In Neom, a port city between Earth and space on the shores of the Red Sea, Mariam de la Cruz divides her days between several odd jobs while her nights are spent longing for quietude. Meanwhile, shurta officer Nasir questions the point of law enforcement as he spends most of his time handing out tickets for littering. An unnamed robot reunites these two childhood friends when Nasir and Mariam become entangled in the robot’s mission to resurrect a “golden man” of legend. These quiet personal stakes play out against a vividly imagined world where ancient war machines stalk the deserts and seas, terrorist “art installations” explode forever within stasis fields, and the human population in space tell stories of the eldritch creatures inhabiting the Oort clouds. Meanwhile, Tidhar offers a heartfelt exploration of artificially intelligent beings’ struggles to find existential meaning while being restrained by both coding and form. Fans of literary sci-fi are sure to be enchanted by the imaginative worldbuilding and tenderly wrought characters. Agent: John Berlyne, Zeno Agency. (Nov.)