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3.51 AVERAGE
3.51 AVERAGE
Unusual science fiction, set in the Middle-East. With vampires, but not the kind you think. This is an intellectual book, confusing, thought-provoking. Most definitely one to consider if you want to explore other cultures' views on sci-fi.
This book had a lot of promise, and Lavie Tidhar clearly had a lot of fun with world-building. And how fun it was to inhabit this fascinating world for a while! Nice also to have a homebase of future-Israel, and to be so diverse. I think I wanted to like this book a lot more than I did, and so after I finished it, which took me a lot longer than usual because I just wasn't driven to read more than a few pages at a time, I think it comes down to this:
This book could either be turned into a collection of short stories or a complete novel that follows just a couple of characters but gets deeply into their lives and subconscious. Instead, it falls somewhere in between, which left me--sad to say--interested but never deeply invested in any of these characters.
I suppose it feels more like Central Station and its environs is supposed to be the main character, but then I don't know if that was fully fleshed out as well.
In any case, this was a unique book to read, and still a welcome addition to the Sci-Fi canon. I am glad to have read it.
This book could either be turned into a collection of short stories or a complete novel that follows just a couple of characters but gets deeply into their lives and subconscious. Instead, it falls somewhere in between, which left me--sad to say--interested but never deeply invested in any of these characters.
I suppose it feels more like Central Station and its environs is supposed to be the main character, but then I don't know if that was fully fleshed out as well.
In any case, this was a unique book to read, and still a welcome addition to the Sci-Fi canon. I am glad to have read it.
I felt like I was going to like this when I began. The book raises so many questions about identity in a world of almost complete digital interconnectedness, about who is human and who isn't, about how people find meaning and the place of religion in that quest---but I'm afraid somehow by the middle or so the author and I were apparently on separate tracks and missed each other in the night. I'll keep an eye out for future work, though, and try one again.
Interesting view of the future if the current trend of social media is allowed to run rampant.
Was hoping for something more cohesive, didn't realize it was mostly connected short stories without much resolution
Really interesting setting. Reasonable characters. Not sure much happened. I think this one suffers a bit from what I'm going to call the "Mieville" effect. That's when you get sucked into the setting, but then layer after layer of continuing details drown the plot. I felt like a lot of what we hear about through "The Conversation" (e.g. the internet that everyone participates in via mental implants) was flavor text. I don't want to hear about the colonies on Titan or the Terraforming spiders (cool as they were) unless they actually do something. By about midway through the book, I started yelling at it, "Stop making up weird religions and shit."
A lovely book of interconnected shorter scenes that tell a much larger story about life and who we are.
Central Station
Author: Lavie Tidhar
Publisher: Tachyon Publications
Published In: San Francisco, CA
Date: 2016
Pgs: 275
REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS
Summary:
Tel Aviv, the future. 250,000 people live at the base of a space station. Here virtual reality, humanity and all its cultures, the Others, mind plagues, data vampires, cyborgs, and digital consciousness collide. Central Station stands between humanity and space. One leap. Old world, new world.
Genre:
Aliens
Androids
Cyberpunk
Fiction
Mecha
Philosophy
Pulp
Robots
Science fiction
Space
Vampires
Why this book:
A giant spaceport in the middle of Tel Aviv-Jaffa swirling with the religious, cultural differences magnified a billion times by the entire solar system passing through there.
______________________________________________________________________________
Favorite Character:
Mama Miriam Jones who took the orphaned boy in. Miriam who takes Carmel, the data vampire, in. Miriam who, a long time ago, was a young woman, who loved Boris before he left Earth to put distance between himself and all that is Earth.
Miriam’s brother, Achimwene Haile Selaissie Jones, bookseller and friend to Ibrahim, the alte-zachen man.
Character I Most Identified With:
Lots of characters here. Each of them fronts their own layer to this world’s onion.
I feel Achimwene in my love of books. His descriptions and the descriptions of his shop ring a bell in my head and heart.
The Feel:
There’s a Pinocchio story in here. They are all chasing being human in their individual ways. And finding that humanity in odd ways unique to each individual.
Echoes of Beauty and the Beast show in a subplot here with Motl and Isobel.
And more echoes of Romeo and Juliet in many of the relationships in the book.
Favorite Scene / Quote:
Great world building. Lots of texture and backhanded info dump without being overwhelming. Info dump coming through character action and individual scene setting. Well done.
The description of what Carmel did to Stolichnaya Biru, though whether he intended all along to make his suicide part of his Stillness within a Storm art installation at Polyphemus Port on Titan or if he was pushed further around the bend by Carmel draining his soul, life, data a bit at a time.
Love Motl’s flashback to one of the wars that he was caught up in as a robotnik. Dune’s sandworms in the Sinai. A bioweapon that got loose and started breeding beneath the sands. The Bedouins hunting them for the medicinal qualities of their venom is a nice touch.
Achimwene’s reverence when Ibrahim brings him a box from a time capsule, a box full of ancient books.
The deep Nirvana of the in-book gaming world, the MMORPG on quantum steroids, and the possibility of diving deep into the game architecture dredging through its past and coming to...I’m not going to ruin it, but it made me laugh hard.
Pacing:
No real action through the majority of this book. But the world is so immersive that you can read a chapter that is a noded man sitting with a cyborged robotnik having coffee and talking about old times and the future and it feels like a lot has happened. Tidhar has created a tremendously immersive experience in this book.
Hmm Moments:
Elronites? LOL. Stood in context against the various religions and beliefs from the real world and the ones that are unique to the setting which are all part and parcel of this Tel Aviv-Jaffa-Central Station megacity and the Asimovian and Heinleinian aspects, that’s awesome.
How many cloned messiah came out of the vats? How many different factions are trying to gin up their own unifier?
A genetically certified descendant of King David rode into Jerusalem on a white donkey, amidst portents of an ending, not necessarily The End. Then, someone took him out with a sniper rifle. And, since then the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv-Jaffa-Central Station corridor had been awash with almost messiahs; genejobs, Others beyond the human condition, some points between human and virtual. But messiah projects were everywhere; the Singularity Jesus Project in Laos, the Black Monks of Mars, or the massive virtuality birthing and rebirthing the victims of The Holocaust taking place on the Zion asteroid as it makes its way out system following a beamed dream of what they believed to be a dreaming alien god, 6,000,000 virtual Jewish ghosts taken on an ultimate diaspora.
The Stirgoi / Shambleau data vampires are wicked creatures. Tearing away all that their victims are either all at once or a bite at a time as they slip toward mindlessness / emptiness. The second is what Carmel did to Stolly. The first is what the data vampire on the freighter Emaciated Savior did to Carmel before injecting soul, life, data back into her and making her a Stirgoi in her own right.
Worldbuilding where a cyborg beggar ex-soldier, more machine than man, uses the exclamation “Jesus Elron!” when introduced to a data vampire.
The Burning God was interesting, existing in all the layers of Man, machine, the Conversation, the virtual, the gameverse, and the deep other. Made me think of Burning Man, maybe Burning Man on acid.
WTF Moments:
The Others bodysurfing the humans sounds horrible from the human perspective. The humans being involved out-of-body or asleep and awakening to find something different about their body when they awake.
______________________________________________________________________________
Last Page Sound:
That was cool.
Author Assessment:
Will definitely look at other stuff by Lavie Tidhar.
Knee Jerk Reaction:
instant classic
Disposition of Book:
Irving Public Library
South Campus
Irving, TX
Dewey Decimal System:
F
TID
Would recommend to:
everyone
______________________________________________________________________________
Author: Lavie Tidhar
Publisher: Tachyon Publications
Published In: San Francisco, CA
Date: 2016
Pgs: 275
REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS
Summary:
Tel Aviv, the future. 250,000 people live at the base of a space station. Here virtual reality, humanity and all its cultures, the Others, mind plagues, data vampires, cyborgs, and digital consciousness collide. Central Station stands between humanity and space. One leap. Old world, new world.
Genre:
Aliens
Androids
Cyberpunk
Fiction
Mecha
Philosophy
Pulp
Robots
Science fiction
Space
Vampires
Why this book:
A giant spaceport in the middle of Tel Aviv-Jaffa swirling with the religious, cultural differences magnified a billion times by the entire solar system passing through there.
______________________________________________________________________________
Favorite Character:
Mama Miriam Jones who took the orphaned boy in. Miriam who takes Carmel, the data vampire, in. Miriam who, a long time ago, was a young woman, who loved Boris before he left Earth to put distance between himself and all that is Earth.
Miriam’s brother, Achimwene Haile Selaissie Jones, bookseller and friend to Ibrahim, the alte-zachen man.
Character I Most Identified With:
Lots of characters here. Each of them fronts their own layer to this world’s onion.
I feel Achimwene in my love of books. His descriptions and the descriptions of his shop ring a bell in my head and heart.
The Feel:
There’s a Pinocchio story in here. They are all chasing being human in their individual ways. And finding that humanity in odd ways unique to each individual.
Echoes of Beauty and the Beast show in a subplot here with Motl and Isobel.
And more echoes of Romeo and Juliet in many of the relationships in the book.
Favorite Scene / Quote:
Great world building. Lots of texture and backhanded info dump without being overwhelming. Info dump coming through character action and individual scene setting. Well done.
The description of what Carmel did to Stolichnaya Biru, though whether he intended all along to make his suicide part of his Stillness within a Storm art installation at Polyphemus Port on Titan or if he was pushed further around the bend by Carmel draining his soul, life, data a bit at a time.
Love Motl’s flashback to one of the wars that he was caught up in as a robotnik. Dune’s sandworms in the Sinai. A bioweapon that got loose and started breeding beneath the sands. The Bedouins hunting them for the medicinal qualities of their venom is a nice touch.
Achimwene’s reverence when Ibrahim brings him a box from a time capsule, a box full of ancient books.
The deep Nirvana of the in-book gaming world, the MMORPG on quantum steroids, and the possibility of diving deep into the game architecture dredging through its past and coming to...I’m not going to ruin it, but it made me laugh hard.
Pacing:
No real action through the majority of this book. But the world is so immersive that you can read a chapter that is a noded man sitting with a cyborged robotnik having coffee and talking about old times and the future and it feels like a lot has happened. Tidhar has created a tremendously immersive experience in this book.
Hmm Moments:
Elronites? LOL. Stood in context against the various religions and beliefs from the real world and the ones that are unique to the setting which are all part and parcel of this Tel Aviv-Jaffa-Central Station megacity and the Asimovian and Heinleinian aspects, that’s awesome.
How many cloned messiah came out of the vats? How many different factions are trying to gin up their own unifier?
A genetically certified descendant of King David rode into Jerusalem on a white donkey, amidst portents of an ending, not necessarily The End. Then, someone took him out with a sniper rifle. And, since then the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv-Jaffa-Central Station corridor had been awash with almost messiahs; genejobs, Others beyond the human condition, some points between human and virtual. But messiah projects were everywhere; the Singularity Jesus Project in Laos, the Black Monks of Mars, or the massive virtuality birthing and rebirthing the victims of The Holocaust taking place on the Zion asteroid as it makes its way out system following a beamed dream of what they believed to be a dreaming alien god, 6,000,000 virtual Jewish ghosts taken on an ultimate diaspora.
The Stirgoi / Shambleau data vampires are wicked creatures. Tearing away all that their victims are either all at once or a bite at a time as they slip toward mindlessness / emptiness. The second is what Carmel did to Stolly. The first is what the data vampire on the freighter Emaciated Savior did to Carmel before injecting soul, life, data back into her and making her a Stirgoi in her own right.
Worldbuilding where a cyborg beggar ex-soldier, more machine than man, uses the exclamation “Jesus Elron!” when introduced to a data vampire.
The Burning God was interesting, existing in all the layers of Man, machine, the Conversation, the virtual, the gameverse, and the deep other. Made me think of Burning Man, maybe Burning Man on acid.
WTF Moments:
The Others bodysurfing the humans sounds horrible from the human perspective. The humans being involved out-of-body or asleep and awakening to find something different about their body when they awake.
______________________________________________________________________________
Last Page Sound:
That was cool.
Author Assessment:
Will definitely look at other stuff by Lavie Tidhar.
Knee Jerk Reaction:
instant classic
Disposition of Book:
Irving Public Library
South Campus
Irving, TX
Dewey Decimal System:
F
TID
Would recommend to:
everyone
______________________________________________________________________________
My 4th book by Lavie Tidhar this year; I think I have discovered a new favorite! I really admire his capacity to bounce from one end of the speculative fiction spectrum to another so smoothly, his always beautiful prose and his completely unbridled imagination. 4th, but definitely not last!
In Earth’s space-faring future, Tel Aviv has become the literal central port for people going off planet, or coming back from human colonies across the solar system. This book is a little mosaic of what life is like in the shadow of the enormous Central Station, a strange place where ancient buildings and traditions co-exist, sometimes uneasily, with the newer technologies, where families come together and are pulled apart and where cultures blend but never lose their distinctive flavors.
There isn’t really a plot to be found in the pages of “Central Station”, or that much exposition, either. Tidhar writes of this far-future Earth by assuming that humanity endures and adapts – for better or for worse. What kept me glued to the page was the incredibly creative world-building: religious robots, jobless cyborg soldiers, data-vampires… Tidhar is clearly fascinated by the concept of transhumanism, and he imagined various strange ways such things could unfold and evolve when the tech used to “evolve” people becomes obsolete. He explores this world through the connections between two families living by Central Stations: the Chongs and the Jones. But to these people, family does not necessarily mean blood ties, expanding this story to show that people are much more connected than they think, even without being plugged into a huge network of digital consciousness.
The stuff in this book can be grimy at times: there is plenty of dirty, misery and blood to go around, but there is also something strangely luminous about this world, where love and faith still hold an important place in people’s heart, and where the definition of humanity is broader than one could have imagined. Obviously, I loved it, and would have loved it even more if the book had been longer.
In Earth’s space-faring future, Tel Aviv has become the literal central port for people going off planet, or coming back from human colonies across the solar system. This book is a little mosaic of what life is like in the shadow of the enormous Central Station, a strange place where ancient buildings and traditions co-exist, sometimes uneasily, with the newer technologies, where families come together and are pulled apart and where cultures blend but never lose their distinctive flavors.
There isn’t really a plot to be found in the pages of “Central Station”, or that much exposition, either. Tidhar writes of this far-future Earth by assuming that humanity endures and adapts – for better or for worse. What kept me glued to the page was the incredibly creative world-building: religious robots, jobless cyborg soldiers, data-vampires… Tidhar is clearly fascinated by the concept of transhumanism, and he imagined various strange ways such things could unfold and evolve when the tech used to “evolve” people becomes obsolete. He explores this world through the connections between two families living by Central Stations: the Chongs and the Jones. But to these people, family does not necessarily mean blood ties, expanding this story to show that people are much more connected than they think, even without being plugged into a huge network of digital consciousness.
The stuff in this book can be grimy at times: there is plenty of dirty, misery and blood to go around, but there is also something strangely luminous about this world, where love and faith still hold an important place in people’s heart, and where the definition of humanity is broader than one could have imagined. Obviously, I loved it, and would have loved it even more if the book had been longer.