Central Station - BoundCovers

275 pages

English language

Published Oct. 30, 2016 by Tachyon Pub..

ISBN:: 978-1-61696-214-2
OCLC Number:: 915503982

(2 reviews)

A worldwide diaspora has left a quarter of a million people at the foot of a space station. Cultures collide in real life and virtual reality. The city is literally a weed, its growth left unchecked. Life is cheap, and data is cheaper. When Boris Chong returns to Tel Aviv from Mars, much has changed. Boris' ex-lover is raising a strangely familiar child who can tap into the datastream of a mind with the touch of a finger. His cousin is infatuated with a robotnik--a damaged cyborg soldier who might as well be begging for parts. His father is terminally-ill with a multigenerational mind-plague. And a hunted data-vampire has followed Boris to where she is forbidden to return. Rising above them is Central Station, the interplanetary hub between all things: the constantly shifting Tel Aviv; a powerful virtual arena, and the space colonies where humanity has gone to escape the …

A worldwide diaspora has left a quarter of a million people at the foot of a space station. Cultures collide in real life and virtual reality. The city is literally a weed, its growth left unchecked. Life is cheap, and data is cheaper. When Boris Chong returns to Tel Aviv from Mars, much has changed. Boris' ex-lover is raising a strangely familiar child who can tap into the datastream of a mind with the touch of a finger. His cousin is infatuated with a robotnik--a damaged cyborg soldier who might as well be begging for parts. His father is terminally-ill with a multigenerational mind-plague. And a hunted data-vampire has followed Boris to where she is forbidden to return. Rising above them is Central Station, the interplanetary hub between all things: the constantly shifting Tel Aviv; a powerful virtual arena, and the space colonies where humanity has gone to escape the ravages of poverty and war. Everything is connected by the Others, powerful alien entities who, through the Conversation--a shifting, flowing stream of consciousness--are just the beginning of irrevocable change. At Central Station, humans and machines continue to adapt, thrive ... and even evolve.

2 editions

[email protected] reviewed Central Station by Lavie Tidhar

It was okay. (Click for moar)

3 stars

3.5 stars rounded down. See previous comment (should be easy to find on the bookwyrm instance itself?), only thing I'll add is that it ended somewhat abruptly.

Looking back, though, the entire work is almost more like a slice-of-life manga than a traditional scifi novel (again: emphasis is very much on mood and place, over plot or conflict) so it's not like it was all that jarring.

I'm glad I read it, but I'm also not likely to rush to seek out Tidhar's other works. (But if I ran across another one recommended in some context like a good friend gushing about it? Sure, I'd give him another shot.)

Will Sargent reviewed Central Station by Lavie Tidhar

Review of 'Central Station' on 'Storygraph'

3 stars

The language is nice, and I especially like the way the characters all know and are comfortable with one another, but it's not so much a book as a series of vignettes. There's very little overarching plot -- instead, each character has a thread and a resolution that play out largely independently of one another.

Also, so many SF in-jokes. One robot church calls out the "Nine billion names of God" and there are sandworms mentioned.

Subjects

Fiction
Space stations
Interplanetary voyages
Telepathy

Places

Tel Aviv (Israel)