This is one of the most interesting, strange, beautiful books I’ve ever read.

As a reading experience, Central Station is confusing, with dense prose and complex, often unexplained, ideas. It follows multiple connected but separate characters and stories, each with their own theme and focus. Considering the book is essentially a collection of revamped short stories, this makes sense. It might be a turn off for some, but the way this book jumps between character and story helps to serve its actual goal: to put you in the world of Central Station.

As an effort in world building, Central Station is a masterclass.

The titular Central Station is a spaceport in Tel Aviv, in a future where there is no longer conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. What emerges after is a world of connections and broken barriers, where binaries are deconstructed.

Across this world, Tidhar plays with the idea of deconstructed binaries or multiple states of being. Past, present and future, differing religions and nationhood, digital and material, virtual and physical, terrestrial and extraterrestrial, man and robot, human and other - all are merged and connected in ways vastly alien to our current world.

The concepts of the Conversation - an internet accessed via a bodily node which connects all people at all times and creates a virtual second world - and virtual gameworlds - which people stay in more than real world - reinforce these ideas, highlighting the thin line between the real and virtual. Even Israel itself has merged into joint state, where nationality and religion are no longer the cause of conflict or strife.

Within this we have some truly great character concepts - a robot who is both faithless and a religious figure, a broken cyborg war veteran in love with a young, gameworld obsessed woman, a family literally trapped in their collective past, a book collector unable to access the Conversation, a data vampire looking to be accepted. Many of these stories are primed to explore concepts around faith, reality, addiction, personhood, disability (as a social concept) or belonging.

It is a truly enticing world from which thousands of stories could be told.

This book is aiming for concept, feeling and character over hard science fiction and plot, which is a shame at first. In using such poetic language, the finer elements of the stories - often such as what is happening - can be lost, and some sections were more of a slog in that respect than others. On the other hand, it all feels in serve of a theme, idea or concept. Everything here feels deliberate and planned, to exist alongside the collective jumble that is the world of Central Station.

I highly recommend this book whilst simultaneously not understanding all of it and knowing it is not for everyone