Nekropolis by Maureen F. McHugh (August 2001)
Requirements: ePUB Reader | 385 Kb
Overview: An extraordinary literary artist offers a powerful vision of tomorrow in a world barely touched by the passing centuries…
There is life in the Nekropolis — but no future. Hariba spent her youth here, among the exquisite paper flower wreaths her mother meticulously constructed, playing contentedly with other children around the rows and rows of old buildings housing the crumbling bones of the dead. But when an older brother’s criminal indiscretion robbed Hariba of any possibility of a husband, she agreed to have herself "jessed" — submitting to the techno-blological process designed to render her docile and subservient to whoever has purchased her service. In this way, Hariba could escape the confinement of her surroundings and hopelessness of her fate…though she could never again be truly free.
At the age of twenty-six, she enters the house of a wealthy merchant as an indentured servant. It is a new world for Hariba, filled with many wondrous objects and strange amusements that she has never before seen. But there is one thing in this place that greatly disturbs her: a harni, an intelligent, machine-bred creature of flesh and organs, a perfect replica of a man. A menial, like herself, it calls itself "Akhmim." And it unsettles Hariba with its beauty, its naïve, inappropriate tenderness — and with prying, unanswerable questions like "Why are you sad?"
But slowly, almost imperceptibly, Hariba’s revulsion metamorphoses into acceptance, and then into something much more. For Akhmim, like her, is a non-entity at the very bottom of the social order — and the harni’s gentle concern for her is real. And if she shuts out the accusing voices in her head, Hariba can even forget that Akhmim is less than human.
Dangerous thoughts, however, must inevitably lead to dangerous actions — and outlaw emotions can breed an unholy love defying the strictly enforced edicts of God and man. Soon feelings Hariba can neither control nor ignore have her contemplating the unthinkable — escape. But the "jessed" abandon their masters at the risk of sickness, pain, imprisonment, and perhaps even death. And there is no safe haven for a rebel servant and a runaway A.I. — not even within the shunned, technology-barren bowels of the city of the dead.
Hugo Award winner Maureen F. McHugh has written a provocative, powerfully dazzling novel of repression and reawakening — and a unique, profoundly moving love story that stands alongside the acclaimed works of Ursula K. Le Guin and Margaret Atwood.
Genre: Fiction, Speculative Fiction
"On the surface, Nekropolis is a love story, one with dangerous undercurrents, however, that make it more than a romance. Hariba is a slave who has been chemically jessed to be loyal and trustworthy. She lives in a fictive Morocco, in which strict religious rules govern society. At first, as her religion teaches her to be, she is harsh toward her mistress’s toy, a biologically constructed male AI, treating him as a mere object despite the fact that he thinks of himself as a man. She falls in love with him, though, and the book subsequently tells us, through the voices of the major characters, what the consequences of her love are. Well written in simple, emotionally engaging prose, this is no mere love story but a consideration of the conflicts between old rules and new technology and between attitudes of freedom and slavery. Despite the strangeness of Hariba’s world, it is easy to identify with the humanity of its denizens and be engaged by their struggles to survive." ~Booklist"In this exquisite if melancholy novel, McHugh evokes a repressive, intensely sexist 22nd century Morocco that is largely cut off from the rest of the world by the dictates of the Second Koran. Hariba, a young servant woman, has grown up in the Nekropolis, an ancient burial ground that also serves as home to the city of Fez’s teeming poor. Unsuccessful in love, she chooses to be "jessed," undergoing a medical procedure designed to turn her into the perfect servant, one who is psychologically incapable of being disloyal to her employer. Unfortunately, however, Hariba soon runs afoul of her employer’s wife, a restless shrew of a woman who devotes most of her time to bismek, a convoluted form of participatory virtual-reality soap opera. Worse still, Hariba, who’s terribly lonely, falls in love with Akhmim, a harni or artificial person, who looks human, but isn’t. Akhmim "impresses" on Hariba, returning her feelings as best he can. Indentured to another employer, she misses Akhmim terribly and eventually runs away with him. Alternating between four narrators Hariba, Akhmim, Hariba’s mother and Hariba’s best friend, Ayesha McHugh centers her novel on a well-realized set of sympathetic, but imperfect characters. Each speaks with a distinct voice, describing a complex and not entirely healthy web of friendships and familial relationships. McHugh’s Morocco, with its intensely symbolic Nekropolis, is very real, but ultimately it is Hariba, Akhmim and their heartbreaking, impossible relationship that the reader will remember." ~Publishers Weekly
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