Nekropolis - Softcover

McHugh, Maureen F

3.65

532 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0380791234 ISBN 13: 9780380791231

Publisher: Harper Voyager, 2002

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Fleeing an empty future in the Nekropolis, twenty-one-year-old Hariba has agreed to have herself "jessed," the technobiological process that will render her subservient to whomever has purchased her service. Indentured in the house of a wealthy merchant, she encounters many wondrous things. Yet nothing there is as remarkable and disturbing to her as the harni, Akhmim. A perfect replica of a man, this intelligent, machine-bred creature unsettles Hariba with its beauty, its naive, inappropriate tenderness . . . and with prying, unanswerable questions, like "Why are you sad?" And slowly, revulsion metamorphoses into acceptance, and then into something much more. But these outlaw emotions defy the strict edicts of God and Man -- feelings that must never be explored, since no master would tolerate them. And the "jessed" defy their master's will at the risk of sickness, pain, imprisonment . . . and death.

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Review:

Hariba, a poor young Near Eastern woman, sells herself into a slavery guaranteed by "jessing," a biochemical process that makes her permanently loyal to her owner. She would be content, if not happy, in her new house-servant's life--if her mistress didn't own a harni. A harni is a chimera, a genetically engineered man who may or may not be human, but who is stunningly handsome and who treats Hariba with a gentle, attentive consideration she has never before experienced. The chimera, Akhmim, is so unlike Hariba's expectations that her fear and hatred give way to love and, impossibly, to dissatisfaction with her scientifically cemented loyalty. Hariba and Akhmin flee to the Nekropolis, the Moroccan cemetery/ghetto in which she grew up. But her family and best friend are unhappy to see her and horrified by the chimera, and running away from her bonded master precipitates a serious, potentially fatal illness. Her family and friends are too poor and too afraid of arrest to hire a physician. And the unfailingly patient and considerate chimera begins to have strange effects on the women in Hariba's life.

Like Maureen F. McHugh's previous novels, Nekropolis is beautifully written, thoughtful, and powerful, with complex, sensitively delineated, always believable characters. McHugh portrays human behavior with a rare and sometimes heartbreaking honesty and with an exceptional insight into the interplay of male-female relationships and the dilemma of the stranger in a strange land. Like McHugh's debut novel, China Mountain Zhang (winner of the Hugo, Tiptree, Lambda, and Locus awards), the chapters are narrated in alternating first-person viewpoints that offer fresh and contrasting angles and understanding of the characters and their world. --Cynthia Ward

About the Author:

Maureen F. McHugh is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Mission Child, China Mountain Zhang -- which was a New York Times Notable Book, nominated for both a Hugo and a Nebula Award, and winner of the Locus Readers' Poll for Best First Novel, a James Tiptree Award, and a Lambda Award -- and Half the Day is Night. She received the Hugo for her short story "The Lincoln Train," and other stories have appeared in several publications and anthologies, including in the highly regarded collection Starlight 1. Ms. McHugh lives in Ohio with her husband and stepson.

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