's Best of 2001
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


From Publishers Weekly
In this exquisite if melancholy novel, McHugh (Mission Child) 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. Agent, Sandra Dijkstra. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
As a "jessed" or bonded servant, Hariba possesses a chemically induced sense of loyalty to her master until her growing affection for an artificial construct drives her to an act of desperation and changes her life forever. The author of Mission Child excels in using exotic settings as backdrops for stories of self-discovery and personal courage. This luminous tale of forbidden love in a near-future Morocco explores the evolution of human nature in a world where technology has redefined the meaning of the word human. This example of speculative fiction at its best belongs in most libraries. Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
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. Regina Schroeder
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Book Description

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.


Download Description
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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. "


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.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Life exists in the Nekropolis—but it is ia life with no future. To escape, Hariba agrees to be "jessed," a technobiological process that enhances natural loyalties. At 26, she enters a wealthy household as an indentured servant, free, she believes, of the Nekropolis.

Akhmim, a beautiful, charming harni, an intelligent, machine-bred creature, also enters Hariba's new household. Occupying the lowest stratum of society, harni are despised—and feared—by their "superiors" for their cool detachment. And though he is considered less than human, Akhmim asks Hariba troubling questions she cannot answer, questions that cut to her soul.

Hugo Award-winning author Maureen F. McHugh has imagined a breathtaking story of humanity and individuality, creating a society in which two misfits defy rigid conventions as they dare to do the impossible...fall in love.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

In this exquisite if melancholy novel, McHugh (Mission Child) 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. Agent, Sandra Dijkstra. (Aug. 30) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

As a "jessed" or bonded servant, Hariba possesses a chemically induced sense of loyalty to her master until her growing affection for an artificial construct drives her to an act of desperation and changes her life forever. The author of Mission Child excels in using exotic settings as backdrops for stories of self-discovery and personal courage. This luminous tale of forbidden love in a near-future Morocco explores the evolution of human nature in a world where technology has redefined the meaning of the word human. This example of speculative fiction at its best belongs in most libraries. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews