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A carregar... Nekropolis (edição 2002)por Maureen F. Mchugh
Informação Sobre a ObraNekropolis por Maureen F. McHugh
A carregar...
Adira ao LibraryThing para descobrir se irá gostar deste livro. Ainda não há conversas na Discussão sobre este livro. A servant-girl from an oppressive Islamic-like country falls in love with a *harni* or artificial person, like a Blade Runner replicant. Each chapter ripples out showing the effects of her decisions her family and friends, and on the *harni* himself. Well-written, the book examines the divide between rich and poor, real and artificial persons, and the life of a refugee. This book, set in a future Morocco, shows that, regardless of advances in technology, the basic human experience often changes very little. Her main character, the young Muslim woman Hariba, has voluntarily sold herself into servitude; her loyalty to her employers assured by chemical/biological means. However, when she falls in love with Akhmim, a lab-created biological "AI" who seems all too human, the two escape their employer/owners, risking jail or death... Regardless of the book's exotic tech, Hariba's experiences are those shared by all too many refugees, poltical and otherwise, today. McHugh speaks delicately and effectively about the realities of life in an oppressive regime, the fact that even those who are extremely conservative can fall afoul of the law in such situations, about the difference in perception between well-meaning liberals with high political ideals and the priorities and concerns of those they are trying to help, about the difficulties faced by those who have left others behind to face the repercussions of their rebellion.... sem críticas | adicionar uma crítica
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. Não foram encontradas descrições de bibliotecas. |
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Google Books — A carregar... GénerosSistema Decimal de Melvil (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999Classificação da Biblioteca do Congresso dos EUA (LCC)AvaliaçãoMédia:
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I read McHugh's short story "Nekropolis" years ago and adored it. The prose is spare and beautiful and the characters are alive on the page. The novel, with its multiple points of view, is bleaker but more complex. Akhmin emerges as the most interesting character; his perspective is brilliantly alien, yet we empathize with them during his toughest decisions.
Additionally, I have now read a few romances featuring androids, cyborgs, etc. (hint: have written one) and I was so relieved that Akhmin had a complex inner life and was not merely an object on which our oppressed protagonist projects her fantasies of desire and control. (Obviously he's that too.)
The plot has the trademark McHugh elements of structural oppression, prolonged suffering, bad things getting worse, and characters muddling through to a possibly but not necessarily brighter future. It's probably her darkest novel, and I can't say I found the end totally satisfactory, partly because of the shape of the story. We never return to Akhmin's perspective, and the story felt incomplete without it.
Alas, I have now read every novel by one of my favorite writers! Someone pay this lady to write another book. ( )