New Releases by Maureen F. McHugh

En un futur distòpic els Estats Units han patit una Segona Depressió, una nova guerra civil i una campanya dels Grans Vents Purificadors similar a la Revolució Cultural xinesa. A través d'un mosaic de personatges que miren de sobreviure en la rígida societat dominada pels costums xinesos, seguim l'obstinat progrés d'en Zhang, un mestís homosexual que anhela integrar-se sense renunciar a la seva identitat.

Half the Day Is Night by Maureen F. McHugh In a twenty-first-century undersea city, terrorists threaten old-money banker Mayla Ling, potentially plunging her and her bodyguard, war veteran David Dai, back into the nightmare of David's violent past. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Publishers Weekly Top 10 Best of the Year In her new collection, Story Prize finalist Maureen F. McHugh delves into the dark heart of contemporary life and life five minutes from now and how easy it is to mix up one with the other. Her stories are post-bird flu, in the middle of medical trials, wondering if our computers are smarter than us, wondering when our jobs are going to be outsourced overseas, wondering if we are who we say we are, and not sure what we'd do to survive the coming zombie plague. Praise for Maureen F. McHugh: "Gorgeously crafted stories."—Nancy Pearl, NPR "Hauntingly beautiful."—Booklist "Unpredictable and poetic work."—The Plain Dealer Maureen F. McHugh has lived in New York; Shijiazhuang, China; Ohio; Austin, Texas; and now lives in Los Angeles, California. She is the author of a Story Prize finalist collection, Mothers & Other Monsters, and four novels, including Tiptree Award-winner China Mountain Zhang and New York Times editor's choice Nekropolis. McHugh has also worked on alternate reality games for Halo 2, The Watchmen, and Nine Inch Nails, among others.

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.

Now, in her long-awaited first short story collection, the author illuminates the mother-daughter relationship from angles that everyone in the family can relate to. Aging parents, wayward children, and nervous stepmothers are all brought to life with graceful restraint and delicacy.

Young Janna has lived her fourteen years on the icy northern plains of a world that has forgotten its history. Now the arrival of Earthers -- descendants of the humans who first settled the planet many centuries before -- has violently upset the fragile balance of a developing civilization. The offworlders' advanced technologies and cruel indifference to local life have brought despair and destruction to Janna's home, robbing her of family, husband, child, and self. Haunted by a dead past -- mysteriously altered by the gift of three alien artifacts -- Janna must now redefine herself on a devastated planet she no longer recognizes, as she embarks upon a remarkable, transcendent journey into an uncertain future; moving steadily through this strange new world toward a startling realization about her role in the great cosmic order.

China Mountain Zhang, a Chineselooking New Yorker, travels the world and tackles the demanding discipline of jacked-in Organic Engineering in the 22nd century.