Maya is a world controlled by a self-perpetuating aristocracy, the Changed, who maintain their superiority by tinkering with the genes of their children. This long tradition of genetic manipulation and the brain patterning that goes with it allows the Changed to interface with the Exchange, a computer-based community of blended intelligences. Those who are merely human are denied such opportunities and are consigned to the squalor of the city of Babelion. When Arsen, a young man of Babelion, meets Della, a young Changed woman--both of whom, naturally, are strong, smart, and single-mindedly rebellious--the stage is set for a galloping SF adventure. Arsen, unfortunately, gets killed (in a series of events designed to showcase the natural evil of the Changed), though not before Della becomes pregnant. Their son is Anselm, who is destined to change the world.

Using multiple viewpoints (some of which work better than others), Lewitt (Memento Mori) shows us a young man who not only struggles to understand himself and his dual heritage but manages to lead a full-scale rebellion and discover, in passing, that Maya itself is a mere pawn in an Imperial power struggle. A healthy dose of philosophical and spiritual self-examination, spiced by a little romance and dollop of Hindu cosmology, leavens this otherwise traditional tale of the triumph of the human spirit over technological oppression. --Luc Duplessis


From Library Journal
On the colony planet Maya, genetically altered humans known as the Changed rule a population of "normal" humans with a combination of blatant paternalism and cruel disdain. When a rebellious human boy and a Changed girl meet and produce a child, the result of their youthful passionDan exceptional youth known as AnselmDcontains within him the power to alter the world forever. The author of Memento Mori depicts a far-future world in which humans have split into different species caught in the age-old struggle for coexistence. This thoughtful blend of dystopian sf and old-fashioned romance belongs in most sf collections. Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Book Description
The colony world of Maya is run by the Changed: a carefully inbred aristocracy clustered in their hillside city, high above Babelion and its wretched swarms of poor colonists. For generations now the Changed have been altering their own genes and their children's. They're smarter, faster, longer-lived, better with computersand acutely aware of their own superiority. What they don't admit is that they have become a separate species.

Every year, the Changed generously allow a handpicked group of human children to come up from Babelion and be tested alongside their own young. But the Changed know, as the humans do not, that it's a sham. The humans will always fail. They don't have the right genetic makeup, the years of intensive training, it takes to mesh properly with the computer system where the test takes place. Their best will never be enough. It's a subtle way of teaching them their place.

Then, one year, Arsen shows up: strong, smart, wildly charismatic, and not at all convinced of the superiority of the Changed. Still, he's nothing the system couldn't cope with--until he hooks up with Della, Changed born and bred, but every bit as rebellious as Arsen. She, too, doubts that the serenely self-absorbed Changed have all the answers. She even has ties to the Tinkers, the mysterious vaga-bond scientists who make Maya one of their stopping points.
What starts between Arsen and Della will tip their whole on its side, and start it rolling downhill . . .



About the Author
Shariann Lewitt lives in Washington, DC.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The colony world of Maya is run by the Changed: a carefully inbred aristocracy clustered in their hillside city, high above Babelion and its wretched swarms of poor colonists. For generations now the Changed have been altering their own genes and their children's. They're smarter, faster, longer-lived, better with computersand acutely aware of their own superiority. What they don't admit is that they have become a separate species.

Every year, the Changed generously allow a handpicked group of human children to come up from Babelion and be tested alongside their own young. But the Changed know, as the humans do not, that it's a sham. The humans will always fail. They don't have the right genetic makeup, the years of intensive training, it takes to mesh properly with the computer system where the test takes place. Their best will never be enough. It's a subtle way of teaching them their place.

Then, one year, Arsen shows up: strong, smart, wildly charismatic, and not at all convinced of the superiority of the Changed. Still, he's nothing the system couldn't cope with--until he hooks up with Della, Changed born and bred, but every bit as rebellious as Arsen. She, too, doubts that the serenely self-absorbed Changed have all the answers. She even has ties to the Tinkers, the mysterious vaga-bond scientists who make Maya one of their stopping points.

What starts between Arsen and Della will tip their whole on its side, and start it rolling downhill . . .

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal

On the colony planet Maya, genetically altered humans known as the Changed rule a population of "normal" humans with a combination of blatant paternalism and cruel disdain. When a rebellious human boy and a Changed girl meet and produce a child, the result of their youthful passion--an exceptional youth known as Anselm--contains within him the power to alter the world forever. The author of Memento Mori depicts a far-future world in which humans have split into different species caught in the age-old struggle for coexistence. This thoughtful blend of dystopian sf and old-fashioned romance belongs in most sf collections. Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\

Kirkus Reviews

Far-future power struggle from the author of Interface Masque, 1997, etc. On the frigid, highly volcanic planet Maya dwell desperately poor humans in their crumbling city, Babelion, and the genetically modified, superior Changed in their sealed Dome high in the mountains. The Changed hold annual tests to find humans worthy of becoming Changed, but nobody ever passes; the most successful become servants of the Changed. Rebellious Changed Della runs off to live with the genetic-whiz Tinkers. Later, returning to the Dome, she has an intense affair with the best human candidate, Arsen, whose brief rebellion is subverted by the evil, manipulative Sithra; he chooses execution rather than betray Della and their baby, Anselm. Sending Anselm to human foster parents, Della flees into the Dome's Exchange, an artificial intelligence supplemented by human hookups-but it has its own agenda. As Anselm grows up, he learns from Della's Tinker benefactor, Auntie Suu-Suu, that the galactic situation involves a cloned Empress's civil war with the Pretender. Far from superior, the Changed are a failed experiment; Della was the last surviving Empress clone, rescued by Suu-Suu; the Pretender has allied with Sithra to steal Maya's plentiful power (an egregiously ludicrous notion). And so Anselm has plenty of motivation for his own rebellion.

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