Reviews & Overviews by Rod Cameron
| When Gravity Fails – George Alec Effinger | |
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I was familiar with George Alec Effinger’s name from a number of books that were published in the 1970’s, such as Nightmare Blue (1975) (written with Gardner Dozois). But I hadn’t seen any for years. I was intrigued by the title in Waterstones on Deansgate in Manchester recently, and the description on the back was an instant hook: “In a decadent world of cheap pleasures and easy death, Marid Audran has kept his independence the hard way. Still, like everything else in the Budayeen, he’s available … for a price. For a new kind of killer roams the streets of the Arab ghetto, a madman whose bootlegged personality cartridges range from a sinister James Bond to a sadistic disemboweler named Khan. And Marid Audran has been made an offer he can’t refuse. The 200-year old ‘godfather’ of the Budayeen’s underworld has enlisted Marid as his instrument of vengeance. But first Marid must undergo the most sophisticated of surgical implants before he dares to confront a killer who carries the power of every psychopath since the beginning of time.” When Gravity Fails was hailed as a classic by Effinger’s peers on its original publication in 1987. But I never came across it. In my defence, all I can say is that I was very busy at the time, despite occasionally getting into Forbidden Planet in London. What an excellent book. Basically a murder mystery, it is set in the Arab ghetto of a middle eastern city set a few years in the future when technology has ‘improved’ to the point where human brains can be enhanced with memory chips which provide additional languages and skills. Marid Audran is a bit of a coward and has never had the surgery to enable him to use memory chips. He scrapes a living in a red-light area by doing detective work – finding missing people and such like. However, when his friends and acquaintances start being murdered he feels obliged to go after the murderer. There are cyberpunk elements to the story, but it is not nearly as computer oriented as William Gibson’s Neuromancer (1984). The most obvious parallels are with John Courtenay Grimwood’s Pashazade (2001) and the rest of his Arabesk trilogy. Hiowever the obvious similarity that they are both set in the Middle East makes them seem closer than they really are. Pashazade is set in an alternate future and has a very broad setting, whereas When Gravity Fails is located in one small ghetto – the Budayeen. The storyline in Pashazade is very much concerned with Ashraf Bey’s family, whereas the storyline in When Gravity Fails is more to do with ex-lovers and acquaintances. This is a great and enjoyable story, well written and richly characterised. If you enjoy hard cyberpunky SF, then it will be worth your while tracking this down. Sadly George died in 2002, but not before he wrote two further books in the series: A Fire in the Sun (1989) and The Exile Kiss (1991). I will let you know what they are like in due course when I manage to track them down. |
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