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When Gravity Fails (1987)

by George Alec Effinger

Other authors: See the other authors section.

Series: Marid Audran (1)

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
1,4603412,415 (3.79)34
In a futuristic Middle East, plug-ins can turn anyone into a killer in this "wry and black and savage" Nebula and Hugo award finalist (George R. R. Martin).   Set in a high-tech near future featuring an ascendant Muslim world and divided Western superpowers, this cult classic takes us into a world with mind- or mood-altering drugs for any purpose, brains enhanced by electronic hardware with plug-in memory additions and modules offering the wearer new personalities, and bodies shaped to perfection by surgery. Marid Audran, an unmodified and fairly honest street hustler, lives in a decadent Arab ghetto, the Budayeen, and holds on tight to his cherished independence.   Then, against his best instincts, he becomes involved in a series of inexplicable murders. Some seem like routine assassinations, carried out with an old-fashioned handgun by a man wearing a plug-in James Bond persona; others, involving whores, feature prolonged torture and horrible mutilations. Soon the problem comes to the attention of Budayeen godfather Friedlander Bey--who makes Audran an offer he can't refuse.   Nominated for the Nebula and Hugo awards, the highest honors in the genre, When Gravity Fails, which introduced the cyberpunk Budayeen Cycle, is a pioneering work the Denver Post called "superior science fiction" and Harlan Ellison described as "crazy as a spider on ice skates . . . plain old terrific."… (more)
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» See also 34 mentions

English (29)  Spanish (2)  Italian (1)  All languages (32)
Showing 1-5 of 29 (next | show all)
When Gravity Fails by George Alec Effinger was published just three years after William Gibson’s Neuromancer. Like Gibson’s Case, Effinger’s Audran Marîd requires a wired brain to get the most out of virtual reality. Case uses a plug in his head to exercise his mad hacking skills in an abstract virtual space. Audran has his mental processing power and stamina amped up by implants. Audran can become a simulacrum of a fictional detective like Nero Wolfe. The villain, meanwhile, is dressing like James Bond and ordering his martinis shaken, not stirred. Unlike Case, Audran has the machine forced on him by the local godfather, who needs him to solve an underworld crime. The story takes place in a large middle eastern city that resembles Cairo and has a cast of characters that would be at home in a future remake of Casablanca. Effinger tells a good story. ( )
  Tom-e | Aug 20, 2023 |
Had i read this book in the 80s or 90s, i would have loved it, as it provides exactly what i had expected then from a noir cyberpunk. Unfortunately, today it feels seriously dated - not only in its technology, but also in its form and storyline. Also, it's supposedly set in an Arab world, but the characters think American, behave American and speak American - nothing actually feels Middle Eastern at all, but rather Chicago. ( )
  milosdumbraci | May 5, 2023 |
I try to think of one thing I got out of this book, and there's nothing positive. ( )
  burritapal | Oct 23, 2022 |
"When Gravity Fails' is an excellent book but it's not for me.

When it came out in 1985, this deeply Noirish tale of murder amongst the demimonde of a Twenty-third Century Arab State where gender modification surgery, and plug-and-play brain implants offering anything from language skills to a new personality, are as common amongst the hustlers, pimps and sex-workers as drink and drugs, must have been well ahead of its time.

The storytelling style makes Chandler seem like a Disney version of Noir and yet it offers a surprisingly compassionate rendering of the inhabitants of the Budayeen, a walled district that is part French Quarter New Orleans and part Casablancan quartiers réservés. The people and the society are beautifully and patiently drawn. The plot is subordinate to its setting. The main focus is on how Marîd Audran sees the Budayeen and his role in it.

At the start of the novel, Audran sees himself as a man whose reputation as an 'honest hustler' has earned him enough respect in the community to keep its violence at bay. Although he thinks of himself as a loner who values independence above love and friendship, it seemed to me that he entertained a fundamentally romantic view of the Budayeen and that it is this view of the place that the rest of the novel assaults as Audran's friends and associates are murdered.

'When Gravity Fails' pulled me fully into Audran's world and made it real. This was, in the end, why I abandoned the novel a third of the way through: I just can't abide the Marîd Audran or the world he loves. He leads a hedonistic, aimless, drug-using, thrill-seeking life. He's a wannabe lone wolf with a need to be loved that he lies to himself about and a view of the world that borders on the delusional. I believed in him completely, I just didn't want to spend any more time with him.
  MikeFinnFiction | Aug 8, 2022 |
Pseudo-Middle-Eastern Cyberpunk Detective Noir. Certainly a unique combination. A dismal mess throughout, but I think that was the author's intention. ( )
  wishanem | May 27, 2021 |
Showing 1-5 of 29 (next | show all)
This was a book that couldn’t have happened without cyberpunk, but which itself isn’t cyberpunk. There are no hackers here, and almost no computers—though it feels reasonable for the Budayeen that there wouldn’t be. Holoporn, yes, drugs to get you up or down, prostitutes of all genders and some in between, personality modules of anything from salesmen to serial killers via sex kittens, but no computers. The street is what comes from cyberpunk, and perhaps the neural wiring, a little. But what Effinger does with it, making it a North African street that really feels like something out of the future of another culture, is entirely his own.
added by PhoenixFalls | editTor.com, Jo Walton (Jun 4, 2010)
 
George Alec Effinger's When Gravity Fails, nominated for both the Hugo and the Nebula awards, is a 1987 cyberpunk thriller that is a perfect example of how exciting the subgenre can and should be.
added by PhoenixFalls | editSF Signal, John DeNardo (Nov 13, 2005)
 
Marid Audran, the protagonist in the series of novels which begin with When Gravity Fails, has many things in common with Sam Spade. Both are down and out detectives making their way in the seedy underside of the city. Instead of Los Angeles, however, Audran works in the Budayeen, the rough part of a future, unnamed North African city.

Although a Muslim, Audran is anything but devout, spending the majority of his time popping pills and downing them with alcohol as he mingles with the prostitutes and strippers of the Budayeen.
 

» Add other authors (9 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
George Alec Effingerprimary authorall editionscalculated
Burns,JimCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Camprodón, TeresaTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Davis, JonathanNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Gunn, JamesIntroductionsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Hinge, MichaelCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Maxwell, MarkIllustratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Vainio, JoonaCover designersecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Wachtenheim, DorothyCover designersecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed

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Epigraph
... He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world ...

He is a lonely man and his pride is that you will treat him as a proud man or be very sorry you ever saw him. He talks as the man of his age talks - that is, with rude wit, a lively sense of the grotesque, a disgust for sham, and a contempt for pettiness.

      -- Raymond Chandler, The Simple Art Of Murder
When you're lost in the rain in Juarez, and it's Eastertime too
And your gravity fails and negativity don't pull you through
Don't put on any airs when you're down on Rue Morgue Avenue
They got some hungry women there and they really make a mess out of you.
      -- Bob Dylan, Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues
Dedication
This book is dedicated to the memory of Amber.
"And some there be, which have no memorial."
First words
Chiriga's nightclub was right in the middle of the Budayeen, eight blocks from the eastern gate, eight blocks from the cemetery.
Quotations
I looked at myself in the mirror. I looked awful, but I always look awful in the mirror. I keep myself going with the firm belief that my real face is much better looking.
The longer I observe the way people really act, the happier I am that I never pay attention to them.
When you wander into the highest level of international affairs, it’s almost always dirty.
Last words
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
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Wikipedia in English (1)

In a futuristic Middle East, plug-ins can turn anyone into a killer in this "wry and black and savage" Nebula and Hugo award finalist (George R. R. Martin).   Set in a high-tech near future featuring an ascendant Muslim world and divided Western superpowers, this cult classic takes us into a world with mind- or mood-altering drugs for any purpose, brains enhanced by electronic hardware with plug-in memory additions and modules offering the wearer new personalities, and bodies shaped to perfection by surgery. Marid Audran, an unmodified and fairly honest street hustler, lives in a decadent Arab ghetto, the Budayeen, and holds on tight to his cherished independence.   Then, against his best instincts, he becomes involved in a series of inexplicable murders. Some seem like routine assassinations, carried out with an old-fashioned handgun by a man wearing a plug-in James Bond persona; others, involving whores, feature prolonged torture and horrible mutilations. Soon the problem comes to the attention of Budayeen godfather Friedlander Bey--who makes Audran an offer he can't refuse.   Nominated for the Nebula and Hugo awards, the highest honors in the genre, When Gravity Fails, which introduced the cyberpunk Budayeen Cycle, is a pioneering work the Denver Post called "superior science fiction" and Harlan Ellison described as "crazy as a spider on ice skates . . . plain old terrific."

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