When Gravity Fails
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 Cover of first paperback edition (Bantam Books, 1987) |
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| Author | George Alec Effinger |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Marid Audran series |
| Genre(s) | Science fiction (cyberpunk) novel |
| Publisher | Arbor House |
| Released | January 1987 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover & Paperback) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-87795-851-3 (first edition) |
| Followed by | A Fire in the Sun, (1989) |
When Gravity Fails is a 1987 cyberpunk science fiction novel by George Alec Effinger, published in 1987. It was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1987 and the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1988.
It is the first book in his Marid Audran series, followed by A Fire in the Sun in 1989 and concluded with The Exile Kiss in 1991. Effinger started work on a fourth Audran novel, Word of Night, however that work was never completed.
[edit] Plot introduction
In the novel George Alec Effinger blends gritty Hardboiled detective fiction with elements of dystopian science fiction. Where Cyberpunk sees the future West moving inextricably towards high-tech Japan, Effinger twists the future towards the low-tech Middle East instead. In the process Effinger drops the benefits of future high-tech developments firmly in the gutter.
Like William Gibson, Effinger's linguistic style is generally coarse and occasionally opaque. But the metaphors are less florid, and the story telling, while sometimes lapsing into rambling diary monologue, remains less distant.
Effinger combines mind altering drugs that can make you feel anything with mind altering machines that make you feel like anybody. However, the drugs are more prominent, often tossed with wry souffrance. Social connections are rarely a savior in Effinger's world, but rather the cause of more painkillers, uppers, downers, and so on.
[edit] Trivia
- Marîd Audran and the Budayeen were also the basis for the Infocom graphical text adventure, Circuit's Edge.
- The title comes from the lyrics of the Bob Dylan song "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" which begins "When you're lost in the rain in Juarez and it's Eastertime too / When your gravity fails and negativity don't pull you through"
