George Alec Effinger Live! from Planet Earth [Hardcover]

George Alec Effinger (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2005

Originally intended to be a collaboration with the author, this collection of the most memorable short stories of the late George Alec Effinger is a tribute from those who best knew his work—his friends, fellow writers, and editors. In addition to handpicking their favorite pieces, Michael Bishop, Neil Gaiman, Barbara Hambly, Mike Resnick, Howard Waldrop, and others have contributed a personal introduction or afterword to accompany each selection that reveals their deep respect for and insights into the author. The short stories "The Aliens Who Knew, I Mean, Everything" and "Everything but Honor," both Hugo Award finalists, are among those included. Of special interest are seven previously uncollected short stories and a poem written under the author's pen name, O. Niemand. Introduced by Gardner Dozois, former editor of Asimov Science Fiction Magazine, these stories are uniquely written in the style of other authors including Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, James Thurber, and Mark Twain. Considered by Effinger to be "sympathetic homage" rather than parody or caricature, they present his perspective on how these noted authors would have tackled science fiction, such as "The Man Outside," the John Steinbeck-inspired story about a loner in a domed city on an asteroid deep in space.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Selected and introduced by Nebula-winner Effinger's fellow SF authors, these 22 provocative short stories represent three decades of fiction written under great physical and financial hardship. His friends often described Effinger (1947–2002), who called himself "Piglet," as "fey," a quality echoed in "Two Sadnesses" and "At the Bran Foundry," both of which denounce a world gone so mad it devours its own young. Among his most memorable works are the eight "O. Niemand" stories, pitch-perfect pastiches of such writers as Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway and John Steinbeck, which chronicle life, alienation and death on the asteroid Springfield, "a rock in the middle of nowhere." In the brilliant "Solo in the Spotlight," a U.S. president faced with an international "situation" while on Air Force One depends on his teenage daughter to pull solutions out of her Barbie doll Tarot deck. While commenting on the absurdity of human actions, this compassionate tale underlines the awful truth that nobody's really in charge any more.
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From Booklist

Before his untimely death in 2002, Effinger was one of the acknowledged masters of satirical sf and a prolific short story writer whose prodigious stylistic gifts are showcased in this unusual collection selected by his fellow writers and editors. In tribute to Effinger's genius, 16 veteran authors, from Michael Bishop and Jack Dann to Mike Resnick and Neil Gaiman, introduce each selection with personal reflections on Effinger's character and legacy. Particularly outstanding choices include Hugo Award nominees "The Aliens Who Knew, I Mean, Everything," about a species of ET who are such do-gooders they drive humans to escape Earth for other worlds, and "Everything but Honor," about a time--traveling black physicist who returns to 1860 to murder a Civil War general and revolutionize the future for black Americans. Constituting a special treat for Effinger's fans are the O. Niemand stories, here introduced by Gardner Dozois, in which Effinger mimics, without caricature, the styles of such literary legends as Steinbeck, Hemingway, and Twain, while in each tale exploring an sf theme. Carl Hays
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 363 pages
• Publisher: Golden Gryphon Press (May 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1930846320
• ISBN-13: 978-1930846326
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.9 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,006,899 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Genius Live!, May 9, 2005

By 

M. K. Melloy (Cambridge, MA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: George Alec Effinger Live! from Planet Earth (Hardcover)

I'd read very little George Alec Effinger before I picked up this book, and what little I had read -- correct me if I am wrong -- was a novelization of the short lived "Planet of the Apes" TV series that I found down at the library in seventh grade. Little did I know that the man's original works -- the copyrights for which, bizarrely, a Louisiana hospital tried to claim as its own when Effinger owed them for medical bills -- far outstripped the tie-in work he accepted (as it turns out, he did tie-in work to frustrate creditors like the hospital, who could not try to repo the copyrights of others).

In the roughly two dozen tales that comprise "George Alec Effinger Live! From Planet Earth" (Effinger had suggested something shorter but just as snazzy -- "The White Album," for example), this brilliant satirical writer takes on war, racism, politics -- all the usual oxen fit for a goring, and not only does he roast them to a turn on the barb of his tremendous wit, he marinates them with a delicious blend of compassion and ruthlessness. The collection even gathers his "O. Niemand" stories, in which he imitates --faultlessly -- the themes and styles of a half-dozen great American writers, from Mark Twain to James Thurber to Flannery O'Connor. These tales are set in a domed city called Springfield, located on an asteroid in deep space, and one can only wonder whether, if he had lived long enough, the man who tracked Don Marquis' Archy (of the Archy and Mehitabel adventures, told by a cockroach in vers libre) to his asteroidal Springfield, might not also have paid a visit to some futuristic, but still crude and humorous, version of The Simpsons. Now -that- would have been sci-fi heaven, and a satire lover's dream come true, and if anybody would have had the flat-out red-pepper gumption to write such a tale it would have been George Alec Effinger.