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23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
OOP but still a classic SF thriller worth chasing down, February 10, 2003
George Alec Effinger wrote three books about Marid Audran, a private investigator living in the Budayeen, the red light district of an unnamed Arab country in the 23rd century (but in actuality modeled on the French quarter in New Orleans, where Effinger lived). When Gravity Fails is the first of the three books, which introduce us to Marid, who was raised in Algeria by his mother, an Algerian prostitute, and who never knew his French father. Considered a barbarian north african by the Arabs in his city, Marid lives on the fringes among the drug dealers and users, and the strippers, protitutes, sex changes and outcasts that live just outside the law, working as a private detective when he can find a client. Marid prides himself on being unwired, that is, unlike most residents of the Budayeen, Marid has not adapted his brain to accept personality modules, or Moddies, or add-ons, better known as Daddies. Nor does Marid work or live under the largesse or protection of Friedlander Bey, better known as Papa, who controls most the business, legitimate or otherwise, in the Budayeen. When a client is killed in front of Marid's eyes and Marid's acquaintances start dying horrible deaths, Marid is drawn into an uneasy alliance with both the police, whom he does not trust, and Papa, to whom he does not want to be beholden. Effinger has created a world that is unlike most science fiction books, keeping the actual science light, and letting us believe that this is how the Arab world might be in the 23rd century, with not much changed except a bit of technology. Effinger offers both an interesting who and why-dunnit, while examining the issues of faith and identity. Is Marid, a heavy drug and alcohol user who lives by his own code and is committed neither to Allah nor any other human, the faithful one, or is it Papa, who kills and extorts in the name of business but who faithfully prays 5 times a day? What is it like to be an outsider, and how do you find yourself? This book is sadly out of print, but easily available used on the internet. Still compelling after all this time and well worth tracking down.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Or how Islam went cyberpunk, March 7, 1999
Effinger has created what might at first seem an impossibility -- a cyberpunk, film noir murder mystery set in the Middle East. Where is the Budayeen? That's not important (although from references it seems to be near Egypt); what is important is the characters. The people, from Audran to Papa to Half-Hajj all fit in this world. You know what they look like, feel like, smell like, and if ever they act out of character you know something is wrong. This is a world of shadows and sand, one where there is trickery and deceit around every corner. The mullahs call you to prayer and people wire their brains to alter their personalities. Life is cheap, sex is cheaper, and everyone has to look out for himself. There is nothing heavy-handed in the way Effinger puts this together. He is stylish without being self-conscious. You will be drawn in and only want to read more about this world he has created. This is a fantastic book.
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent story, but hindered by an uneven narrative, May 20, 2002
The elements that make this novel a cyberpunk classic are all here: the sharp story concept, the sleaze-noire environs, the eccentric yet honorable anti-hero, and the morally hazardous technology. I read this book upon hearing about Effinger's recent death, so I came to this novel well past its original release, and my perspective is affected by the 14 intervening years of evolution in cyberpunk. In an unnamed Middle Eastern city's criminal enclave, the Budayeen, Marid Audran artfully plies his trade as a freelance underworld "fixer." Need someone found; need to make a break with your pimp; need to negotiate with the local godfather? Audran's your man. His essential feature is his independence, even from the cerebral implants that are universally popular: plug-in modules that alter your personality to any fictional or real person, and add-ins for instantly acquiring expertise on any subject. Audran even eschews the expedient of firearms. He relies only on his functional drug habit, and his occasionally useful crew of acquaintances comprising the barkeeps, bent policemen, prostitutes, and ne'er-do-wells of the Budayeen. Effinger renders the future of 400 years from now quite softly (nearly as an afterthought, except for the implants), but the intricate beauty of the Arab backdrop is vivid, with its ancient mores and formalisms coexisting with criminal enterprise. Discordant as Audran's techno-phobia is for a sci-fi novel, Effinger plays this intriguingly as the basis for the dominant theme of the book: the contest between humanity and inhumanity, bridged as it is by consciousness, which can be altered by a technology that remakes who you are and what you know as easily as swapping a plug. I also think it was a deft distinction that Effinger made between modules and add-ins, because he clearly wants to keep the issues separate, with personality encompassing morality. Audran, who would be nearly amoral but for his own code of honor, becomes the agent for justice in the Budayeen and eventually embraces the means he fears in order to resolve the dark mystery of exceptionally brutal serial murders that threaten to unbalance the criminal order of the Budayeen. An inspired story, one that is worth the read, but it does suffer from unnecessarily raw transitions in the narrative and an uncompelling international contest that motivates the murders. These shortcomings sap energy from the story and leaves the reader feeling a bit flat at the conclusion. And because of this, Effinger's work falls short of William Gibson's of the same period, but then again it's better than any of Gibson's later work (e.g., "All Tomorrow's Parties").
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