- Amazon Business : For business-only pricing, quantity discounts and FREE Shipping. Register a free business account
Other Sellers on Amazon
+ $3.99 shipping
+ Free Shipping
+ $3.99 shipping
Follow the Author
OK
When Gravity Fails: The Classic of Cyberpunk SF Paperback – November 1, 2005
|
George Alec Effinger
(Author)
Find all the books, read about the author, and more.
See search results for this author
Are you an author?
Learn about Author Central
|
|
Price
|
New from | Used from |
|
Audible Audiobook, Unabridged
"Please retry"
|
$0.00
|
Free with your Audible trial | |
|
Leather Bound
"Please retry"
|
$49.99 | $43.50 |
|
Mass Market Paperback
"Please retry"
|
$11.55 | $2.25 |
|
MP3 CD, Audiobook, MP3 Audio, Unabridged
"Please retry"
|
$8.11 | — |
-
Print length288 pages
-
LanguageEnglish
-
Publication dateNovember 1, 2005
-
Dimensions5.5 x 0.64 x 8.5 inches
-
ISBN-100765313588
-
ISBN-13978-0765313584
Enter your mobile number or email address below and we'll send you a link to download the free Kindle App. Then you can start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
-
Apple
-
Android
-
Windows Phone
-
Android
|
Download to your computer
|
Kindle Cloud Reader
|
Frequently bought together
Products related to this item
Customers who viewed this item also viewed
A Fire in the SunPaperback
The Exile KissPaperback
Snow CrashPaperback
Hardwired: 30th Anniversary EditionPaperback
When Gravity Fails (Cyberpunk)David AckermanPaperback
Altered Carbon (Takeshi Kovacs)Paperback
Special offers and product promotions
Editorial Reviews
Review
“Like a dive into the eye of a storm.” ―The Washington Post Book World on When Gravity Fails
“Fast, cool, clever, beautifully written, absolutely authoritative. A kind of cyberpunk Raymond Chandler book with dashes of Roger Zelazny, Ian Fleming, and Scheherezade--but altogether original.” ―Robert Silverberg on When Gravity Fails
“Ingenious, layered, sophisticated, and consistently bloodcurdling, When Gravity Fails kept me awake long after I had finished reading it.” ―Spider Robinson
“Great entertainment...Places Effinger in the company of writers like Gibson.” ―Fantasy Review on When Gravity Fails
“Superior science fiction . . . among the best I've come across.” ―The Denver Post on When Gravity Fails
“A brilliantly written, knife-edged futuristic detective story . . . destined to be the year's most intense and emotionally involving SF work.” ―Houston Post on When Gravity Fails
“Wry and black and savage... there's a knife behind every smile.” ―George R. R. Martin on When Gravity Fails
“Muscular, convincing, yet continuously surprising.” ―Richard A. Lupoff on When Gravity Fails
“One of the best cyberpunk novels I've read . . . Effinger's prose is terse, direct, vivid and often laced with an enchanting sense of humor . . . this is only part of the book's delightful texture . . . gives you a real sense of what it's like to be an old-fashioned gumshoe in the seedy backreaches of a futuristic arab nation.” ―The Providence Sunday Journal on When Gravity Fails
“Wry, inventive, nearly hallucinatory . . . a well-written, baroque riff on the time-honored themes of Raymond Chandler.” ―Publisher's Weekly on When Gravity Fails
“This is the fourth or fifth time I've been asked to give a public comment on an Effinger book; and each time I've done it; and each time I've said you people are cheating yourselves if you don't forego food and rent to pick up on Effinger's work. Now, *this* time, will you for pete's sake listen to me and buy When Gravity Fails? It's as crazy as a spider on ice skates, plain old terrific; and if you don't pay attention I'll have to get tough with you! We have your childen and your dog. Buy, read and marvel...or else.” ―Harlan Ellison on When Gravity Fails
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Orb Books; First edition (November 1, 2005)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 288 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0765313588
- ISBN-13 : 978-0765313584
- Item Weight : 12 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.5 x 0.64 x 8.5 inches
-
Best Sellers Rank:
#966,286 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #3,832 in Cyberpunk Science Fiction (Books)
- #77,703 in Fantasy (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.
Products related to this item
Customer reviews
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
Anyway, When Gravity Fails would be really worth your time, if you want to read something entirely different - for me, it was so strange experience, I didn't even try to guess the killer (it was a crime story after all), as I was so absorbed with descriptions, wondering what might happen next in this kind of our future. Speaking of which, the shocking resolution of the story definitely proved that everything is possible...
In this future world, medical procedures and pharmacology exist for physical re-engineering and sexual transformation. Men can readily become women and vice versa. Direct modifications of the human brain are now commonplace through surgical implants that permit those suitably "wired" to become anyone or anything commercially available in "moddies". By "chipping in" a small circuit board, one can become any character from literature or history from James Bond to Genghis Khan, with true identity submerged. "Daddies" are also on hand - temporary data transfer chips that lend instant knowledge of any language, skill, or corpus of facts, however esoteric, for as long as the chip is in place.
To navigate this world with integrity intact, one must be "the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world." Our narrator, Marid Audran, is such a man. He is an easy-going hustler from the Mahgreb, an impoverished region of Algeria. He has found a home in the Budayeen, pulling himself up by his bootstraps from nothing to next-to-nothing. He has an uneasy relationship with the police, welcome acceptance by nightclub proprietors, a trio of friends, and the love of Yasmin, born a boy, now a voluptuous club dancer with the knockout looks that only surgery could provide.
A Muslim by birth, Marid is well versed in his creed, but knows how to take it or leave it. He refuses to have his brain wired, preferring to find pleasure and solace in pharmaceutical products. As he puts it:
"Drugs are your friends, treat them with respect. You wouldn't throw your friends in the garbage. You wouldn't flush your friends down the toilet. If that's the way you treat your friends or your drugs, you don't deserve to have either. Give them to me."
Even the Budayeen is subject to influences agitating the world beyond its walls. Marid accepts an assignment from a foreign diplomat to locate a missing person. His client is murdered before his eyes. Soon others in his social circle fall victim to grisly homicides. He is recruited by Friedlander Bey, the Budayeen's wealthy godfather, whose interests are threatened by the murders, to track down the killer. To prepare Marid for his dangerous mission, Friedlander Bey intimidates Marid into the brain wiring he has always avoided, adding an extra implant and a rack of special "daddies" that sharpen Marid's senses and suppress fear, anger, hunger, thirst, and lust. His investigation confronts mystery and mayhem with street smarts and hard-boiled banter.
In the book's prefatory page, Effinger (1947 - 2002) acknowledges his debt to Raymond Chandler and his source for the title in a quote from Bob Dylan's "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues". In two sequels, "A Fire in the Sun" (1989) and "The Exile Kiss" (1991), he returns to the Budayeen with Marid, Friedlander Bey, and others of the original characters, including Bill, the transplanted American taxi driver, who has had one of his lungs removed and replaced with a sac that drips a continuous psychotropic fluid into his bloodstream - a deliciously sardonic invention, considering that the author suffered from childhood ailments that rendered him unable to pilot an automobile.
Effinger's employment of courteous Arabic verbal genuflections and Muslim pieties add spice, and flavor his trilogy with cultural insight.
All in all a meh story set in an unusual setting with some fun retro-cyberpunk details. Easy read for the money. Worth the price. Not sure it's interesting enough of a story to read the follow-up novels.
I loved the exotic atmosphere that Effinger has created and found myself happily suspending disbelief in future techology and new types of addictions.
Not for action fans, this book is to be savored for it's slower but deliberate pace and smart worldbuilding. I recommend it highly.
Top reviews from other countries
Is that enough? I was happy for the book to be over, so probably not, for me at least. If I could give it two and a half stars, I probably would – but erring on the side of generosity, I’ll stump for three.
Customers who bought this item also bought
A Fire in the SunPaperback
The Exile KissPaperback
Hardwired: 30th Anniversary EditionPaperback
Altered Carbon (Takeshi Kovacs)Paperback
Snow CrashPaperback
NeuromancerMass Market Paperback
There's a problem loading this menu right now.

