|
|
|
1.
|
|
A dark and gritty trip into the imagination of one of science fiction's most gifted authors, this collection presents all nine tales of the Budayeen gathered together in one archival-quality volume, available for the first time in more than 20 years. Here is the Budayeen: a gritty fusion of Bogart's Casablanca, New Orleans' notoriously seedy French Quarter, and a futuristic Muslim city, all welded together and serving as the perfect backdrop for Marid, a drug-addled policeman and anti-hero of world-class proportion. This is a collection to get lost in, from the city's sordid underbelly to the glamorous excesses of the "sex moddy" industry, from the tall, ancient mosque towers to the strong-voiced muezzin calling the faithful to morning devotions, the Budayeen leaps to sudden life, making claims to its own reality as only the best science fiction can. ...
|
|
2.
|
|
In a decadent world of cheap pleasures and easy death, Marid Audrian has kept his independence the hardway. Still, like everything else in the Budayeen, he’s available…for a price.
For a new kind of killer roams the streets of the Arab ghetto, a madman whose bootlegged personality cartridges range from a sinister James Bond to a sadistic disemboweler named Khan. And Marid Audrian has been made an offer he can’t refuse.
The 200-year-old “godfather” of the Budayeen’s underworld has enlisted Marid as his instrument of vengeance. But first Marid must undergo the most sophisticated of surgical implants before he dares to confront a killer who carries the power of every psychopath since the beginning of time.
Wry, savage, and unignorable, When Gravity Fails was hailed as a classic by Effinger’s fellow SF writers on its original publication in 1987, and the sequence of “Marid Audrian” novels it begins were the culmination of his career.
...
|
|
