Budayeen Nights - Hardcover

George Alec Effinger

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1930846193 ISBN 13: 9781930846197

Publisher: Golden Gryphon Press, 2003

Synopsis

"George Alex Effinger's first short-fiction collection in nearly 15 years, these nine tales are set in Budayeen, the walled city in the sand, a city of dark shadows and even darker inhabitants, where a Raymond Chandleresque vision has been created—hardboiled, noir, futuristic—but with a twist. The sights, smells, and denizens of Budayeen are brought to life—from the city's sordid, decadent underbelly to the glamorous excesses of the sex industry. This collection includes four tales of Marîd Audran, the protagonist in Effinger's three highly acclaimed Budayeen novels. Also included is Effinger's best-known story, “Schrödinger's Kitten,” in which a young girl's dreams portend myriad possible quantum futures, all focused on her encounter with a would-be rapist."

About this title

About the Author:

George Alec Effinger was the author of When Gravity Fails, A Fire in the Sun, and The Exile Kiss.

From Publishers Weekly:

One of the founders of cyberpunk, Effinger (1947-2002) led a pain-filled life, but one would never know of his suffering from the tales in this brilliant collection, full as they are of antic humor and atmospheric inventiveness. All nine selections-seven stories, the first portion of an uncompleted novel and a story fragment-are set in his marvelously realized, imaginary Muslim city of Budayeen (inspired by New Orleans's seedy French Quarter), also the setting for three novels (When Gravity Fails, etc.). Mared Audran, the chief protagonist in these stories, like everyone else in the 22nd century, wears brain-implant plugs, enabling him to snap in and experience "moddies," for pleasure or otherwise. The former is supplied by Honey Pilar, sex goddess of "Slow, Slow Burn," whose super-provocative moddies are shared, with or without partners, by millions. In "Mared Throws a Party," the projected opening of Word of Night, a fourth Budayeen novel, Mared is disconcerted when his adoptive grandfather, the powerful Friedlander Bey, announces he's giving him the unwelcome gift of a new set of implants. In "King of the Cyber Rifles," these implants are used for war purposes. Technology tends to play a smaller role in Effinger's finest shorter works, such as Nebula and Hugo winner "Schrodinger's Kitten," a story of multiple worlds, and "The City on the Sand," set in the Budayeen but flavored with European weltschmerz. Days before his death, Effinger began the final story, "The Plastic Pasha," barely an excerpt, but pungent and alive.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Golden Gryphon Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 1930846193
• ISBN 13: 9781930846197
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 245