When Gravity Fails

When Gravity Fails
Cover of First Orb Edition (Tor Books, 2005)
Author(s)	George Alec Effinger
Cover artist	Craig Mullins
Country	United States
Language	English
Series	Marîd Audran series
Genre(s)	Science fiction (cyberpunk) novel
Publisher	Arbor House
Publication date	January 1987
Media type	Print (Hardcover & Paperback)
ISBN	ISBN 0-87795-851-3 (first edition)
OCLC Number	13860315
Dewey Decimal	813/.54 19
LC Classification	PS3555.F4 W5 1987
Followed by	A Fire in the Sun, (1989)

When Gravity Fails is a cyberpunk science fiction novel by George Alec Effinger published in 1986.^[1] It was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1987 and the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1988. The title is taken from "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues", a song by Bob Dylan: "When your gravity fails and negativity don't pull you through".

Taking place in a futuristic Middle-Eastern setting, the series reverses some of the usual expectations of a future world order by painting the West in decline while Muslim countries seem to prosper. The book's other main themes are the effects of drug use and alternate personality technologies, as well as the personal interactions and increasing isolation of a severely flawed protagonist.

It is the first book in Effinger's Marîd Audran series, named after the protagonist, and was followed by A Fire in the Sun in 1989 and The Exile Kiss in 1991. Effinger started work on a fourth Audran novel, Word of Night, but died before that work was completed. The existing chapters of Word of Night are now available in the posthumously published Budayeen Nights, along with some other Budayeen and non-Budayeen short stories.

Setting

Middle-East

Unusual for a novel which has been compared favorably with cyberpunk milestones like Neuromancer,^{[citation needed]} it is set neither in a futuristic Western nor in a similar Asian world. Instead, Effinger's novel, set near the end of the 22nd Century, describes an ascendant Arabic/Muslim world, where the West has been in decline for at least a century. The United States, Europe and the Soviet Union are described as having fractured into many small states, squabbling amongst themselves for remnants of former glory, with their citizens often described as visiting the unnamed city of the novel's setting as bumbling, naive tourists in awe at the wonders of the Muslim world.

The Islamic World, having grown much in economic and scientific power, still shows much of the elements commonly associated with it, such as strong religious touches, intricate rituals of conduct and relationship, and old tensions between the ethnic groups.

Protagonist

The novel is told from the perspective of Marîd Audran, a young man from low origins (coming from the Maghreb, and being the son of a prostitute), who is a small-scale operator and hustler in the Budayeen, the entertainment and criminal quarter of an unnamed Middle-Eastern city, probably somewhere in the Levant, based on several geographical references to other countries around the region.

Audran considers himself a freelance operator and is fiercely proud of his independence, both from others (including Friedlander Bey, the shadowy, paternalistic crime figure overseeing most of the Budayeen's business interests) and from cybernetic modification. Where most others have their brain "wired", for work or play, Audran's almost superstitious dread of this modification has prevented him from doing the same, and so he cannot use "daddies" (from "add-ons", software chips providing skills like languages or accounting) or "moddies" (modules that contain whole new personalities, for example those of movie stars or fictional characters). He covers this shortcoming by personal charm, a certain arrogance, and excessive use of stimulants, anti-depressants and other drugs, to which he is effectively addicted.

Audran's claims of independence from everyone, often given in wry internal narration, are not fully factual either. He is very fond of many people in the Budayeen, from various prostitutes, barkeepers and other lowlifes of the ghetto to most especially Yasmin, his on-and-off girlfriend. The relationship with Yasmin, a sex-changed former man now working as a (rather successful) prostitute, is especially volatile, with periods of mutual understanding and love being interrupted by vicious fights between the two.

Plot synopsis

Cover of the 1988 Bantam Spectra paperback edition. Cover art by Jim Burns.

A series of brutal murders soon begins to panic the Budayeen, and Audran is almost executed by Friedlander Bey, who at first considers him to be the killer. He is then forced by the centuries-old Bey to become his investigator, and even worse, is made to subject himself to extensive, partly experimental cybernetic modifications; an advanced form of the brain "wiring" he has dreaded before.

While the killer or killers step by step and very brutally begin wiping out witnesses as well as acquaintances of Audran, he tries to uncover clues to their nature and to the link between the seemingly unconnected victims. Meanwhile he is fighting his fears of inadequacy in the face of a killer who obviously uses "moddies" making him into some of the most feared and bestial serial killers of history.

Most of Audran's advances are made more by luck or intuition than natural skill or persistence. Yet after being accosted by (and subsequently overpowering) the modified killer — who had begun stalking Audran himself with sadistic glee and patience — he is not convinced that everything is over. In fact, he finds that one of the most important middlemen in the Budayeen was the real figure behind the murders. When he confronts him, he is almost killed himself, and facing death, has to insert a special "daddy" which makes him go into a bestial frenzy, killing the murderer. However, in his rage, he also slaughters a captured policeman and mutilates both bodies horribly.

The gruesome nature of his self-defense disgusts his former acquaintances in the Budayeen. Friedlander Bey, in the final move sealing Audran's fate, then forces him into becoming one of his lieutenants, to serve as a new middleman between the ghetto and the police. As a result, he is now viewed with suspicion by everyone, and ends the novel with practically no friends, even Yasmin turning away from him.

In other media

• Marîd Audran and the Budayeen setting were also the basis for the Infocom computer game, Circuit's Edge.
• R. Talsorian Games created a 'Budayeen' supplement for their role-playing game Cyberpunk 2020 titled When Gravity Fails (1992).^[2] It is intended mainly for game masters who want to set campaigns in the Budayeen; there are no connections to the main game world.

References

1. ^ When Gravity Fails copyright notes, First Orb Edition: November 2005
2. ^ "Pen&Paper". http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showbook&bookid=1646. Retrieved 2008-12-06.