When Gravity Fails

When Gravity Fails is a cyberpunk novel set in the Budayeen, a walled red-light district in an unnamed Middle Eastern city in the late 22nd century. Effinger's world has inverted the familiar global order: the West has fractured into petty, bickering states, while the Islamic world has risen to cultural and political dominance. Marîd Audran, a small-time Algerian-French hustler, navigates the Budayeen on charm, street savvy, and a rotating pharmacopeia of drugs, and is one of the few people in his world who has refused cybernetic modification, a point of stubborn pride in a society where personality chips and add-on cognitive modules are as commonplace as fashion. When a series of murders shakes the district and Marîd finds himself coerced into investigating by the neighborhood's aging crime patriarch, Friedlander Bey, that independence begins to erode in ways he cannot entirely control. The novel stands apart from most cyberpunk of its period for its Islamic cultural setting and its genuinely noir sensibility. Nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards. Review copy with publisher's publicity sheet laid in.

Hardcover. First Edition, First Printing. Octavo, cloth-backed boards. New York: Arbor House, 1987. Nebula Award nominee (1987). Locus Award nominee (1987). Hugo Award nominee (1988). ISBN: 0877958513. #11251.
A touch of age-toning, else fine in fine dust jacket.