Not set in Southern California
Mar. 9th, 2008 06:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
threemonkeysGeorge Alec Effinger seems to be one of SF 's sadder figures with a life dominated by illness. But during that life he managed some remarkable work. Some of it remarkable for being to strange to read - perhaps comprehensible if you took a lot of drugs first. Some if it remarkable for being such ordinary hack work - to pay all those medical bills y'see. But some of the work was remarkable for being powerful and subtle. Three books are remembered by those of us who were keen fans of the heyday of the cyberpunk movement. Those three books have just been reissued and so I have purchased the set and am working on re-reading them - the first one today.
When Gravity Fails has aged well. Some of those cyberpunk books from 20 years ago fail on the technology front - they pick the wrong trends and hang their story on it. Effinger is much more about the characters and the setting and yet the technology is still there. It is a stylish book with the whole Chandler noir thing going but more than that. There are little bursts that come from his more absurdist writing style but never enough to do more than suggest frazzled brain cells. It is a layered book too with cultural messages in there as well as a subtext about innocence lost where there is no innocence to lose.
OK, its a superb book and it stands up well, but it got me thinking about something that was interesting me a few months back. I was interested in the way the whole 911 and "war on terror" social phenomenon has influenced writing in all sorts of obvious and not so obvious ways. When Gravity Fails is so obviously a pre-911 book. No author could write such a sympathetic and comfortable portrayal of a future Arab Muslim society these days. It is a close and friendly portrayal but not blinkered, nationalistic or intending to make a statement - it is just a rich place to tell a story. I find myself keen to re-read those other stories in that same setting.
When Gravity Fails has aged well. Some of those cyberpunk books from 20 years ago fail on the technology front - they pick the wrong trends and hang their story on it. Effinger is much more about the characters and the setting and yet the technology is still there. It is a stylish book with the whole Chandler noir thing going but more than that. There are little bursts that come from his more absurdist writing style but never enough to do more than suggest frazzled brain cells. It is a layered book too with cultural messages in there as well as a subtext about innocence lost where there is no innocence to lose.
OK, its a superb book and it stands up well, but it got me thinking about something that was interesting me a few months back. I was interested in the way the whole 911 and "war on terror" social phenomenon has influenced writing in all sorts of obvious and not so obvious ways. When Gravity Fails is so obviously a pre-911 book. No author could write such a sympathetic and comfortable portrayal of a future Arab Muslim society these days. It is a close and friendly portrayal but not blinkered, nationalistic or intending to make a statement - it is just a rich place to tell a story. I find myself keen to re-read those other stories in that same setting.
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Date: 2008-03-09 05:36 pm (UTC)