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The Audran Sequence: When Gravity Fails / A Fire in the Sun / The Exile Kiss
The Audran Sequence When Gravity Fails / A Fire in the Sun / The Exile Kiss Author:George Alec Effinger 3 novels in one book: — "When Gravity Fails" — 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, hes available... for a price. — For a new kind of killer roams the streets of the Arab ghetto, a madman whose bootle... more »gged personality cartridges range from a sinister James Bond to a sadistic disemboweler named Khan. And Marid Audrian has been made an offer he cant refuse.
The 200-year-old "godfather" of the Budayeens 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 Effingers fellow SF writers on its original publication in 1987, and the sequence of "Marid Audrian" novels it begins were the culmination of his career.
"A Fire in the Sun"
Marid Audran has become everything he once despised. Not so long ago, he was a hustler in the Budayeen, an Arabian ghetto in a Balkanized future Earth. Back then, as often as not, he didn’t have the money to buy himself a drink. But he had his independence.
Now Marid works for Friedlander Bey, "godfather" of the Budayeen, a man whose power stretches across a shattered, crumbling world. During the day, Marid is a policeman... and Bey's personal envoy to the police. His new position has brought him money and power which he would abandon in a moment if he could return to a life of neither owning nor being owned. Which, unfortunately, isn't one of his options.
It's also not an issue. For something dark is afoot. Something that is sending the city into chaos. Helping a child-mutilator to avoid arrest. Sending a killer to murder Marid's partner. Murdering prostitutes and savaging their remains. Signs point to the hand of Abu Adil -- the one man in the city whose power rivals Friedlander Bey’s. Whatever happens next, it’s not going to be good news for Marid Audran...
"The Exile Kiss"
Marid Audran has risen from hustling on the streets of the decadent Budayeen ghetto to being the right-hand man of one of the Maghrebs most feared men. As an enforcer for the powerful Friedlander Bey, Marid is just beginning to enjoy his newfound wealth and privilege, when he and Bey are betrayed by a rival and accused of murder.
Sentenced to exile and abandoned to die in the vast Arabian desert, Marid and Bey must somehow survive the searing sands and make their way back to the now-hostile Budayeen -- and, then, take their vengeance.
By turns thrilling and philosophical, The Exile Kiss is the culmination of one of the great works of modern SF.« less