When Gravity Fails, considered a near-classic of cyberpunk by some, has not stood up well against the test of time. The novel, Effinger's best known, was released to some acclaim in 1991. It is part mystery novel, part walk through the techno-pharmaphile Budayeen, which is Effinger's Islamic version of Gibson's Chiba City. There are some interesting elements, to be sure, but for the most part I was left more than a little bewildered at the high praise the book has one from notable authors such as Robert Silverberg and George R.R. Martin. I suspect that some of the regard for When Gravity Fails stems from its Islamic setting, which was far more outlandish and interesting in a time when few knew the difference between Shia and Sunni Muslims and before jihad was an all-too familiar concept to even the least-educated reader. What was once exotic, even romantic, is now rightly understood as threatening; interestingly enough, Effinger even hints at this possibility once towards the end of the novel. In any case, the handling of the Islamic setting is rather less adept than, for example, Frank Herbert's, and reads like something written by one who has spent a lot of time reading about Islamic practices without understanding them.

Effinger does a reasonable job with potential technological advancements, but as with much science fiction, his grasp of social and cultural changes tends towards the absurd. The extreme fragmentation of the political world is not only inexplicable, but wholly irrelevant to the story and flies completely in the face of the world's economic and political moves towards globalism under the aegis of the EU, the USA and the United Nations.

Style: Effinger flirts with noir without ever deciding to take the plunge. His writing is casual and he does a nice job with constructing visual images, but a terrible habit of having the protagonist explain the thinking behind much of his dialogue grows quickly tiresome. Compared to the razor-sharp style of William Gibson or the tech-savvy slang of Charles Stross, the author's clumsy futuristic word-constructs are almost embarrassing. "Addies" and "Daddies"? Oh dear.

Story: The plot is that of a detective story, and it's not a bad one, with a fair number of twists and a conclusion that tends strongly towards the unanticipated. A person of some import goes missing in a bad part of town, and the wealthy outsider who wants to hire someone to go in search of the missing person is assassinated while in the process of procuring the protagonist's services. There is corruption in high places, investigations which invariably lead to night clubs, a plethora of breast-augmented women and a high bodycount. One is genuinely curious to learn who killed the victim and why, and Effinger brings the mystery to a reasonable conclusion.

Characters: I was not impressed by the characterizations. Considering that a significant percentage of them had sex changes, it was interesting to note that the women who had been men acted no differently than the natural-born women of the book, and the same was true of those who'd gone the opposite way. The author seemed to be undecided with regards to the protagonist; is Marat a con man with a heart of gold or is he a genuine hero, and this indecision permeates the illustration of nearly every character in the book. It is also extremely boring to see woman after desirable woman throw themself at a male protagonist, only to have him turn them all down because, what, he's gay? Only he isn't. Because it offends his moral principles? He has none. This sort of thing reads more like authorial wish-fulfillment and comes off as incredibly bizarre to anyone who's ever noticed the fact that 90 percent of the time, it's the guys who chase the girls.

Creativity: Effinger was ahead of his time with regards to gender confusion, omnipresent and quasi-legalized drug use, virtual reality and even the use of Islamic culture in science fiction. His vision may have exceeded his literary talent, but one must respect him for the fact that he did indeed see further and more accurately into the future than did most of his fellow genre writers.

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