When Gravity Fails

When Gravity Fails
First Edition
AuthorGeorge Alec Effinger
Cover artistCraig Mullins
LanguageEnglish
SeriesMarîd Audran series
GenreScience fiction, cyberpunk
PublisherArbor House
Publication date
January 1987
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (hardback & paperback)
ISBN0-87795-851-3
OCLC13860315
813/.54 19
LC ClassPS3555.F4 W5 1987
Followed byA Fire in the Sun 

When Gravity Fails is a cyberpunk science fiction novel by American writer 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 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.

  1. ^ When Gravity Fails copyright notes, First Orb Edition: November 2005