Click on a book's image or title to order from Amazon.com

When Gravity Fails

A rather peculiar (and moderately early) entry into the ongoing evolution of cyberpunk, When Gravity Fails has two primary hooks in it: The science fictional hook is the concept of people with slots in their head into which they can hook "moddies" (modules which allow a person to assume a programmer personality - real or fictional) and "daddies" (add-ons which allow a person to gain knowledge or a skill so long as the module is in place). The setting hook is that the story takes place in the near future in the Middle East, and the hero, Marid Audran, is an arab, and a less-than-devout Muslim.

As befits a cyberpunkish novel, When Gravity Fails takes place in "the bad part of town", and it involves Audran - a roguish character who has shunned getting his head wired and refuses to work for the boss who runs the town - chasing down a psychopath who is murdering people close to him. Which makes it a mystery/adventure story. However, the plotting is quite loose: We're not really given enough clues to figure it all out for ourselves in a satisfying way, and Audran really stumbles onto the killer (killers, actually; there are two) more-or-less by accident, with rationales being provided later.

The book mostly relies on its setting to succeed, and it is sometimes interesting, but never for me rose much above the level of basic detective fiction writing. Moreover, despite Audran's background, his first-person narrative is peppered with clever Western-style witticisms which made him much less believable. The novel also concludes with Audran having had his beliefs and principles pretty firmly compromised - albeit without having had much choice in the matter - and is therefore a rather depressing story by the time you're finished with it.

A quick read, but a light and somewhat manipulative one, really.