In a futuristic Middle East, plug-ins can turn anyone into a killer in this "wry and black and savage" Nebula and Hugo award finalist (George R. R. Martin).Set in a high-tech near future featuring an ascendant Muslim world and divided Western superpowers, this cult classic takes us into a world with mind- or mood-altering drugs for any purpose, brains enhanced by electronic hardware with plug-in memory additions and modules offering the wearer new personalities, an...

The complete Hugo and Nebula Award–nominated cyberpunk trilogy by an author whose work is "wry and black and savage" (George R. R. Martin).Praised as "a perfect example of how exciting the subgenre can and should be," George Alec Effinger's Budayeen Cycle is a towering and timeless science fiction achievement that continues to amaze, shock, and captivate readers ( SF Signal).When Gravity Fails: Set in a high-tech near future featuring an as...

Jewish Science Fiction and Fantasy? Yes!Wandering Stars is the landmark collection of Jewish science fiction and fantasy. The first of its kind, it is an established and enduring classic.This is the first time in a science fiction collection that the Jewish People—and the richness of their themes and particular points of view—appear without a mask. Wandering Stars is a showpiece of Jewish wit, culture, and lore, of the blend of humor and s...

A plan to make a perfect world leads to its destruction in this science fiction thriller from the Hugo Award–winning author of When Gravity Falls.In a wild and crazy novel composed equally of black humor and deep, humane insight, George Alec Effinger strips away the veneer of civilization, revealing the deep truths by which we all live. Without the culture we have accumulated, existence is sometimes a nightmare, sometimes absurd, sometimes courageous and wo...

Three slightly different versions of the same man inhabit three radically different versions of our world in this novel by a Nebula Award winner.Ernest Weinraub, Ernst Weinraub, Ernst Weintraub—three slightly different versions of the same name, the same man. Each incarnation of Weintraub/Weinraub inhabits a different version of our world: Ernest Weinraub lives in a maddeningly overcrowded New York, a hellish near-future world where sanity and life are imperiled by ...

Nebula Award FinalistDoctor, watch out! As Dore stood by, he saw the Doctor backing slowly into the corner where he would meet his fate. Initially defending himself with a torch, the Doctor searched frantically for a new method of defense. The crimson mass is lunging forward using long, tentacle-like attachments: what is that thing? Slowly the subhuman blob comes in to focus, and Dore realizes...it's a colossal radish! This is a monster never before wrestled with; w...

Stories of schizophrenic cities, technocratic rule, and mistaken identities by the Hugo Award–winning author of When Gravity Falls.In these eleven short stories by speculative fiction master George Alec Effinger, New York's populace must deal with the realities of a bi-polar existence; patients' brains are cut to tiny pieces in a clinical search for the medical definition of bliss; a little child's natural fear of the dark is exploded into new mind-bending ...

The Hugo Award–winning author returns to the futuristic, high-tech Middle East setting of When Gravity Falls in this "major science fiction epic" ( Locus).In a world filled with so many puppets, strings tend to get tangled. In this follow-up to the groundbreaking cyberpunk novel When Gravity Fails, the Budayeen is still a very dangerous place, a high-tech Arabian ghetto where power and murder go hand in hand.Marid Audran used to be ...

Science fiction stories that offer "a poignant glimpse into the author's psyche . . . this bittersweet collection [is] one to be cherished" ( Publishers Weekly).When we first meet Courane, he must face down TECT, the self-aware computer that has come to control Earth and its colonial planets. Exiled to Planet D, Courane races to cure the debilitating disease that attacks each of the planet's residents, even as his own memory begins to fade...

A coming-of-old-age novel from the Hugo Award–winning author of When Gravity Falls. "Engaging . . . spry, inventive, and often quite funny" ( Kirkus Reviews).In HEROICS, Irene--like everyone in the future--struggles with boredom. Food, clothing, and all the necessities of human life have been taken care of. But, what does that leave of life itself? At eighty-two, Irene sets out on a pilgrimage across America hoping to find the answer. Along the way...

From a Nebula Award winner: A "phenomenal," action-packed tale of crime, corruption, and cybernetics ( Locus).Set in a divided near future, The Exile Kiss is author George Alec Effinger's third book about the high-tech Arab ghetto called the Budayeen. It is a world filled with mind- or mood-altering drugs for any purpose; brains enhanced by electronic hardware, with plug-in memory additions and new personalities; and bodies shaped to perfection by ...

A hilarious story of overly helpful aliens and a WWII alternate history tale from the Hugo Award–winning author of When Gravity Falls.These two short stories serve as a wonderful glimpse into the mind of multiple Hugo and Nebula Award nominee George Alec Effinger, a singular talent in the world of SF.In The Aliens Who Knew, I Mean, Everything, benevolent aliens have arrived on Earth, sharing their knowledge but also their annoying, overbeari...