George Alec EffingerHome > Authors > George Alec Effinger
Bio: George Alec Effinger was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1947. He attended Yale University, where an organic chemistry course disabused him of the notion of becoming a doctor. He had the opportunity to meet many of his SF idols thanks to his first wife, who was Damon Knight and Kate Wilhelm's babysitter. With their encouragement, he began writing science fiction in 1970. He has published at least 20 novels and 6 collections of short fiction including When Gravity Fails and The Exile Kiss. As well, he has written two crime novels, Felicia and Shadow Money. A graduate of Clarion, he was the author of numerous novels and stories, including the popular cyberpunk series beginning with When Gravity Fails (1987), Hugo-, Nebula-, and Sturgeon-award winning novelette "Schrödinger's Kitten" (1988), and many satirical works from early short story "All the Last Wars at Once" (1971) to a series of stories about Maureen Birnbaum, Barbarian Swordsperson. Effinger died in April 2002; he had been ill for several years.
[Publisher Note: The version of "The City on the Sand" available at Fictionwise.com is the author's original, unedited version--more than 1000 words longer than its first publication in 1973. This version of "The City on the Sand" is also available in a printed George Alec Effinger short fiction collection, Budayeen Nights, now available from Golden Gryphon Press.
when new books by George Alec Effinger are released.
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While George Alec Effinger's Budayeen novel WHEN GRAVITY FAILS is perhaps his most famous work, his lesser known novel THE WOLVES OF MEMORY remained his favorite. In it, he introduced readers to Sandor Courane, an Everyman and Effinger stand-in who struggles as he swims against the currents of Fate. In life and in his multiple deaths, Sandor Courane serves as the unifying force in this collection of Effinger's stories, starting with THE WOLVES OF MEMORY and getting ever cleverer and more off-the... more info>>
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Long identified as a science fiction writer, except in his own eyes, George Alec Effinger had some of his biggest critical and commercial success with a series even he recognized and characterized as SF. Set in the marvelously realized, imaginary Muslim city of Budayeen, the three novels, When Gravity Fails, A Fire in the Sun and The Exile Kiss garnered rave reviews, award nominations and a wide readership. In addition, Effinger came to be recognized as one of the foundational writers of cyberpu... more info>>
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DEATH IN FLORENCE was also published as UTOPIA 3 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 wonderful. Utopia 3 is a movement spreading through the world, a project designed to mold everyone into people devoted to brotherhood a... more info>>
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In these eleven short stories by speculative fiction master George Alec Effinger, New York's populace must deal with the realities of a bipolar 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 phobias and a cartoon favorite pays a personal visit to an aging, aching fan. Humor, sheer audacity, and an eclectic array of human fears and expectations placed against e... more info>>
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Someone's about to rip off a sleepy little Louisiana town! Chuck's gang of truckers are geared for looting. When Tom masterminds a false hurricane alert?When sheriff Boshardt orders an evacuation of the town?When Chuck moves in to strip the town clean?Their cool caper escalates into a devastating triple-cross that rips the rooftops off everything from Miami to New Orleans--and nothing--no one will ever be the same!
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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, she becomes transformed, both physically and by her interactions with other civilians all trying to cope with this new world. Filled with wry humor and fantastic symbolism, HEROICS mixes adventure and ph... more info>>
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The death of a pet fish signals an ominous threat of wordwide tragedy... Delta Company "plays" out a war light years away... A running back for the Cleveland Browns gives his all to relive a night from his past? In IRRATIONAL NUMBERS, as with much of his work, author George Alec Effinger straddles the line between allegorical fantasy and science fiction. It's a vein Effinger mines for a deep, meaningful understanding of human nature. Challenging and disquieting in the way only the best fiction... more info>>
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George Alec Effinger was a true master of satirical Science Fiction. Before his death in 2002, he gained the highest esteem amongst his peers for his pitch-perfect stylistic mimicry and his great insight into the human condition. Despite a life filled with chronic illness and pain, Effinger was a prolific novelist and short story writer, earning multiple Nebula and Hugo Award nominations. LIVE! FROM PLANET EARTH represents a very special look at the many works of this unique genius. These 22 sh... more info>>
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Ernest Weinraub, Ernst Weinraub, Ernst Weintraub--three slightly different versions of the same name, the same man. Each incarnation of Weintraub/Weinraub inhabits a slightly 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 a nightmare of pollution, overpopulation and manic power games played by the six despotic men who rule Earth; Ernst Weinraub is a poet and an intellectual who lives ... more info>>
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Far into the future, Hartstein's graduation present from his grandparents was a wonderful trip ... into the past. He had a long future in the doughnut industry to look forward to but this trip was the icing on the cake. It had been a long time since that first experiment in time travel was successfully pulled off, although not without its flaws. Now, in the future, time travel was a lucrative tourist industry. But the time travel industry was keeping one little fact to itself: two percent never ... more info>>
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Time travel: been there, done that … or at least Frank Mihalik has. On February 17, 1996, Frank discovers the secret to time-travel, or at least he thought he had. He must embark on a voyage through time and space in order to set things right. He must survive parallel universes in which--Oh my!--Shirley Temple plays the awesome role of Dorothy in "The Wizard of Oz"! Only his love, Cheryl, can save him, but he is almost tricked by a parallel-dimension Cheryl and potentially wrecks his love life. ... more info>>
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THOSE GENTLE VOICES A Promethean Romance of the Spaceways "Because it's there..." That was why Earth men climbed Mt. Everest and why, in 2017, they set out for the distant star, Wolf 359. In 1988, they had learned that intelligent inhabitants from a planet orbiting Wolf 359 had been signaling Earth. That fact was reason enough to dispatch a manned probe to explore and investigate. But perhaps there was another reason for the journey. A reason too incredible for Earth people ever to imagine. A r... more info>>
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Doctor, 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; what are they going to do? After reading this vegeta... more info>>
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