George Alec Effinger | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1947-01-10)January 10, 1947 Cleveland, Ohio |
| Died | April 27, 2002(2002-04-27) (aged 55) New Orleans, Louisiana |
| Pen name | O. Niemand, Susan Doenim |
| Occupation | Novelist, short story writer |
| Genre | science fiction,cyberpunk |
| Notable works | When Gravity Fails |
George Alec Effinger (January 10, 1947 – April 27, 2002) was an Americanscience fiction author, born inCleveland,Ohio.
Effinger was born inCleveland,Ohio, on January 10, 1947.[1] His father was aUnited States Navy veteran and his mother was aprostitute, and he grew up very poor.[2]
He attended Yale University on a scholarship,[2] but he failedorganic chemistry and dropped out of the pre-med program. He moved to New York City and began writing. His first wife, Diana, sometimes babysat forDamon Knight andKate Wilhelm, a married couple who were bothscience fiction writers. He joined theClarion Writers' Workshop which they sponsored.[1]
Effinger's first three stories were published in the first Clarion anthology in 1971.[1] His first published story was "The Eight-Thirty to Nine Slot" inFantastic in 1971. During his early period, he also published under a variety ofpseudonyms.
His first novel,What Entropy Means to Me (1972), was nominated for theNebula Award. He achieved his greatest success with the trilogy ofMarîd Audran novels set in a 22nd-centuryMiddle East, with cybernetic implants and modules allowing individuals to change their personalities or bodies. The novels are in fact set in a thinly veiled version of theFrench Quarter ofNew Orleans. The three published novels wereWhen Gravity Fails (1987),A Fire in the Sun (1989), andThe Exile Kiss (1991); Effinger also contributed to the computer gameCircuit's Edge (1990), based onWhen Gravity Fails. He began a fourth Budayeen novel,Word of Night, but completed only the first two chapters. Those two chapters were reprinted in the anthologyBudayeen Nights (2003) which has all of Effinger's short material from the Marîd Audran setting.
His novelette "Schrödinger's Kitten" (1988) received both theHugo and theNebula Award, as well as the JapaneseSeiun Award. A collection of his stories was published posthumously in 2005, entitledGeorge Alec Effinger Live! From Planet Earth; includes the complete stories Effinger wrote under the pseudonym "O. Niemand" and many of Effinger's best-known stories. Each O. Niemand story is a pastiche in the voice of a different major American writer (Flannery O'Connor,Damon Runyon,Mark Twain, etc.), all set on the asteroid city of Springfield. "Niemand" is from the German word for "nobody", and the initial O was intended by Effinger as a visual pun for Zero, and possibly also as a reference to the author O. Henry.
Other stories he wrote were the series of Maureen (Muffy) Birnbaum parodies, which placed apreppy into a variety of science fictional, fantasy, and horror scenarios.
He made brief forays into writingcomic books in the early 1970s, mostly inMarvel Comics' science fiction, fantasy, and horror titles; and again in the late 1980s, including the first issue of a series of his own creation entitledNeil and Buzz in Space & Time, about two fictional astronauts who travel to the edge of the universe to find it contains nothing but an ocean planet with a replica of a small New Jersey town on its only island. The first issue was the only issue, and the story ended on a cliffhanger. It was released byFantagraphics.[3] He also wrote a story based in theZork universe.
Effinger was known to close friends as "Piglet", a nickname from his youth which he later came to dislike.[4]
Throughout his life, Effinger suffered from health problems. These resulted in enormous medical bills which he was unable to pay, resulting in a declaration ofbankruptcy. BecauseLouisiana's system of law descends from theNapoleonic Code rather thanEnglish Common Law, the possibility existed that copyrights to Effinger's works and characters might revert to his creditors, in this case the hospital. However, no representative of the hospital showed up at the bankruptcy hearing, and Effinger regained the rights to all his intellectual property.[5]
Effinger suffered a hearing loss of about 70% due to childhood infections, only helped about the last 10 years of his life by hearing aids. He did not drive most of his life, and only got a driver's license at about age 39 for check-cashing purposes.
Effinger met his first wife Diana in the 1960s. He was married from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s to artist Beverly K. Effinger, and from 1998 to 2000 to fellow science fiction authorBarbara Hambly.[6] He died inNew Orleans, Louisiana.[7]
Novels (non-series)
Nick of Time series
Marîd Audran series
Planet of the Apes Television series adaptations
Collections
Short stories
Comics
Note: The titles of the first two books of theMarîd Audran series are both taken fromBob Dylan lyrics. "When Gravity Fails" is from the song "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" and "A Fire in the Sun" from "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue". Permission was denied to use a Dylan quote for the third book's title, so Effinger chose a public domain quote fromShakespeare.
