Book description
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-wall from there. When we first meet Courane, he must
face down TECT, the self-aware computer that has come to control the
Earth and its colonial planets. Exiled to Planet D, Courane races to
solve the debilitating disease that attacks each of the planet's
residents, even as his own memory begins to fade. Unfortnately, his only
source of information about the illness is TECT, itself, and the
computer's agenda doesn't seem to line up with Courane's. In the seven
other stories contained in A THOUSAND DEATHS, Courane becomes detached
from what is reality and what is story as Effinger expertly plays with
narrative conventions. However, these aren't simply the whims of a SF
writer; they are the frameworks the Nebula and Hugo Award-nominated
author uses to answer questions about existence no one else even thought
to ask. 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 published at least 20 novels and 6
collections of short fiction including WHEN GRAVITY FAILS and THE EXILE
KISS. As well, he also wrote and published two crime novels, FELICIA and
SHADOW MONEY. With his Budayeen novels, Effinger helped to found the
Cyberpunk genre. He was a Hugo and Nebula award winner and a favorite
amongst fellow SF writers.
