Will I love When Gravity Fails?

This story is set in an Arabic cyberpunk future in which the rest of the world has splintered into warring factions. Where you traditionally find the cityscapes of Gibson, here you have the Budayeen, with its narrow streets and souks, its bars and strip clubs abutting mosques, and the daily calls to prayer cutting through the cries of hawkers, gangsters, and unfortunate tourists.

Audran is the classic flawed detective: drug-addled and morally grey but with a cynicism that I can’t help but love. He is cowardly at times, brave at others, self-serving, and selfless—a character to get your teeth into!… show more.

One of my favorite things about noir is how a flawed main character can be a reflection of the broken world in which they live. In this book, Marîd Audran has his charm, but he’s a deeply flawed character. He lives in the criminal quarter of an unnamed Middle Eastern city, with corruption everywhere.

As the story goes on, the city scrapes away at him, stealing the one thing he values over everything else—his independence. That is a theme at the center of many great noir stories, and the sci-fi elements in this book amplify it a thousand percent.