Effinger fan blog

Marid Audran novels return to print

2006-07-01T14:28:00.000-07:00

Two of the Marid Audran books, WHEN GRAVITY FAILS and A FIRE IN THE SUN, have been reprinted as mass market paperbacks by Orb Books. It's good to see two key novels in print.

Adrienne Martini (author of the new book HILLBILLY GOTHIC: A MEMOIR OF MADNESS AND MOTHERHOOD) also has noticed. Her blog at www.martinimade.com lists A FIRE IN THE SUN as one of her "On the Nightstand" books. Martini writes, "Effinger was one hell of a storyteller and I am thrilled by these reprints of his best books and sad that it had to be done in the first place."

Addendum: Martini wrote a long review when WHEN GRAVITY FAILS returned to print. You may read it here.

'Renfield,' new Hambly-Effinger work out soon

2006-06-21T10:05:00.000-07:00

"Renfield," Barbara Hambly's new horror novel about Dracula's colleague, will be published Sept. 5, 2006. The ISBN is 0425211681 and Amazon is taking orders. Although the book is being published under Hambly's name, it is actually a collaboration between herself and her former husband, George Alec Effinger.

As Hambly wrote in an e-mail to me last year, " ... starting when he got the idea in 1995, George had been talking about writing a novel about Renfield, Dracula’s bug-eating henchman. We outlined it together, and he got about two chapters finished, which were largely unusable because by that time he was too ill to really focus. However, as soon as I cleared a little time for myself after his death, I took over that manuscript and rewrote it from his notes and our remembered conversations. Since I did most of the work, though the original idea was his, RENFIELD is coming out under my name (for reasons having to do with publishing and marketing – I wanted to have both our names on it and the publishers nixed that very firmly), probably next year sometime.”

Hambly herself is a very good writer (see my post below) so this is rather promising news.

Checklist of works updated

2006-06-21T09:49:00.000-07:00

My friend Richard Newsome has updated his checklist of Effinger's books. The revised checklist has now been posted under "Works."

Barbara Hambly

2006-05-02T15:36:00.000-07:00

Author Barbara Hambly, George Alec Effinger's literary executor, is a good writer in her own right, as I discovered when I got around to reading SEARCH THE SEVEN HILLS, a historical mystery also published under the title THE QUIRINAL HILL AFFAIR. It's a historical mystery about Christians in Rome in A.D. 116. It's a very good mystery, convincing and well-researched, as good or better than, say, the one Lindsey Davis book I've read so far.

New Effinger book

2006-05-01T18:24:00.000-07:00

Golden Gryphon Press has announced plans to publish a third GAE book. Here is the word from editor Marty Halpern:

"A third volume of George Alec Effinger's work has been sold to Marty Halpern at Golden Gryphon Press via agent Richard Curtis. The book, A THOUSAND DEATHS, will feature a collection of Effinger's "Sandor Courane" stories: the out-of-print novel, THE WOLVES OF MEMORY, plus an additional seven short stories, only one of which has been reprinted since its original publication. The book's introduction will be written by Mike Resnick, the afterword by Andrew Fox, and John Picacio will provide the full-color, wraparound cover art. "