I have been reading ‘A Fire in the Sun’ by George Alec Effinger recently. This is the second in a series of science fiction books set in a future dominated by Moslems. Most of it seems fairly well researched, but I caught a rather big mistake through my ability to memorize weird trivia.
One of the characters, Bey Friedlander, is described as a very devout Moslem, but at one point he drinks from a gold cup. It is haraam to use gold utensils in Islam - roughly equivalent to eating pork. I learned this reading ‘Eaters of the Dead’ by Michael Crichton, and verified it on a couple of websites.
Do you know of any sites centered around Effinger? He’s by far my favorite author, and I can’t find anything on him. I know he’s had some health problems, but I have no idea if he’s got anything coming out soon – be it another Budayeen book or something else.
Slight hijack here, but I have to display my superior knowledge of the subject…
Effinger lives in New Orleans (or did, last I checked). The Budayeen he describes in his books is largely based on the French Quarter and it’s residents. This revelation struck me the first time I read A Fire in the Sun. The physical description of the locale, it’s integration into the larger city, the nature and composition of the people living there - pure Quarter culture. At one point he even describes a local Budayeen loony (a description that I can’t precisely recall right now) but it was a dead ringer for the quite real ‘Ruthie the Duck Lady,’ a bone fide Quarter resident. And there were plenty of other direct correlations beside Ruthie.
I love his work and I find it facinating to see his inspirations all around me. I hope we here from him again, soon.
… hmmmm… must remember to check links before posting…
If I’d actually bothered to read the link that Badtz Maru’s posted I’d have seen that the article mentions the same French Quarter ‘revelation’ I thought was so novel.