Happy Birthday: George Alec Effinger (January 10, 1947 – April 27, 2002) was an American science fiction author, born in Cleveland, Ohio. His first novel, What Entropy Means to Me (1972), was nominated for the Nebula Award. He achieved his greatest success with the trilogy of Marîd Audran novels set in the Middle East in the 22nd century, 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 the French Quarter of New Orleans. The three published Audran novels were When Gravity Fails (1987), A Fire in the Sun (1989), and The Exile Kiss (1991); Effinger also contributed to the computer game Circuit's Edge (1990), based on When 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 anthology Budayeen Nights (2003) which has all of Effinger's short material from the Marîd Audran setting.

[I was a BIG fan of his work in the late 80's and loved his Middle East version of Cyberpunk. I must get around to re-reading him.]