Budayeen Nights: Stories

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IT ALWAYS SURPRISED GEORGE WHEN PEOPLE WOULD refer to him as a science fiction writer.

It was a natural perception, of course, of someone who made his debut under the auspices of Damon Knight; and to the end of his days, George used a science-fiction palette to tell fantasy stories. But it wasn’t until he began writing the Budayeen novels — When Gravity Fails, A Fire in the Sun, and The Exile Kiss — that he settled fully into science fiction mode, and reinvented himself as one of the founding fathers of Cyberpunk.

The setting of the Budayeen came about quite naturally, and is intrinsic to the writing of Gravity. George had a very dark side to his nature, a fascination with the underworld and the demimonde that came about, I think, because many of his mother’s friends were hookers and strippers back in Cleveland: he used to go and watch them dance when he was in his early teens. Maybe this was why he was so comfortable in the shadow-world of New Orleans. (I still remember my first visit to New Orleans, sitting in a bar with George, talking to the barmaid, and watching the dancer on the runway: George leaned over to me and whispered, “You’re the only genetically female person in this room.”)

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