Reddit reviews When Gravity Fails: The Classic of Cyberpunk SF

George Alec Effinger's When Gravity Fails is a great noir Cyberpunk mystery novel. I highly recommend it.

I strongly recommend the Marid Audran trilogy that starts with When Gravity Fails. Besides being science fiction noir, it has the added fillip of having a Middle Eastern setting. It won both the Nebula and Hugo for best novel in the 80's.

When Gravity Fails by George Alec Effinger

from Amazon:

> In a decadent world of cheap pleasures and easy death, Marid Audrian has kept his independence the hardway. Still, like everything else in the Budayeen, he’s available…for a price.

>For a new kind of killer roams the streets of the Arab ghetto, a madman whose bootlegged personality cartridges range from a sinister James Bond to a sadistic disemboweler named Khan. And Marid Audrian has been made an offer he can’t refuse.

>The 200-year-old “godfather” of the Budayeen’s underworld has enlisted Marid as his instrument of vengeance. But first Marid must undergo the most sophisticated of surgical implants before he dares to confront a killer who carries the power of every psychopath since the beginning of time.

The Automatic Detective by A. Lee Martinez

When Gravity Fails (and sequels) by George Alec Effinger.

Most of these are very early cyberpunk, the progenitors of the genre if you will. As such I'm not sure if they can be described as necessarily obscure but I don't see many of them mentioned that often (admittedly I'm somewhat new to /r/cyberpunk so you guys might talk about them all the time, in which case please disregard). As a final note not all of these are available on the Kindle market. Nevertheless here's a few that leap to mind -

1. When Gravity Fails by George Alec Effinger which has two sequels if you enjoy it, the third being better than the second imo.
   
   
2. The Ware Tetrology by Rudy Rucker
   
   
3. Islands in the Net by Bruce Sterling. He also edited the early cyberpunk anthology Mirrorshades which is worth checking out along with a several of his other works.
   
   
4. Mindplayers by Pat Cadigan who also wrote a few others worth looking at.
   
   
5. Frontera by Lewis Shiner.
   
   
6. I hesitate to mention this one as it's hardly obscure but if all you have seen is the film which is based off it, it is definitely worth getting Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K Dick.
   
   
7. Vurt by Jeff Noon.
   
   
8. Farewell Horizontal by K W Jeter along with his other novels Glass Hammer and Dr. Adder.
   
   
9. Someone else mentioned Walter Jon Williams novels which I would also highly recommend.
   
   
   
   
   
   

http://www.amazon.com/When-Gravity-Fails-George-Effinger/dp/0765313588

When Gravity Fails be Effinger has what you're looking for. It's on the grittier side.

I have been picking up and reading some of the early and forgotten cyberpunk authors lately like K. W. Jeter, W. T. Quick, George Alec Effinger and Wilhelmina Baird. All of these stand up well even today and would make great premises for film and television. But nobody seems to care, maybe after Hollywood's treatment of William Gibson's works has shied them away from taking a risk with them, or anyone else for that matter.

*Subtle hint, if you haven't heard of these authors, try them out.