Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sharp, inventive post-cyberpunk, 21 May 2004
Proving once again that Jon Courtenay Grimwood is a master of his genre, _Effendi_ is a sharp-witted, continually surprising novel. Of course, defining said genre is a little trickier. It's post-modern cyberpunk, perhaps, where the technology serves character and story rather than the other way around; it's also deeply politically-aware fiction viewing contemporary issues through a skewed future lens. The residual cyberpunk tech-fetishising feeds neatly into Grimwood's world - and particularly into his fascinating main character, the industrial-strength screw-up Ashraf Bey.The setting is North Africa - predominantly the vibrant independent city of El Iskandryia - but it's North Africa located in an alternative-history world where the Ottoman empire made it into the 21st century. As in the trilogy's first novel, _Pashazade_, El Iskandryia is a triumph, all crumbling colonial relics, moral policing and seedy tourist nightclubs, French cafes and calls to prayer. It lives and breathes through the narrative with a personality all its own, an utterly convincing extrapolation of that region's cities today, an uneasy and volatile mixture of Western and Islamic influences and attitudes and needs. Having set up the characters and their mysteries in the engaging near-future crime story of _Pashazade_, in _Effendi_ Grimwood takes his material to a whole new level. The dual timelines - of present-day Isk, and the brutal civil war a generation ago - are deployed with a near-perfect grasp of pace, tension-building and emotional resonance. On the way to a climax that pulls no punches, we are also taken deeper into several of the main characters, particularly Zara and Raf - and while a few of the underlying mysteries are dealt with, what remains is more than intriguing enough to take this reader into the third (and final?) novel, _Felaheen_. Highly recommended.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Mumtaz!! (That's Arabic for "Excellent!"), 26 Nov 2002
If you have any background in study of 20th Century World history, particularly of the Middle-East, then this book is a treat. Action packed cyberpunk of the best kind, not too cynical, with a wonderful alternative history's Alexandria to explore. The plot twists and turns; I was very close to the end before I got an inkling of what might really be going on and all kinds of threads from the previous novel start to come together.
You'll eventually like many of the characters despite them doing some bad things when you first meet them; as the story unfolds you start to understand the forces that made them what they are.
The parallels with current actual history and world terrorism in some scenes is very interesting. The well-developed background and settings,the fashion, dance clubs, remixes, pirate radio, vehicles, media, etc make for a very satisfying read.
When's the next one coming out? I want it!!!
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
El Iskandryia or bust, 23 April 2002
By A Customer
Having read pashazade I was pretty much convinced that I would enjoy effendi and I wasn't wrong. Grimwood's alternate present/future is a very believeable place and really draws you in. As is the mark of a good storyteller the characters feel real enough for you to care about them and want them to succeed ..or fail.The only real fault with this book is that at times there's no real sense of danger. You know that despite the odds the hero will succeed. Now fair enough it'd be a pretty sorry state of affairs if the hero didn't win and the villain wasn't defeated, but it's still nice to have that doubt. Fortunately the times when the suspense is lacking are quite rare. Grimwood has built on his El Iskandryia, a city at the crossroads of the major global cultures, and it seems much more alive than in Pashazade. It's very easy to imagine a city full of intigue and middle eastern style politics, a bit like a cross between Casablanca and Budapest. There's still a lot of hi-tech gadgetry used throughout the book, but it doesn't get in the way of the story and is never too complicated or techy to understand. Overall I though this was a brilliant book, The story is compelling, full of twists and turns and to be honest I couldn't put it down. If you haven't read Pashazade, read it, then read this. If you've read Pashazade and enjoyed it, you won't regret buying Effendi.
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