Budayeen Nights is a collection of cyberpunk

Cyberpunk

Cyberpunk is a postmodern and science fiction genre noted for its focus on "high tech and low life." The name is a portmanteau of cybernetics and punk, and was originally coined by Bruce Bethke as the title of his short story "Cyberpunk," published in 1983...

 science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 short stories

Short story

A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...

 and novelette

Novelette

A novelette is a piece of short prose fiction. The distinction between a novelette and other literary forms is usually based upon word count, with a novelette being longer than a short story, but shorter than a novella...

s by George Alec Effinger

George Alec Effinger

George Alec Effinger was an American science fiction author, born in 1947 in Cleveland, Ohio.-Writing career:...

, published in 2003. The work consists of nine individual stories by Effinger, with a foreword and story introductions by Barbara Hambly

Barbara Hambly

Barbara Hambly is an award-winning and prolific American novelist and screenwriter within the genres of fantasy, science fiction, mystery, and historical fiction...

. Seven of the nine stories had been published previously in other forms, such as magazines, while one consists of the first two chapters of Word of Night, which was to be the fourth book in the Marîd Audran series, following The Exile Kiss

The Exile Kiss

The Exile Kiss is a cyberpunk science fiction novel by George Alec Effinger published in 1991. It is the third novel in the three-book Marîd Audran series, following the events of A Fire in the Sun...

.

Budayeen Nights was published posthumously; Effinger having died in April 2002. The paperback edition was released in September 2008.

List of stories

Most of the stories in Budayeen Nights had been previously published in magazines and fiction anthologies, but the book includes two previously-unpublished works of Effinger's.

• "The City on the Sand", originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April 1973
• "King of the Cyber Rifles", originally published in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, Mid-December 1987
• "Marîd and the Trail of Blood", originally published in Sisters of the Night, 1995: ISBN 0446671436
• "Marîd Changes His Mind", originally published in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, May 1989
• "Marîd Throws a Party", previously unpublished, this was to be the first two chapters of Word of Night
• "The Plastic Pasha", previously unpublished
• "Schrödinger's Kitten
  Schrödinger's Kitten
  "Schrödinger's Kitten" is a 1988 novelette by George Alec Effinger, which won both a Hugo Award and a Nebula Award, as well as the Japanese Seiun Award. It was later expanded into a novel, published in 1992 under the same name. It was originally published in Omni.The story utilizes a form of the...
  
  ", originally published in Omni
  Omni (magazine)
  OMNI was a science and science fiction magazine published in the US and the UK. It contained articles on science fact and short works of science fiction...
  
  , September 1988
• "Slow, Slow Burn", originally published in Playboy
  Playboy
  Playboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...
  
  , May 1988
• "The World as We Know It", originally published in Futurecrime, 1992: ISBN 1556113129