Bio: George Alec Effinger was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1947. He attended Yale University, where an organic chemistry course disabused him of the notion of becoming a doctor. He had the opportunity to meet many of his SF idols thanks to his first wife, who was Damon Knight and Kate Wilhelm's babysitter. With their encouragement, he began writing science fiction in 1970. He has published at least 20 novels and 6 collections of short fiction including When Gravity Fails and The Exile Kiss. As well, he has written two crime novels, Felicia and Shadow Money. A graduate of Clarion, he was the author of numerous novels and stories, including the popular cyberpunk series beginning with When Gravity Fails (1987), Hugo-, Nebula-, and Sturgeon-award winning novelette "Schrödinger's Kitten" (1988), and many satirical works from early short story "All the Last Wars at Once" (1971) to a series of stories about Maureen Birnbaum, Barbarian Swordsperson. Effinger died in April 2002; he had been ill for several years.

[Publisher Note: The version of "The City on the Sand" available at Fictionwise.com is the author's original, unedited version--more than 1000 words longer than its first publication in 1973. This version of "The City on the Sand" is also available in a printed George Alec Effinger short fiction collection, Budayeen Nights, now available from Golden Gryphon Press.