This post made me think that I ought to re-read George Alec Effinger's Islamic cyberpunk trilogy When Gravity Fails, A Fire in the Sun, and The Exile Kiss. The review is well written and captures the essence of the series:

"Tough-as-nails corrupt cops and transgender hookers conduct their business with all the formalized flourishes of Arabic ettiqute. Like Turkish coffee, it fills the atmosphere with a rich complexity and leaves you more than a little wired."

The post is actually reviewing the short story collection Budayeen Nights, which includes a piece I bought in tiny chap-book form almost 20 years ago, long before reading the series (which I took another decade to connect to the story...duh). Schroedinger's Kitten is an inordinately effecting tale that managed to stir dormant interests in not only physics, but feminism, philosophy and metaphysics. Whereas the trilogy is good dirty fun, SK is food for thought and worth reading even if you are not generally a sci-fi fan.

As I actually own all four of these books (props to Corinna for gifting me Budayeen Nights so I could rediscover SK) and hence do not have to avail myself of the ever-fickle public library system to read them (unlike the book I just finished, The Lightning Thief... WHY DO I ONLY HAVE BOOK ONE OF THIS SERIES???) I am taking it as a sign and shall desist reading books off the third grader's shelf for a while. Thank goodness for random internet Signs.