The Exile Kiss is a 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...

 novel 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 1991. It is the third novel in the three-book Marîd Audran series, following the events of A Fire in the Sun

A Fire in the Sun

A Fire in the Sun is a cyberpunk science fiction novel by American writer George Alec Effinger, published in 1989. It is the second novel in the three-book Marîd Audran series, following the events of When Gravity Fails, and concentrating on Marîd's experience as he becomes the main lieutnant of...

. The title of the novel comes from Coriolanus

Coriolanus

Gaius Marcius Coriolanus was a Roman general who is said to have lived in the 5th century BC. He received his toponymic cognomen "Coriolanus" because of his exceptional valor in a Roman siege of the Volscian city of Corioli. He was then promoted to a general...

, by William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

: "O! a kiss / Long as my exile, sweet as my revenge!" (Act V, scene 3).

Effinger had begun writing a fourth book in the Marîd Audran series, Word of Night, but died before that work was completed. The posthumously-published Budayeen Nights

Budayeen Nights

Budayeen Nights is a collection of cyberpunk science fiction short stories and novelettes by George Alec Effinger, published in 2003. The work consists of nine individual stories by Effinger, with a foreword and story introductions by Barbara Hambly...

contains the first two chapters of Word of Night along with other stories of Effinger's.

Plot introduction

Married to Indihar, though from his perspective in name only, Marîd Audran gets invited to a reception at the palace of the amir of the city. Shaykh Mahali, the amir, thus wishes to end the rivalry between Friedlander Bey and Reda Abu Adil, two of the most powerful men in the city. Both Audran and Bey, or "Papa" as he's known in the Budayeen, become suspicious when their sworn enemy Abu Adil designates Audran as an officer of the "Jaish", an unofficial right-wing outfit working for Abu Adil.

However, it is not until after the party that Abu Adil's scheme unfolds: Audran and Bey are put under arrest by Lieutenant Hajjar and charged with the murder of a police officer named Khalid Maxwell. They're sentenced on-the-spot into exile, never to return to the city under pain of death. Left to die amongst the burning sands of a vast desert, their luck finally turns as they are rescued by a Bedouin

Bedouin

The Bedouin are a part of a predominantly desert-dwelling Arab ethnic group traditionally divided into tribes or clans, known in Arabic as ..-Etymology:...

tribe of Bani Salim, allowing them to start planning the vengeance they'd exact upon Abu Adil and prove their innocence— if they ever make it back to the city alive.