Altered Carbon
by Richard K. Morgan
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Book Summary Information
Author: Richard K. MorganEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2003-03-04
ISBN: 0345457684
Number of pages: 384
Publisher: Del Rey
Book Reviews of Altered Carbon
Book Review: Impressive first novel
Summary: 5 Stars
'Altered Carbon' has a lot going for it. The plotting is dense and fast-paced, the dialogue snappy, the characters well-drawn, and the writing quite capable. Probably the most rewarding aspect of the novel is its very deep and well-developed setting. Morgan takes the idea of human immortality through storing consciousnesses separately from bodies, and plays with it to an astonishing degree of detail, exploring all the psychological and social repercussions that this technology would drag in its wake.
A master worldbuilder will fail as a novelist if his prose is not up to scratch; but Morgan is successful in this regard as well. The plot of 'Altered Carbon' is so thick that a second reading would be rewarding for fully comprehending it; and the high quality of the writing makes the prospect of such a re-read quite pleasurable. Some shrivelled-up nay-sayers may call science fiction and good writing oil and water; 'Altered Carbon' is a clear counterexample.
(I must mention my one pet peeve: like so many others in this sad age, Richard K. Morgan does not realize that a question must always end in a question mark.)
Summary of Altered Carbon
In the twenty-fifth century, humankind has spread throughout the galaxy, monitored by the watchful eye of the U.N. While divisions in race, religion, and class still exist, advances in technology have redefined life itself. Now, assuming one can afford the expensive procedure, a person's consciousness can be stored in a cortical stack at the base of the brain and easily downloaded into a new body (or "sleeve") making death nothing more than a minor blip on a screen.Ex-U.N. envoy Takeshi Kovacs has been killed before, but his last death was particularly painful. Dispatched one hundred eighty light-years from home, re-sleeved into a body in Bay City (formerly San Francisco, now with a rusted, dilapidated Golden Gate Bridge), Kovacs is thrown into the dark heart of a shady, far-reaching conspiracy that is vicious even by the standards of a society that treats "existence" as something that can be bought and sold. For Kovacs, the shell that blew a hole in his chest was only the beginning. . . .
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