Altered Carbon (Gollancz) by Richard Morgan
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Book Reviews of Altered Carbon (Gollancz)
Book Review: Spectacularly good SF
Summary: 5 Stars
I've been reading SF since back in the 50s, and have watched the Old Masters gradually die off, with me losing more interest in the genre with each passing year. This book has re-kindled my early enthusiasm, and makes up for the dreary stuff I've fought through. The cortical stack conceit is novel and astonishing, and the character is superb. Read it!Book Review: avoid this book
Summary: 1 Stars
Based on other good reviews I saw here on Amazon, I made an impulse purchase of this book for my Kindle, since I like science fiction.
After reading about 5-6 pages, I realized I had made a mistake in purchasing it.
The characterization is buffoonish and weak and the writing is awkward as well.
Anways, if you have a Kindle, try to read the sample chapter instead of buying it outright. You will likely save yourself some money.
Book Review: futuristic Chandler
Summary: 4 Stars
Morgan writes with real verve and creates a richly detailed and morally complex world, much like Raymond Chandler, to whom the novel is obviously indebted. Another obvious comparison would be William Gibson, who put these elements (noir detection and sci-fi) together first, but Morgan is actually a much more skilled writer than he. All in all an impressive and engrossing work. My only problem was philosophical in nature: the idea that our "pure mind" can be extracted from our bodies and "re-sleeved" in another body is actually fairly old-fashioned in its dualism. Whatever consciousness is, it is clearly embodied, and to think of it as existing apart from our bodies perpetuates a time-worn fallacy.Book Review: Altered Carbon
Summary: 4 Stars
Well paced and cinematic. Just waiting for someone to scoop the rights! See ya on the big screenBook Review: An exciting debut novel from Morgan!
Summary: 4 Stars
Altered Carbon was the first of it's kind that I read this summer. I'm a huge sci-fi fan so I'm biased when it comes to sci-fi books like this. However, this was my first dive into the cyberpunk sub genre of sci-fi and I was not disappointed.
Altered Carbon is set in a dystopia like high tech future during the 25th century. Death, for those that can afford it, is essentially a thing of the past and at the very worst a "minor" inconvenience by the process of being re downloaded into new "sleeves" (bodies). The United Nations has become a multi-world, multi-galaxy policing force and maintains order via the use of carefully trained peacekeepers (closer to assassins) known as the Envoy Corps.
In comes a renegade Ex-UN Envoy, Takeshi Kovacs, who was put away as a criminal last time and is assigned to Earth to investigate the suicide of Laurens Bancroft, a very rich/powerful man. Kovacs ends up on a dangerous goose chase as he finds himself merged among city and global politics, skirting the line with enemies that become allies and allies that become enemies, and above all ends up learning a bit about himself as well in this excellent debut from Richard Morgan.
As my first cyberpunk novel, it was a very good reading experience. My only qualm is I'm not used to reading sci-fi that has elements of a detective story in it as I would forget characters that were recalled from the first few pages of the book. Other than that, no qualms!