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Review Features
S - Science Fiction
F - Fantasy
H - Horror
Complete Listing
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Adams, Douglas (S)
Asher, Neal (S)
Aylett, Steve (S)
Banks, Iain M (S)
Barclay, James (F)
Barker, Clive (H)
Baxter, Stephen (S)
Brin, David (S)
Bury, Stephen (S)
Card, Orson Scott (S)
Cherryh, CJ (S/F)
Clute, John (S)
Cockayne, Steve (F)
Cook, Glen (F)
Danielewski, Mark (H)
Dick, Philip K (S)
Egan, Greg (S)
Feist, Raymond (F)
Gaiman, Neil (F)
Gibson, William (S)
Goodkind, Terry (F)
Grimwood, Jon C (S)
Hamilton, Peter (S)
Jeter, K.W. (S)
Jordan, Robert (F)
Lethem, Jonathan (S)
McAuley, Paul (S)
MacLeod, Ken (S)
Martin, George RR (F)
McMullen, Sean (S)
Miéville, China (S)
Moran, Daniel K (S)
Morgan, Richard K (S)
Nagata, Linda (S)
Niven, Larry (S)
Noon, Jeff (S)
Robinson, Kim S. (S)
Rucker, Rudy (S)
Simmons, Dan (S)
Smith, Michael Marshall (S)
Stephenson, Neal (S)
Sterling, Bruce (S)
Vinge, Vernor (S)
Westerfeld, Scott (S)
Williams, Sean (S)
Williams, Tad (S/F)
Collections (S/F)
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| The Classics |
Bradbury, Ray (S/H)
Burgess, Anthony (S)
Tolkien, JRR (F) |
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| Richard K. Morgan |
| Author Information |
Reviewed Books |
Other Books |
| Notes: Broken Angels, is based on the same
character as Altered Carbon. I don't believe it's technically a sequel though.
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Altered
Carbon |
Woken Furies (03/05)
Market Forces
Broken Angels |
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 Our
Ranking It appears that I've been on a fairly
violent trend with my books lately. Last few books I've read included Asher's
latest (always good for some gritty violence), Fight Club, and then this one.
As violent as Fight Club and Asher might be, Altered Carbon takes the gold medal
for violence. Not that this is a bad thing, but I'll get into it in a bit. First
off, this is Morgan's first novel, and also the first book that I've read by him.
I picked it up browsing through Amazon.com, I think after I saw it was connected
to a few of the Neal Asher books. It is set in the fairly far future, in the 25th
century where mankind has managed to spread out throughout the galaxy. The setting
and time period itself really doesn't play much into the story, luckily. For a
book set in the 25th century (400+ years from now) I felt Morgan was pretty hit
or miss describing it. For one, the UN is the main force controlling all of the
planetary colonization and all. While it might be more of a political opinion
of mine, I really doubt the UN will be around in 400 years, let alone calling
the shots. Also, some technology, like resleeving, which I will get into later,
fits right in, but others seem like stuff that will be invented in the next 10-20
years. Like I said though, it really doesn't play into the story much, so not
a big deal. The main character, Kovacs, is an ex-UN envoy, which despite the wimpy
sounding implications, actually means that he is quite the bad ass. Basically
he has been re-conditioned to be incredibly analytical and able to adapt very
quickly to any situation or culture (ie. wars on foreign planets). In addition
he has some other modifications that make him pretty tough to bring down. Kovacs
managed to get himself killed pretty badly and had his conscious put in storage
and sentenced to a pretty long term but finds himself "resleeved" unexpectedly.
Resleeving, is when your conscious is downloaded into a new body. In otherwise,
your physical body can die, but as long as your are backed-up your being goes
on. A lot of the book centers around this resleeving and the cultural implications
of what it does to a society. Some of the was very interesting, especially when
it came to the abuses that could occur due to this capability. Now, Kovacs is
in Bay City (San Fran), resleeved under the directive of an extremely rich individual
who wants a murder solved by Kovacs. Kovacs is pulled into a fairly complex investigation,
loaded with twists and turns trying to solve this so that he isn't put back in
storage. Plot wise, especially for a first novel, Morgan does a pretty good job
with this. There really are a few good twists in the story and he does a good
set up job for the finale. The only real complaint I had with the plot was the
violence. Me? Having trouble with violence?! Let me explain. With the resleeving
ability, physical death is more an inconvienence than anything. Assuming you can
afford it, a few hours later your in a new body ready to go. Due to this, "real"
death is a little more horrifying to the culture, where basically you are killed
along with your conscious. Morgan does a good job explaining how wrong
it is to cause a real death, but very early in the book they are occurring. Due
to this, you quickly get numb to the thought that it is a big deal. There basically
is so much violence, it loses its impact. Overall though, not a bad book. If you're
in for a good murder mystery, sci-fi action story, this is not a bad one to read.
I'd recommend Lethem's Gun With Occasional
Music first, but this is still a good fun read. I'm very curious what Morgan can
do with a book under his belt and I've already picked up his second novel, Broken
Angels. |
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