Hard-boiled cyberpunk noir. But am I alone in spotting a political message? At the beginning of Chapter 15, Morgan inserts a quotation from a political work from this novel's universe, which I shall paraphrase:

If a politician introduces a policy or authorises an action that affects you personally, if you complain they will say 'It's nothing personal'. Well, if it affects you personally, make your objections personal. It's personal to you; make it personal to them. Make it your business to hurt them as much as you can to make your point. That way, they'll take you seriously next time.

The level of violence suggested is probably unhelpful unless you've got more and bigger guns than The Man. But as a general principle, it seems to me the only way small people can fight back. I wasn't expecting to find a political principle in this novel; I was pleasantly surprised. ( )

A very good mystery, SF, action novel - 3.5 stars It's a very imaginative world with a lot of depth to it. He didn't just take our world & slap some SF on it, but extended it out logically & added some really interesting new tech on top of that.

The characters are well done, with men, women & all races treated equally, as they have to be. His hero is very interesting, as well. Not exactly amoral, but close. Takeshi is very easy to identify with as he makes his way through the complex world.

The plot was interesting, a who dunnit overall. It got quite complex & I wish I could have devoted more exclusive time to the book. For such a long, complex book, he did a great job of keeping the number of characters down, but there are some long pages between them in some cases & if you can't remember it all, you'll need to go back or the story gets lost.

About 2/3 of the way through, the novel dragged for me. I'm not really sure why it dragged so badly, but I was close to putting it down. I'm glad I pushed through as the end was worth it. Still, I pulled a 1/2 star for that. Otherwise, it was a 4 star book. ( )

July09: Did not *quite* live up to expectations, but that was mostly due to setting the bar too high.

Characters: I liked the lead well enough, but he didn't have that extra touch. The AI was a minor character, but I still liked him a lot. The rest were take it or leave it.

Plot: Pretty good overall. Little jumpy in places, but it did wrap everything up.

Style: Very cyberpunky. I liked the world he described, but I didn't like all the gaps he left for the reader to fill in with their imagination. Hell, the 'Encorps' might have well have been gods the way it was descibed. ( )

A fascinating and dark look at immortality: Morgan has introduced a dark concept of immortality that flies in the face of what it means to have a soul. If your mind never dies, then are you in fact immortal? If so, what does it mean to change bodies? Wrap these fascinating philosophical questions in a great cyberpunk style mystery story, and you have a very fun read.

Kovacs was dark, brooding, and at times sentimental, and it was this last aspect of Kovacs that lowered my rating from 5 to 4 stars. Artificial sentimentality was the only point for me where the story lost its authenticity.

Robin cook explores a similar concept of immortality in his book "Abducted." Similarly, Tad Williams uses the concept of mind transfer for immortality in his "Otherland" series. However, I think Morgan has taken the idea much further and in a more interesting direction than either of these two authors.

If you like cyberpunk, you will love this book and the series.

Hard-boiled "noir" detective story set in far future. Tight, fastmoving and surprising plot. Memorable characters (Kovacs, Ortega) go through the full spectrum of human emotions. Ultra-violent, sexy, disgusting and really, really good. I'd pick Kovacs' sardonic comments over Philip Marlowe's any day. ( )