Wonderful. A beautiful classic noir mystery set in a place where bodies are a commodity and life is cheap and possibly permanent.
Sex, death, betrayal and crime for the cyber set.
The strength of the noir pattern is a backbone for the sf tropes of transcendence and virtuality.
SF for those who thought they didn't like it. ( )

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. ( )

ZB7

Great sci-fi world. Richard K. Morgan has created a fascinating future, one in which we might never die. There's a coldness to it though, which made the book hard to get through towards the end. Did I care what happened to any of the characters? I wasn't sure.

I think a better editor would have cut 100 pages and made it faster-paced. Would have helped with some of my confusion about what character was popping up. Is it someone new or have we seen them before?

Morgan has an odd way with words--similes and metaphors that are so out there they are jarring. I don't know if it's intended or if it's bad writer muscle creeping in.

For a true sci-fi fan, definitely read it. For someone looking for a good thriller/mystery...maybe not. ( )

This review refers to the series (Altered Carbon, Broken Angels and Woken Furies). Great detective thriller, a film noir tone, and pretty good sci-fi thrown in as well. The books are well written and if you like good detective novels, there's enough of that to keep you happy. The sci-fi notions of sleeves and neurachem are well done as well, particularly the juxtaposition between the haves who can afford sleeves and the have nots who have to get by with a single life or worse. Well worth reading as escapist/relaxing fiction (there's not a lot of serious commentary despite the good ideas). ( )

The strengths are the unswerving adherence to the noir model, and fairly well-realized future world.

The protagonist spends most of the book getting beaten up by various lowlifes, going without sleep, being haunted by past horrors, drinking, having shootouts with other lowlifes, reluctantly having sex with various bombshells who throw themselves at him, and pulls all the various unrelated clues together in a "it's all one big case!" insight. If you like all those cliches, you'll like this book.

The worldbuilding is fairly strong; several hundred years in the future humanity has redefined itself beyond physical self. Individuals are stored on small chips and flit from body to body as finances allow. Morgan never really explains how anyone is identified: without any physical cues tying you to an identity, how does it work? And in general, how does that change the importance of your name or individuality? The language is a bit overwrought but fairly tasty with futurespeak. And the plot moves things along nicely. The noir plot stamps nicely onto the cyberpunk genre, and it's clear Morgan is in this for a long haul of books with this character.

But there are a couple of problems. There is a short and out of context action sequence in the prologue that is never really explained at all. It's not clear whether this is supposed to set the scene for the disorientation of the protagonist or is just poorly explained. And the characters seem to vacillate between "I'm bad to the bone" and "aw, I've got a conscience after all" speeches. Finally, Morgan seems to suffer from 'Philip Pullman' syndrome where early references to problems in the plot with the church build through the novel to a character basically turning to the audience and saying "The Catholic Church is an evil stone-age frankenstein of an organization who's existence is a blight on humanity". And it's never 'religion' or any other faith that's mentioned, it's always specifically "The Catholic Church". It's off-putting and strange.

Other than those last annoyances, I'd say it's a tolerable read. ( )

A great book, lots of action, perhaps some may say gratuitious, however, it really did make the story. Think of this as a combo of Blade Runner's setting and some of the action with some detective and Bruce Willis' Die Hard level of action, and Josey Wale's thirst for revenge. ( )

I love noir. The hard-boiled private eyes, the rich eccentric clients, the femme fatales, the verbal sparring, the whole bit. I also love sci-fi, for the way it opens the story up to possibilities of what could be. You put them together, and you get something really amazing. ( )

This book is a blend of science fiction and a traditional detective story and is very well done.

The science fiction part of the story is very original, interesting and just plain cool. (Lots of high-tech - and nearly believeable - concepts of a future where we can store our consciousness in a portable database.)

The detective part of the story is engaging, surprising and hard to put down.

It has R rated language throughout, is very graphic/gory (detailed blood and guts imagery) and has very (VERY) graphic sex scenes (they are definitely adult only - moderate porn level scenes).

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind sex scenes and swear words but the sex (a.k.a. porn) is not interesting and doesn't advance the plot and - the worst part - some of the scenes go on for a very long time. (Perhaps even a bit longer than sex "scenes" in adult magazines would... if you know what I mean.) ( )

My review is here:
http://moosplace.blogspot.com/2009/04... ( )

http://booklog.molehill.org/2009/04/0... ( )

This is Mickey Spilane in the future. It has all of the elements of a hard-boiled detective story and a cyberpunk action novel—but written in a near erudite fashion. I say this because the narrator writes everyone in a matter-of-fact, professional manner. All of the words expressed by Takeshi Kovacs can seriously make you believe this world is real, that it exists in sight, sound, touch, taste, and feel. That is a talent that makes me tip my hat to the author. Well done.

Aside from that, the novel is very complex (for a detective thriller). You really have to pay attention to the details or you'll get lost. Even when things are explained, I found myself saying, "Wait a minute—…oh…oh, yeah!...I get it." Even though the book is short in page length (my copy was about 376 pages), it turned out to be a long read. There was just a lot to absorb in spite of it being a relatively action-packed novel.

Anyway, it was something I enjoyed, and something I would highly recommend. ( )

A rather interestingly executed sf novel. The story is a basic noir-mystery - investigator hired to solve a murder by rather dubious figure, things get very convoluted, people die, the conclusion that eventually gets reached is perhaps one that everyone would have been better off not knowing - in a cyberpunkish sort of setting, handled quite deftly.

The delightful part is the setting. The author's gimmick is that people's personalities can be downloaded & stored seperate from their bodies; indeed, they can be switched happily between bodies. Most writers would leave it at this; Morgan takes the premise and uses it to inform every aspect of the setting and the storyline.

To take one trivial aspect, the idea neatly leads to a revision of imprisonment, with criminals "stored" for years and their bodies rented to other users. Our protagonist occupies one of these, and two subplots are driven entirely by the way people react to him as though he were its previous occupant. Lengthy avenues twist around the problem of "real death", killing someone so as to destroy their memory chip, or the issue of hardline Catholics - who reject the idea of "resurrection" in a new body as blasphemous, and so can't give evidence once dead.

The plot relies on the idea, in a very clever manner - the murder victim is the same man who hires the investigator, having woken up the day after (from his backup, of course) and wondered why, if he was in fact murdered or if it was suicide.

Not bad, on the whole; nicely written, though the sex scenes may have been a bit overdone. I was particularly taken by the way that a whole complex background was sketched in, vaguely, with passing remarks and dropped but never explained names, and just left hanging there. You're left confident there is a grand political system out there, and that it's scarred everyone deeply, but you're not made to listen to it being fleshed out. I like someone who can pull that off.

Warning this book is not suitable for kids, it is very graphic with sex and violence. It is a very fast paced, action packed book that is a start of a great series. I have read all teh Takeshi Kovacs books and my only dissapointed with the series is that there have not been anymore books written yet! Mr. Morgan needs to write more books about this character, he is one of my favorite fictional characters and I would love to see many more books about him. ( )

Republished from my blog:

Richard K. Morgan’s 2002 debut seems tailor-made for the screen, so it’s not much surprise to learn that Altered Carbon is in development. It should make for one hell of a thrill ride, though one suspects that some of the nuance will be lost.

Then again, Morgan doesn’t spend a huge amount of time on the implications of the setting he’s created; just enough to give the reader something to chew on. The premise is, at root, another iteration of the uploading-consciousness theme, but with some intriguing specific details. The most immediately relevant of these is the existence of the implanted cortical stack, which means that unless the stack itself is destroyed, death is merely a (painful) inconvenience. If you’re rich, you can even have a backup. If you’re super-rich, you can have cloned bodies, saving yourself the trouble of being “resleeved” into something unattractive.

The plot against this backdrop is a bit of noir detective fiction, complete with sex, drugs, and rock & roll–the latter in the form of a hotel run by an AI that manifests in virtual reality as Jimi Hendrix. Morgan includes plenty of little touches like these, which only add to the fun. His Takeshi Kovacs is mercenary, hard-bitten, and surprisingly sympathetic; the expected plot developments and stock characters have been updated (or is that upgraded?) for his gritty, cynical posited future. Good, dirty fun. ( )

Fast oving, violent, gritty and imaginative science fiction. ( )

Essential cyberpunk: While the central concept of Altered Carbon is pure sf, this excellent novel succeeds primarily as a noir thriller, with an intricately woven plot that unfolds with a dazzling series of twists. Seemingly throw away lines and characters from the novels early pages assume important status in closing stages - to change media Altered Carbon could perhaps best be described as Blade Runner meets The Usual Suspects. The technology of this future society is explained only in broad enough terms to convince the reader, and despite the bulky nature of the book pace slowing hard sf info-dumps are pleasingly non-existent. Essentially a futuristic detective story, the hero is hard-boiled in the traditional noir fashion, though just the right side of cliché. While the level of violence has been overplayed in some quarters, this is a fairly gritty book, and the high sleaze quotient may put off the more prudish reader, (and for some fairly major plot reasons I'd suggest any Catholic readers to steer clear!), but for the rest of us this is an essential cyberpunk adventure. Practically flawless, a great debut from an author to watch. Believe the hype.

I really didn't like this book. It's all muscles and guns, the characters are shallow and difficult to empathize with and the ideas seem ill thought-out. I know this sounds like one of those "don't buy this book!!!! can't believe i spent money on this!!!!" reviews on Amazon, but that I am prepared to sink to such a level should indicate the extent to which I disliked it.
Other people have covered the same ground with more insight. Try William Gibson for the hacking and whatnot, or Ken Macleod or Charles Stross for some great ideas about what might happen if human consciousness transcends physical flesh. ( )

Review by Stuart Mayne

This first fantasy novel by Richard Morgan takes the best of Morgan's noir science fiction style and brings some much needed moral ambiguity and strong violence to a sub-genre that has become bland. But like Jonathan Strahan, I found little excuse for the pornographic descriptions of sex in the novel. I didn't find that they extended the story at all and gave little indication to the motivations of the characters involved. But then, The Story of O bored me when I read it in high school.

This novel is going to act as a wake up call to fantasy readers and writers alike. Morgan's world of retro-dystopia brings new plot elements to stark focus and shows the way for a minor revision of the genre. Morgan slaps around a few stale fantasy memes and really gives the powers something to think about. And that is just what the doctor ordered.

Mind you, as the author says, if you love Tolkein uncritically, then maybe this book is not for you. Still, I love Tolkein, but I enjoyed this book. It made me read a genre that I had put on the backburner for some time, and I'm hoping some other fantasy writers will take a leaf from Morgan's book and make their fantasy real.

Richard Morgan’s “Altered Carbon” takes hard-boiled gritty detective novels to the 25th century with cybernetic panache and noir action. Mr. Morgan’s hero detective Takeshi Kovacs is reminiscent of Marlowe or the Continental Op. but updated and with cool envoy abilities. One reason I usually stay away from cyberpunk novels is due to their superciliousness but this is not the case here. One of the few problems I had with Mr. Morgan’s novel was the way he wrapped up his gripping story, I felt it was a bit thin because it relied on a ubiquitous scapegoat technique with the evil machinations of those more powerful than us puny little humans. But this is a very minor point and I am nitpicking what is otherwise a solid engrossing piece of noir. ( )

A violent, overstuffed hoagie of a Cyber Noir tale. Entertaining enough -surprisingly dirty.
Am I the only one who's a little uncomfortable with the abundance of torture in entertainment these days? I confess it unnerves me . Still, an unquestionably effective and entertaining narrative.
Reminds me a bit of Use of Weapons at times, or perhaps what reading an article in Soldier of Fortune magazine in the future would be like. ( )