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From Amazon
Richard Morgan's debut SF thriller Altered Carbon isn't for the faint-hearted. Its noir private-eye investigation races through extreme violence, hideously imaginative torture and many high-tech firefights.
In 2411, death is not forever. Afterward, they can read your personality from an implanted "cortical stack" and upload you into a new body--at a price. Hero Kovacs has worn many bodies on different worlds as a former member of the UN Envoy Corps, programmed killers to a man. Now the incredibly rich Bancroft brings him to Earth to investigate a killing... of Bancroft himself, restored from his digital backup and rejecting the police theory of suicide.
Half the vice-lords of 25th-century San Francisco are soon chasing Kovacs with futuristic surveillance, drugs and weaponry. Virtual-reality interrogation means they can torture you to death, and then start again. There's a bleak slave trade in rented or confiscated bodies--and Kovacs finds his current borrowed face is all too well known to both police and underworld.
Ultraviolent set-pieces follow, sprinkled with philosophical asides such as this reflection on a stungun: "It was the single forgiving phrase in the syntax of weaponry I had strapped around me. The rest were unequivocal sentences of death."
There are some James-Bondian implausibilities, such as Kovacs's final confrontation with the villain he's sworn to kill: rather than shooting and leaving fast, he discusses the plot for 10 pages until... but that would be telling. This is high-tension SF action, hard to put down--though squeamish readers may shut their eyes rather frequently. --David Langford --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Publishers Weekly
This fast-paced, densely textured, impressive first novel is an intriguing hybrid of William Gibson's Neuromancer and Norman Spinrad's Deus X. In the 25th century, it's difficult to die a final death. Humans are issued a cortical stack, implanted into their bodies, into which consciousness is "digitized" and from which-unless the stack is hopelessly damaged-their consciousness can be downloaded ("resleeved") with its memory intact, into a new body. While the Vatican is trying to make resleeving (at least of Catholics) illegal, centuries-old aristocrat Laurens Bancroft brings Takeshi Kovacs (an Envoy, a specially trained soldier used to being resleeved and trained to soak up clues from new environments) to Earth, where Kovacs is resleeved into a cop's body to investigate Bancroft's first mysterious, stack-damaging death. To solve the case, Kovacs must destroy his former Envoy enemies; outwit Bancroft's seductive, wily wife; dabble in United Nations politics; trust an AI that projects itself in the form of Jimi Hendrix; and deal with his growing physical and emotional attachment to Kristin Ortega, the police lieutenant who used to love the body he's been given. Kovacs rockets from the seediest hellholes on Earth, through virtual reality torture, into several gory firefights, and on to some exotic sexual escapades. Morgan's 25th-century Earth is convincing, while the questions he poses about how much Self is tied to body chemistry and how the rich believe themselves above the law are especially timely.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
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Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellence,
By lzim "LZIM" (Montreal PQ Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Altered Carbon (Paperback)
I read through this novel faster than any I've ever owned. What makes it easy is the overabundance of action and humour.The reason I finally decided to buy this book was that I'd quoted the sleeving and needlecasting process and wanted a clearer idea of what Morgan actually meant by those terms, in Sci-Fi they are not uncommon but his working implementation of the principles of colony Sci-Fi, though familiar are highly pecimistic. As a source of inspiration it was disappointing, but for entertainment value it is unparalleled. I'm recommend Chris Moriarty to anyone who reads Altered Carbon because the styles are near mirror images of each other. As well as the Kevin Anderson Saga of the Seven Stars simply because there are so many of those books that any fan of the genre should find something satisfying within.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
My 100-word book review,
By A. J. Cull (London, UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Altered Carbon (Paperback)
Richard Morgan's debut novel is a fast-moving, stylish, violent detective thriller set in the distant future. I greatly enjoyed the dry, noir-ish humour and the stack/sleeve technology, which is a pretty slick new package for an existing concept (digitised personalities.) The violence may put off some readers, also the general unpleasantness of Morgan's future society; that world is certainly a cold, hard, ruthless place, ruled by soulless corporations and a monolithic and power-hungry United Nations. However, if you are looking for an action-filled yet thoughtful and well-conceived science fiction novel, look no further. Morgan's newer books are very good too!
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent read,
By
This review is from: Altered Carbon (Hardcover)
I can't go on enough about how much I enjoyed this novel. My definition of a good book is one that is well written, entertains/enlightens, and is thought provoking...Morgan's latest meets all these criteria. I won't go into about the plot--that's already been done here. Just let me say as someone who has read science fiction for at least 30 years it's rare that I run across a novel this good.
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