Altered Carbon

I tend to fall victim to getting excited about books that I haven't read after I see gushing praise for them and this was one of those books.

Altered Carbon was pretty good, don't get me wrong, but I was expecting more out of it, which might be a bit unfair to the author. It was some pretty bleak noir, which I'm cool with, and the future that Morgan built that involved human consciousness being digitized and transferred between bodies was an interesting idea. Of course, it creates some problems as well and Morgan was able to handle those issues rather deftly, which I commend.

Something about the story and the characters fell a bit flat in the middle, everything there but just a bit subdued. I think it had a lot to do with the absolute glee and care that was put into the violent scenes about mid-way through the book that everything else afterwards felt flat in comparison. It was like you were shown just how good Morgan can be, then never lives up to that potential again until moving into the home stretch.