Altered Carbon

Executive Summary: A book that seemed to work better in concept than execution for me. It's possible I just wasn't in the right mood for this book at the time I listened to it though.

Audio book: The narration was OK, but not great. Todd McLaren has a decent enough voice, but isn't very good at accents. I think I would have preferred if he just read it rather than trying to do voices. They weren't so bad as to distract me from the story though.

The actual quality of the audiobook is awful. I'm not sure if this is because I accidentally downloaded the lower quality version or just in general. It was REALLY quiet. And when I plugged my phone into the car I'd get feedback noise if I had it plugged into the charger as well.

It was OK on headphones, but overall it was frustrating trying to listen to the book. I would have switched to the ebook if I wasn't in the middle of something else. I'd personally recommend staying away from the audio for this reason alone.

Full Review
This one has been on my list for awhile. The blurb sounded pretty cool. I've read a lot of Urban Fantasy that uses the detective mashup, but not a cyberpunk one. I was pretty excited when it was chosen as the Sword & Laser March pick.

It started off pretty cool. An elite operative being forced into an unfamiliar body on earth. Hired by someone who recently died to investigate the circumstances. But I had trouble getting into it.

There seemed to just be a lot of sex and violence and very little in the way of plot. I enjoy a dumb action flick every now and again and I don't even mind popcorn fiction, but this just didn't seem to click with me. I'm still not sure if it's that I simply don't like the book that much, or if I just wasn't in the right mood for it.

There are cool action sequences. I liked some of the sci-fi elements (transferred consciousness, virtual reality) and how they were incorporated into the storyline. I was interested in finding out the reason for the murder/suicide. So why didn't I just love this book?

If I had to put my finger on it, I'd say it's because I never connected to any of the characters. I tend to enjoy character driven stories the most. Plus, when you have a story that is light on plot and heavy on action, you really need to have a protagonist the reader can get behind and that just didn't happen for me.

I can see this being an enjoyable book to read though, and I didn't hate it, I just didn't like it as much as I was expecting to I guess. Your mileage may vary.