Altered Carbon

Really great! It's a cyber punk noir detective novel. The mystery is challenging and multi-layered. The characters are rich and interesting. The world-building is elaborate and lustrous.

But it is a gritty novel. Definitely for grown-ups with some pretty graphic sex scenes and adult psychological themes.

Still, I would recommend it to fans of sci-fi.

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.

This book came highly reccomended, but it never really did it for me. The hero is a generic “badass”. The plot seems totally arbitrary in an attempt to keep the reader guessing.

The one saving grace of this book is its action sequences. They are fantastically done. So good in fact that they make an otherwise boring book reasonably enjoyable.

On my first read of this one, I loved it. I read it a second time right before the show came out, and even years later, I still think it's a great modern cyberpunk story. It hits the level of noir and gritty future reality just right. And the metaphorical writing is reminiscent of trying to be like Raymond Chandler, which fits the main character well. What I didn't remember from the first time, and what I found I really enjoyed during the second read, was all the political undertones and Quellist remarks made by various people. I suppose my interest in this has changed in the 12 years between 2006 and 2018, because I live in the United States, and in those years paying attention to revolutionary politics has suddenly become more important.

[3.5] Really wanted to like this. The Netflix TV show rendition of this book was enjoyable. I actually think the show did a better job of making Kovacs and the cop (forgot her name) likeable. In the book they feel far more extra-judicial and I don't think it felt as warranted as it does in the show, but maybe I missed something.

There's also a lot of references to sex, which I guess has a time and place, but my ever persistent asexuality makes me roll my eyes everytime the author mentions how great someone's breasts are. They're not even well-written sex scenes either: little passion, entirely self-gratifying, ill-motivated, and overall clearly written by a man for other (straight) men.

“La pobre Muerte no está a la altura de la tecnología del carbono modificado.”

Morgan ganó el premio Philip K. Dick por esta novela cyberpunk en el 2003. La he pasado muy bien metiéndome en la cabeza de Kovacs por algún tiempo. Me ha sorprendido mucho la cantidad de ideas que propone el autor en el libro: negocios gestionados por Inteligencias Artificiales, almacenamiento digital de conciencia, entornos virtuales, mandroides, etc.

¡Excelente! De todas maneras voy a esperar la segunda entrega. ¿Llegará pronto?

Algunas imágenes creadas por Phade01:

Ciudad Bahía


El club de Jerry


La Cabeza en las Nubes


Decantado

Gritty cyberpunk noir crime story set in a future where your consciousness can be downloaded to different bodies. The wealthy live forever and wear different bodies as if they are clothes. Your changing body image and a new bodies' chemistry create patchworks of identities. I enjoyed the hard scifi of it, the identity speculations, and would have preferred more of that instead of the focus on the action-laden crime investigation.

It started out great, with big ideas and great style for a first novel but after the first half the plot kind of falls apart. The introduction of the main antagonist feels like it has no connection to the first half of the book. It feels so misplaced that I was wondering if I forgo tabout the character. On some level it felt more like a different plot than a continuation. While everything gets tied together at the end, the sheer number of characters, bodies, sleeves and regulations can be confusing.

Pretty good, hard to fault. I struggled with recalling characters and their plot significance; there were many of them, and they influenced Kovacs (the main character) in both significant yet subtle ways, often through small details. Reading through the novel more quickly might have alleviated this issue, but, regardless, I enjoyed my time here.

Fundamentally, it presents an intriguing world and narrative—a blend of cyberpunk, noir and crime mystery.

Our main character has been shipped off-world as Digital Human Freight (DHF) to assist in the investigation of the mysterious death of Laurens Bancroft, an approximately 300-year-old “Meth” with substantial influence over the UN.

However, there are others like him, plotting and scheming. And it's all up to good ol' Takeshi Kovacs to unravel it all if he wants to regain his freedom and save his loved ones. 

Oh, and his consciousness has been downloaded into someone else's body, introducing another layer of conflict for him; where he doesn't know his own body's past, but everyone else does. 

———
4/5 for writing, 4.5/5 for story and 3.5/5 for impact.

This is a hard-boiled detective novel set in the 25th century. In this future, humans have a “cortical stack” implanted in their bodies into which their consciousness or Self is digitized. This Self can then be downloaded or “re-sleeved” into another body real, synthetic, or clone. Takeshi Kovacs, a specially trained soldier, finds himself re-sleeved into the body of a cop on Earth and tasked with a job he can't refuse. Centuries old Laurens Bancroft wants Kovacs to prove that he didn't commit suicide. (Bancroft has downloaded a back-up of his cortical stack into a clone. So he's only missing a few hours time from his last “sleeve.”) Thus begins an over-the-top shoot-em-up hunt for the facts which naturally uncover larger sinister plans at work. Some of this was interesting, some was entertaining. Some of this was also overly crude in language and the sex scenes had all the romance and eroticism of porn. That is to say, none. Along the way, Kovacs has virtual reality meetings with people, carries some jacked-up firepower, cuts off peoples heads, beds some dames, talks dirty, fights dirty, and generally leaves a trail of destruction. Some clever ideas, but I've read more entertaining stuff. And I could do without some of the crudeness. This book has been optioned to become a movie and would probably make a cool flick. But I don't think I'll be reading any more of Morgan's books.

Bay City è un romanzo di genere fantastico e noir del 2002, dello scrittore britannico Richard K. Morgan. Fa parte della trilogia di “Takeshi Kovacs”, questo è il primo dei tre romanzi.

Il protagonista principale della serie è Takeshi Kovacs Lev, un nativo del pianeta di Harlan, di origine giapponese e dell'Europa dell'Est, diviene membro di una gang di adolescenti prima di arruolarsi nelle forze armate. Dopo aver lasciato l'esercito di cui faceva parte come membro di una forza militare d'elite, Kovacs torna alla vita criminale e diviene un mercenario, poi catturato sarà imprigionato e il suo corticale “stack” verrà memorizzato senza un corpo per decenni come punizione, prima di essere rilasciato sulla parola ed essere impiegato in situazioni ad alto rischio. Kovacs è un ex inviato, un tipo di soldato futuristico, facente parte dell'intelligence e in parte soldato, addestrato per adattarsi rapidamente a nuovi organi e nuovi ambienti.

Un grande personaggio questo, e sopratutto un bravissimo scrittore di fantascienza che oltre al qui recensito Bay City ci ha ripresentato il mitico (lo è già per me) Kovacs nel successore “Angeli Spezzati”, un filo sotto tono rispetto a questo ma godibile davvero. Chi seguirà il mio consiglio non potrà non avere negli occhi le immagini di Blade Runner quando leggerà le righe di questo libro, ma non potrà certo immaginarsi Deckard, Kovacs è un John MacLaine (Die Hard) del futuro.

Il libro è davvero bello, sullo sfondo di tutto c'è un assassinio che richiama molto la serie gialla “i delitti delle stanze chiuse” però portata in avanti di qualche migliaio d'anni. Il libro sembra ambientato a San Francisco (certi richiami lo fanno credere) ma di un futuro lontano, molto alla Blade Runner. Il personaggio principale non potrete non amarlo visceralmente in ogni sua sfaccettatura è descritto in maniera eccelsa e lo vedremo alle prese con questo delitto che dovrà risolvere in cambio di “un corpo nuovo”. Sì perché nel futuro immaginato dallo scrittore si potrà cambiare corpo come si cambiano le macchine (ovvio è che i ricchi potranno sempre prendersi delle bellissime Ferrari...).

Spero di avervi stuzzicato abbastanza senza svelare nulla che toglierebbe la bellezza di questa lettura... Da prendere assolutamente!

Ah I needed a good plot driven book. Even better, it's a classic sci-fi, grand guignol, noir thriller. It's completely propulsive with a gloriously wicked cast of characters. If you were to make this into a movie, nearly every role would offer the potential to be a meaty, scene stealing, grandiose part. It's one of those books you devour.

We are offered the idea of individuals being “resleeved”, their consciousness downloaded into new bodies. This idea is explored in so many unique ways. The rich who have resleeved themselves over centuries, faster-than light travel made possible by transmitting data instead of actual people, the Catholic take on this technology, the possibilities for torture, weddings, prison, murder trials, relationships are all there. Hell, what does it mean for a book's protagonist and our perception of him when his physical body is someone else's? The great thing is Morgan never gets too impressed with himself and just plays it out as a part of the reality. He's spinning an old school thriller novel here and it's worth the read.

I really struggled to get into this one. I found the story quite hard to follow, because of how many different characters get introduced throughout the book. It's a pity because there's a lot of cool sci-fi concepts here (i.e. uploading your brain to another body). Also this guy is horny AF, there is random unnecessary sex everywhere (aren't you a trained soldier, just do your job!) and sometimes it just doesn't make sense when the woman jumps on him like it's very male fantasy. So if you're a dude and you're into sex and violence this may be the sci-fi novel for you.