Richard K. Morgan

A stunning debut sci-fi/noir thriller reminiscent of Blade Runner--and the beginning of a new series featuring a one-of-a-kind anti-hero: ex-UN envoy Takashi Kovaks.

Altered Carbon

In a twenty-fifth-century world in which death is nearly obsolete, thanks to a technology that allows a person's consciousness to be downloaded into a new body, former U.N. envoy Takeshi Kovacs, re-sleeved into a new body after a brutal death, finds himself caught in the middle of a deadly far-reaching conspiracy that could have horrifying repercussions. Reprint.

Carlo Zottmann

Four hundred years from now mankind is strung out across a region of interstellar space inherited from an ancient civilization discovered on Mars. The colonies are linked together by the occasional sublight colony ship voyages and hyperspatial data-casting. Human consciousness is digitally freighted between the stars and downloaded into bodies as a matter of course. But some things never change. So when ex-envoy, now-convict Takeshi Kovacs has his consciousness and skills downloaded into the body of a nicotine-addicted ex-thug and presented with a catch-22 offer, he really shouldn¿t be surprised. Contracted by a billionaire to discover who murdered his last body, Kovacs is drawn into a terrifying conspiracy that stretches across known space and to the very top of society. For a first-time SF writer to be so surely in command of narrative and technology, so brilliant at world-building, so able to write such readable and enjoyable SF adventure, is simply extraordinary.

neko

This book is terrible!

It’s a juvenile male sex/power fantasy that drags out for hundreds of pages. That’s it. There *are* some interesting science-fictional ideas, but they're no more than window-dressing adorning mind-numbingly repetitive sequences of over-the-top violence, problematic sex, cardboard characters, clunky exposition, and a sludgy, meandering and incoherent plot. (The author is clearly of the school of thought that gratuitous sex and violence are “gritty” or "edgy" and therefore a substitute for narrative depth).

The protagonist is an utterly unlikeable Mary Sue with super-soldier training that only works when convenient for progressing the plot along, but is also constantly hand-waved away. He literally spends the entire book doing or saying things and then being like “Gosh my Envoy training really should have prevented me from doing that, I must be slipping.” The author continuously tells us how the protagonist is really smart, perceptive, etc. but in practice he’s a complete tool. (In a better book I would be willing to fridge-logic this as his own perception of himself being out-of-sync with reality, since the book is written in the first person, but I think that would be giving this one too much credit for self-awareness.)

One of the most cringe-worthy sex scenes was one in which the two participants were empathically-linked. That’s a super hot concept! It takes special skill to make it about as unsexy as day-old gym clothes, but somehow he manages it. Maybe it’s just because at that point I was already SO DONE with Kovacs' boner. Practically every chapter has pointless sexual stuff shoehorned into it even when it’s completely irrelevant to the story! I rapidly became totally sick of him mentally undressing every woman he met, and that’s ignoring the really problematic stuff, like the part where he creepily feels up the suspended-animation clone of his boss’ wife, or where he gets kidnapped and his captors put him into a woman’s body so that they can rape him. Not cool.

But the top reason for the scathing review: I have a special hatred for stories that introduce technological ideas that cause (or at least, should cause) people to grapple with interesting philosophical questions… and then proceed to utterly ignore said questions in favor of generic action movie tropes. It just makes me angry. You have all these cool ideas and then all you can do with them is construct an entirely unchallenging narrative in which our hero shoots a bunch of people and sleeps with women? You want me to buy that immortality has become something you can purchase, and people can body-swap at will, and yet society and people’s identities are pretty much the same as in a 1940s mobster flick?

There’s seriously an entire chapter describing in exhaustive, needless detail the protagonist shopping for guns. So that tells you basically all you need to know about this book.

No, wait. At some point in the book, the protagonist gets cloned, and then proceeds to have a conversation with his clone about his/their motivation and feelings and the plot thus far. They then go on to discuss his personal history, despite the fact that THEY ARE LITERALLY THE SAME PERSON and there is no reason whatsoever for them to need to talk about that!

THAT tells you all you need to know about this book. It's written in the first person, which provides the best possible way to show readers the protagonist's innermost thoughts, and yet the author is so bad at creating any kind of emotional depth that this conversation seemed like a good idea.

The entire book is full of boring, pointless scenes that serve as filler between the events of the generally uneventful plot, but the Kovacs vs. Kovacs conversation is pretty much the low point.

What I’d recommend you read instead: The Peripheral, Surface Detail, Permutation City.

High Fidelity

It was everything I love in the noir and SF genres. 
Impressive wold building, it really shows he cares about what he created. The characters are interesting enough and how they intertwine is well done. 
*full review to come*

Todd Luallen

Not a fan of the erotica in this book. I wish there was some sort of rating system for books, so I could stay clear of the X rated books without having to waste my money and time on them. The whole idea of re-sleeving was interesting, and I'm sure allows for some interesting twists to a mystery/thriller. But I did not finish, because of the graphic sexual content. This was my last Goodreads Daily deal recommendation that I'm going to take a chance on.

Richard Morgan

Science fiction. Takeshi Kovacs is an Envoy, a soldier trained to withstand transfer from one body to the next. He is employed (resleeved) by a Meth (as in Methuselah) billionaire who was killed (and subsequently resleeved) and who wants to know how and why

Charles Siboto

I love the detective/noir feel to Morgan's story as you follow protagonist, Takeshi Kovacs, through a futuristic Earth.

The TV show is probably more fun than this.

Vojtech

Xavier Roy

I read this after watching the Netflix series. 

The background of who Kovacs is not that clear in the book. Maybe the rest of the series deals with it. I've to find out.

I felt there were lots of gaps in the story.

Altered Carbon (Takeshi Kovacs Novels)

Melody Izard

OOO eee that's a complicated world right there. Keeping up with what chemical does what to which sleeve and where the essence of who someone actually IS resides makes my head spin. Porn doesn't just pop up on your computer - it assaults you with street-casts if you wander too close to their curbside transmissions. There is every sort of virtual and actual sex and, if you have the money - an ability to live forever in a fresh, young body. 

This ability to live forever has its drawbacks. Kicks just keep get harder to find. And these cyber-vampire-like rich people can feel like they have all the answers and are apt to ride high on a big ol' power trip. 

Takeshi Lev Kovacs is kind of a super soldier who is hired by one of these ancient super-rich and is brought back to life to save the day. Kind of a tricked out deputy dog. And I understand that his character continues to kick ass in 2 other books by Morgan. 

It's written a bit like there is a prequel - but there is not.

Micchi von Cross

** spoiler alert **
           Spoilers for both the book and the Netflix series ahead!

It absolutely breaks my heart to write this review. The Altered Carbon Netflix series is so good. Intricate, nuanced, part film noir mystery and part high-adrenaline action and part weird future shit. I had hoped the books would be as good, if not better.

I was very, very wrong. In fact, it seems like most of the parts of the series I absolutely fell in love with were deviations and changes from the book. For me, what most exemplifies this is Reileen Kawahara. 

In the series, I was extremely invested in Reileen. I felt emotionally invested in her, every step of the way. I felt emotionally invested in Kovacs' relationship and reactions. It felt like a gut punch to learn, along with Kovacs, that his little sister had become an entire monster, beyond even the monster Kovacs himself could be...and even then I could understand and see how she got there, why she got there. She was such a good antagonist.

In the book, Reileen Kawahara is an incredibly one-note villain, complete with dry and boring monologues. Her story isn't explored. Kovacs has no relation to her except "she threw me some work and also I hate her". She has no personality until the very end, when her calm facade doesn't just crack, it explodes. And I should have been cheering when she gets her comeuppance, but...by that point I didn't *care*, I just wanted to be done with this book.

Ben Nathan

The story telling is really good. The story itself is well woven in a rich world. I loved all of the detective bits to it. The thing that kept turning me off was that it felt like the writer HATED women and I just cringed at how they were described and characterized and even worse his sex scenes were just ew.

Juozas Salna

it is just sex and violence...
quite a lot of characters i don't care about and always forget their names. so when they return after a few chapters I don't know who they are and what they want.
already forgot why everybody wanted to kill each other.

or maybe i have early dementia and cannot read complex books ;]

Anyaconda

I loved the Netflix show, but boy did I miss out on the details. The book gives you all that and it's definitely different from the show. Some names and relationships are different too, but it was fab and I'm looking forward continuing with this series 🙂

Richard

Sherany

In a twenty-fifth century world in which death is nearly obsolete, former UN envoy Takeshi Kovacs, re-sleeved into a new body after a brutal death, finds himself caught in the middle of a deadly far-reaching conspiracy.

Altered Carbon

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