Richard K. Morgan

Serving as a mercenary in a distasteful war, Takeshi Kovacs joins a covert team that aims to secure a coveted archeological prize, an endeavor that ensnares him in a web of treachery and betrayal unlike any he has experienced before. By the author of Altered Carbon. Original.

Broken Angels

High Fidelity

War is like any other bad relationship. Of course you want out, but at what price? And perhaps more importantly, once you get out, will you be any better off?

War has a soothing, simplifying effect on politics that must hit the politicians like a betathanatine rush. You don’t have to balance the issues anymore, and you can justify anything. Fight and win, and bring the victory home. Everything else whites out, like the sky over Sauberville.

“Common sense for the common herd, and why bother to feed them anything else. What if Martian ethics didn’t permit resleeving, Kovacs? Ever think of that? What if death means you’ve proved yourself unworthy of life? That even if you could be brought back, you have no right to it.”

You probably don’t want to hear it; most soldiers don’t. When you put on that uniform, you’re saying in effect that you resign your right to make independent decisions about the universe and your relationship to it.”

The moment you refuse to carry out an order, you’re no longer a soldier. You’re just a paid killer trying to renegotiate your contract.”

Face the facts. Then act on them. It’s the only mantra I know, the only doctrine I have to offer you, and it’s harder than you’d think, because I swear humans seem hardwired to do anything but. Face the facts. Don’t pray, don’t wish, don’t buy into centuries-old dogma and dead rhetoric. Don’t give in to your conditioning or your visions or your fucked-up sense of . . . whatever. Face the facts. Then act.

Loyalty is a currency like any other. What you have earned, you can spend.

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