In the twenty-fifth century, humankind has spread throughout the galaxy, monitored by the watchful eye of the U.N. While divisions in race, religion, and class still exist, advances in technology have redefined life itself. Now, assuming one can afford the expensive procedure, a person’s consciousness can be stored in a cortical stack at the base of the brain and easily downloaded into a new body (or “sleeve”) making death nothing more than a minor blip on a screen. Ex-U.N. envoy Takeshi Kovacs has been killed before, but his last death was particularly painful. Dispatched one hundred eighty light-years from home, re-sleeved into a body in Bay City (formerly San Francisco, now with a rusted, dilapidated Golden Gate Bridge), Kovacs is thrown into the dark heart of a shady, far-reaching conspiracy that is vicious even by the standards of a society that treats “existence” as something that can be bought and sold. For Kovacs, the shell that blew a hole in his chest was only the beginning. . . . “Morgan’s debut novel, the first in a series, combines noir mystery with ultra-high tech science to create a complex sf thriller. Featuring a hard-nosed antihero with his own sense of personal honor and ethics, this is highly recommended for sf collections.”-Library Journal
I very much enjoyed this, and am looking forward to reading (and … This is an interesting novel – a world where everyone is fitted with a digitization device shortly after birth, recording their personality and memories, which allows the rich (or otherwise connected/insured/lucky) to be given a new body (“re-sleeved”) upon death, or simply travel. In fact, it’s the only way to interstellar travel quickly – slower than light physical travel to set up a colony, with digital copies of people and the equipment to grow them bodies, with a faster than light…
awesome cyberpunk noir Short: awesome cyberpunk noir.Longer version: We’re in the far future where’s no real death (“RD”), and our antagonist gets a new body and a task from a guy, to find who killed him.The story and the setting is awesome, there are some nuances which help to get a better understanding of this world – for a non-english speaker (like me) the language was a little bit harder then usual, but nevertheless, this is an awesome book with good characters and story. If you like…
Good book. Must read if you plan to watch the show. If you are a long time reader of my reviews, you will note I like to explain how I came to acquire and read the book. This review of Altered Carbon is no different.I read many books, mostly fiction. Of the fiction 99% science fiction. A friend told me he was taking a break from non-fiction and reading Altered Carbon. Based on his interests I immediately assumed the book was about guns, spies, hunting, fishing or some other topic men more manly than I read. He said no this is a…