Feed Your Interest

So, for some strange reason, the website is lacking covers and descriptions for both Altered Carbon and Broken Angels. Clearly I should fix that relatively soon.

I’ve just finished re-reading Broken Angels. I’m kinda starting in the middle of the story here (Altered Carbon is the first), but given that each book is fairly well self-contained, there’s nothing significant that I’m giving away. Well, apart from the fact that Takeshi Kovacs survived the events of the first book. Which tends to be something you’d expect when the first book is subtitled “Takeshi Kovacs Book 1″.

One thing I’ve really come to enjoy about Richard Morgan’s sci-fi books is his social commentary. It’s a different take that a lot of sci-fi authors don’t necessarily go into. There are a few others that might, but they don’t do a good job of it. it comes across as a lecture. Or a disjointed, jarring hitch in an otherwise acceptable read.
With Morgan, it is a smooth relevant insertion into a paced novel that enhances the tale and sets you to thinking after the book is done.

In Broken Angels, Kovacs is a mercenary soldier fighting to overthrow a rebellion on a little planet miles away from anywhere. Somewhere along the line, he is offered a chance to grapple with a bit of Martian technology. If he takes the chance, if it pays off, he’d be able to buy his war out of the way, and to get himself hypercasted to a different planet that isn’t at war and sleeved into a much more comfortable body that hasn’t been plastered by little bits of shrapnel over and over, repaired by not-so-comforting doctors, and then sent back out into the dirty little battle field…

(For those of you who are going “what the hell are hypercasting and sleeving!?” Morgan’s universe is set in a time when human consciousness can be digitized and downloaded into a little container known as the cortical stack. Thus a person can have ever lasting life as long as they have the funds to transfer their consciousness from one body to another - now known as sleeves - and also to have their consciousness transferred - aka hypercast - across space to a new body in a new place…)

Along the way to get this little possible bit of Martian technology (yes, there were Martians in Morgan’s universe. no, they don’t seem to be around anymore. yes, people will pay big bucks for Martian technology), he will encounter a multitude of problems, including corporations that have a conflict investment portfolio, smart evolving nanobots that have an extremely short life of 4 days, a man of voodoo, radioactive fall out, and of course… Martian technology.

If you’re wondering about the psychological conditioning… Well, Kovacs was an Envoy… An Envoy is the UN Protectorate’s bug bear. They are the elite soldiers that are sent out to troublesome worlds to put down problems and to maintain the status quo. They aren’t elite due to powerful weapons or tactical genius… Those are easily accomplished by having enough money or AI. They are elite due to their psychological conditioning. They think faster, they intuit faster, they control their emotions better, they understand better… The Envoys were what convinced humanity that mind trumped all matter. And it scared the crap out of them.

My description has been a little bit more focused (ok, a lot more) on the events of Broken Angels…
If I were to focus a bit more on Morgan’s books as a whole…
I’d say that the Takeshi Kovacs books are noir-style cyberpunk at its peak of brilliance. That his story telling is superb, his action is visceral, his points are well made, and that Quellcrist Falconer seems like an awesome person I would have liked to meet…
You’ll just have to read the three books if you’d like to find out a bit more about Quellcrist…

His three Takeshi Kovacs books are highly recommended. Highly highly recommended.

The difference between virtuality and life is very simple. In a construct you know everything is being run by an all-powerful machine. Reality doesn’t offer this assurance, so it’s very easy to develop the mistaken impression that you’re in control.
– Quellcrist Falconer