Altered Carbon

By: Richard K. Morgan

Narrated by: Todd McLaren

Length: 17 hrs and 10 mins

Publisher's summary

In the 25th 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 180 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.

Altered Carbon is the first Takeshi Kovacs novel. Don't miss the sequels Broken Angels and Woken Furies.

©2003 Richard K. Morgan (P)2005 Tantor Media, Inc.

Critic reviews

"This far-future hard-boiled detective story is a lovely virtual-reality romp." (Booklist)
"Fast-paced, densely textured, impressive....Morgan's 25th-century Earth is convincing, while the questions he poses about how much Self is tied to body chemistry and how the rich believe themselves above the law are especially timely." (Publishers Weekly)

I actually liked the TV series better.

For the first time I actually liked the TV adaptation better than the book. I found Morgan's writing style a bit hard to follow. He is overly descriptive of complete minutiae and by the time he is done describing something completely irrelevant to the story you lose track of what the hell is going on. This might be OK reading in text, but in an audiobook, it made me actually tune out and have to rewind often to just figure out what was going on. The narration was good although McLaren really needs to work on his female voices and "screaming" which sounded more like a hoarse whisper.

A fun listen

I really enjoyed the story. The main character was fresh and the authors take on our future is kind of cool. Like some of the other reviewers I feel the sex parts were a little too much. Also, it seemed the author was working really hard to get in as many similes and metaphors as possible. The narrator is tolerable but sounds a little like a salesperson to me. Still, these things aren't so bad that I won't recommend it.

Deal with the Best of Times and the Worst

A great action, thriller.

I like Richard Morgan’s views on good and bad times in our lives. Occasionally we receive a gift that most people say we do not deserve. Don’t agree, enjoy the gift. Also, when times are dark and there appears to be no way out, keep believing a solution will be found. Just hang on and “get to the next page”.

Clever plot - outstanding writer

A very imaginative and well written story. This author can think outside the box

Good accompaniment to the Netflix Show

I purchased this book after absolutely loving the Netflix adaptation. I'm still uncertain which is "better", as I believe the Netflix series was overall more enjoyable, but I thoroughly enjoyed the additional context, world-building, and character interactions the book provided.

I'm not sure I would recommend the book, however. For every delicious morsel of "more" the book offers, it pairs with a sour bit of awkward storytelling. A lot of effort is taken to convince us that the protagonist, Takeshi, is a methodical warrior, and yet I couldn't help but feel that he blundered through the majority of the book. He would often walk into a trap, Jar-Jar Binks his way out, then return to the spot the next day to kill all the bad guys (who bafflingly were still there) with a smug sense of self-satisfaction. Too often, I got the sense that his victories were never really earned - he mentions being an Envoy and the bad guys cower in fear, or is captured but steals a gun and easily head-shots his captor, or he undergoes brutal torture but we're told he was trained to resist it....well ok then. I didn't really find myself ever really thinking Takeshi in real trouble.

But at least the villain isn't a secret long-lost sister, so that counts for something.

Dark dark dark but.....

It shimmers with 80's glamour, sexuality and rocknroll violence so it's hard to look away. At the same time it rings with the truth about men and the nature of the society they create when there are barely any restraints on our monkey brains as is the case with soldiering or criminality. The darkness of the story is solidly backed with an intelligent projection of how it could work if digitalizing minds were possible. But the story would be only interesting if it were not told in a biting crunch of word flow in very fine noir styling.

Good Story

If you could sum up Altered Carbon in three words, what would they be?

Protect Your Sleeve

What was one of the most memorable moments of Altered Carbon?

There are many good moments in this book. The overall concept, the characters and the open ended approach to the ending that leaves the door open for new stories. Overall I liked the book, but in some ways I found it less interesting than 13, which is still my favorite Richard Morgan story. Its almost as if there are too many ideas in this story and it it makes it somewhat difficult to keep track and connect them all. I like a good complicated story but at times I felt lost here. I will probably read the remaining books in the series adn chalk it up to a first novel in a series with a lot of ideas.

Did Todd McLaren do a good job differentiating all the characters? How?

He did a good, competent job. I thin he captured the cynic, dead pan approach of the main character very well. There are a lot of characters in this book and he did a pretty good job at differentiating them, though sometimes I got a little lost.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

This is a classic film noir, cyberpunk tale. Parts were funny in the dry humor of the main character.

Any additional comments?

Some readers will find the sex and torture scenes tough to take. This is adult sci fi. However I don't think any of the scenes were gratuitous, they move the plot along and were important in character motivation. I like Morgan's writing overall and will listen to the remaining books in the series.

Good Crime Novel

This book has been made into a series, which I watched before I read. I don't know that I would have understood much of the world build if I hadn't already seen the show. The premise is that in the future people will have memory storage units called stacks implanted in their brainstem. Basically, you never have to die. Because of cloning, your stack can be uploaded to a new body, or sleeve. If you're rich enough, you can have your stack download to a secure storage site. People called Meths - Methuselahs - can effectively live for hundreds of years.

Altered Carbon is a crime novel set in this wildly futuristic setting. Takeshi Kovacs is an envoy, a person turned into the perfect assassin by the military. He went rogue and was imprisoned. Then a Meth killed himself. At least he killed the sleeve he was wearing at the time. With a 48 hour blank spot of memories that never uploaded to storage, he doesn't believe he killed himself and pulls Takeshi out of prison to find the real killer. Twist - Takeshi isn't put into his real sleeve to do the job. He gets put into the body of a police officer doing time for corruption.

And that's the set up. The story really is very good, but there isn't a lot of describing going on, and with the extreme amount of science setup in the world, it could have used a bit more. It pains me to say it, but I like the series better. There are more books to this series. Not sure I'll venture forth.

Almost

Good story line, plenty of action, but too many "F" words and sexual situations which detracted from the enjoyment.

Story isn't the most evolved. still lots of fun

the narrative is a bit off kilter. the humor and wit play a little too "90's hard ass" to really play in this century.

that said, still a fun diversion. especially if you enjoys the Netflix production.