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)

Narrator’s voice too deep

Only issue with the audiobook- narrator’s voice is way too deep and hurt my ears. Had to completely change the bass in my car to listen

Good book give it a go

After seeing the NetFlix advertising for the show I decided I wanted to give the books a go, happy that I did.
Getting ready to spin book 2 in the 3 book series.
My only issue was the narrator voice was so deep and needed to adjust the bass a bit. Other than that he did a wonderful job.

Great universe, great story.

The universe created by Richard Morgan is really captivating and will suck you right in and immerse you in the dark corners of cyberpunk. My only issue is that it was at times hard to keep up with the story. Maybe I was being too distracted by the outside world, but I felt like I missed a few key moments in the storyline. The book will keep you coming back for more until the very end. Great story and a great narrator.

Needs Re-Recording

I liked what I could pay attention to but I couldn't listen for long due to the narrator either pausing or stopping recording between every sentence. There's a clearly audible background element in his audio feed that stops and starts every time he pauses and makes it hard for me to concentrate on what he's saying. Might not be an issue for everyone but made it unlistenable for me

Sci-fi Noir with a great story, HORRIBLY recorded.

I'm an audiophile and couldn't stand how bassy this recording was. Too much bass.

Other than drastically changing the EQ settings in my car to accommodate for the over the top low frequency focused recording quality, this is a great audio book!

The narrator does noir well and evokes the right kind of mood that any good detective story needs.

The plot is multi-layered, engaging, and interesting.

The science fiction concepts presented are just "hard" sci-fi enough without going too overbearing on a technical side.

The only 2 critical points that I can make about the book are as follows... firstly, there might be a few too many characters for my taste... good mystery and detective stories can be multi-layered and filled with depth of mystery without adding "too many" side characters. If an author wants to add more characters, than they should write them out in a memorable enough fashion to hold their own when referenced later in the story. Secondly, one of the overtly sexual scenes in the story actually made me laugh with how out of nowhere it exploded into action... you could feel the sexual tension building as the scene warmed up but the transition into the release of tension in that part of the plot was poorly executed in my mind... seemed unrealistic and made me roll my eyes. BUT there's definitely a place for that kind of scene in more "pulp" focused noir and I get why it's included; Just thought it could have been written more smoothly in that part.

Other than the bassy recording, minor character overload, and some cheesey over the top sexy pulp noir scenes; it was a great book!

If you like noir and sci-fi, you will like this book... just turn down the bass and turn up the treble on your EQ before pressing play.

Solid Sci-Fi, Average Performance

I really enjoyed the book. story was solid, way more cohesive than the show, and the characters felt real.

The narration however is a bit hard to get into. It's very calm and risks putting you to sleep in some cases. The character acting and female voices were OK, but nothing to write home about.

I do like the contrast between the narrator's "narration" voice and his character voices though. Going from smooth and circumspect to energized and emotional.

Overall, I enjoyed the book and have already started the second book in the series. Once you get past the narration the book is a real treat!

Slow start

This novel started slow and it took me a little while to warm up to it. It's a hard boiled detective story (very much not my taste) with a fantastic sci-fi setting with dystopian overtones.
I enjoyed it for much the same reasons as "The Hunger Games" and the "Uglies" series, oddly enough: class politics, the ethics of biomedical engineering, an examination of what makes relationships "real" etc. This IS an adult book, make no mistake. There's raunchy sex, violence (including torture), and all the stuff that makes adult media awesome. I would have adored this book as a teenager.
I whole heartedly recommend this novel. I've already relistened to it and anticipate doing so every few years. It's fun, well written and thought provoking.

the perfect science fiction novel

Any additional comments?

Richard Morgan created a futuristic, action packed novel with a twisting and turning plot that kept me on the edge of my seat!

Mhhhhhh

it just wasn't all that good. I thought about returning it several times. Who knows you might love it. Good luck

good story

I just hope the series does it justice. b Goff mesh of futurism and present day events