Altered Carbon

By: Richard K. Morgan

Narrated by: Todd McLaren

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)

Good story with a few unpleasant suprises.

The human civilization which Mr. Morgan paints in his trilogy is an intriguing place. While the concept of moving personalities body to body is not new, the way he approaches the subject matter is interesting, as are the underlying moral issues that are touched around the edges. I found myself thinking of the film noir genre, complete with the world weary detective who has nothing left but the job. The two jarring notes are the narrator, who makes a valiant effort to characterize, but falls short. The second are the graphic, nearly pornographic sex scenes. While the sex is not gratuitous, the graphic detail using the vulgar speech is jarring in the flow of the novel.

It was okay

The narration was great, The story wasn't. Nearly didn't bother to finish it and wasn't all that rewarding having finished it

well done

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Intricate but not overly complicated.Entertaining. Worth the download.

Everything to love about gritty sci-fi

Very gritty hard-boiled film noir sci-fi.
Todd McLaren's voice has a good vocal range for this book. Strong storyline, and creative ideas about the stacks.
A very convincing futuristic world, and the psychology behind each character is believable, and interesting.

Audio recording quality on this book is poor

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

This was an okay book for me. I enjoyed the noir feel to it combined with the scifi, but overall I gave it only 3 stars.

What didn’t you like about Todd McLaren’s performance?

I liked Todd's voice acting, but there were some significant problems with the recording.

Any additional comments?

This book was difficult to listen to. While the voice actor seemed to do a good job of narrating the story, the volume level was all over the map. I had to regularly turn the volume up and down. Also, it was sometimes hard to understand what the narrator was saying, as if he wasn't articulating his consonants clearly enough. However, this may have been a microphone problem or technical issue.