Woken Furies

By: Richard K. Morgan

Narrated by: William Dufris

Length: 22 hrs and 3 mins

Publisher's summary

Richard K. Morgan has received widespread praise for his astounding 25th-century novels featuring Takeshi Kovacs, and has established a growing legion of fans. Mixing classic noir sensibilities with a searing futuristic vision of an age when death is nearly meaningless, Morgan returns to his saga of betrayal, mystery, and revenge, as Takeshi Kovacs, in one fatal moment, joins forces with a mysterious woman who may have the power to shatter Harlan's World forever.

Once a gang member, then a marine, then a galaxy-hopping Envoy trained to wreak slaughter and suppression across the stars, a bleeding, wounded Kovacs was chilling out in a New Hokkaido bar when some so-called holy men descended on a slim beauty with tangled, hyperwired hair. An act of quixotic chivalry later and Kovacs was in deep: mixed up with a woman with two names, many powers, and one explosive history.

In a world where the real and virtual are one and the same and the dead can come back to life, the damsel in distress may be none other than the infamous Quellcrist Falconer, the vaporized symbol of a freedom now gone from Harlan's World. Kovacs can deal with the madness of AI. He can do his part in a battle against biomachines gone wild, search for a three-centuries-old missing weapons system, and live with a blood feud with the yakuza, and even with the betrayal of people he once trusted. But when his relationship with "the" Falconer brings him an enemy specially designed to destroy him, he knows it's time to be afraid.

After all, the guy sent to kill him is himself: but younger, stronger, and straight out of hell.

Wild, provocative, and riveting, Woken Furies is a full-bore science fiction spectacular of the highest order from one of the most original and spellbinding storytellers at work today.

Woken Furies is the third Takeshi Kovacs novel, following Altered Carbon and Broken Angels.

©2005 Richard K. Morgan (P)2006 Tantor Media, Inc.

Critic reviews

"The author's eye for detail and feel for the atmosphere and nuances of SF noir result in a story packed with action and angst that will also appeal to general suspense readers." (Library Journal)
"Morgan's anxiously awaited third Takeshi Kovacs novel makes a terrific addition to an award-winning series....Highly recommended for followers of the series, cyberpunk devotees, and hard-boiled detective fans not averse to a little genre-bending." (Booklist)

very very good!

I was afraid to get this volumn after other reviews about the narrator - but since I loved the character I broke down and got it. Really glad I did! The technique used (for memory sequences only) is new and took a few times to get used to it but after that I found it added quite a lot to the story. The narrator himself may actually be better than the first as well - his very many voices are really done well and especially the female ones. This may be the best story of the three (wraps up and humanizes Tak) and the audio was truely great!

Reader is Awful

I am sorry to say the reader is awful and the sections using the echo affect are awful to listen too!

Bad narration, adequate story

This one's a bit of a letdown compared to the previous two. Altered Carbon and Broken Angels both had a pretty clear throughline to the plot, but this one felt more like a collection of only loosely connected scenes.

The real problem, though, as other comments have pointed out, is the narration and audio production. Dufris is not so much dramatic as he is melodramatic. And while I appreciate the attempt to differentiate internal monologues with an echo, and phone conversations with a muffled mono-signal sound, and so on...it's more distracting than effective, and it actually makes it harder to hear at certain points.

To audio publishers - please. Just hire a quality narrator with good pronunciation and pacing, and skip the audio tricks. Most books don't benefit from sounding like a radio play.

I really liked it.

I too listened to broken arrow and altered carbon. I enjoyed this one a little more.

The theme of the first two seemed to be sleeves, which really interesting got old after a while.

This book exposed many more cyber punk ideas, plus religion, goverment, martians, family and the characters were developed a little more.

I didnt notice the narrator mispronunciation of Kovacs and thought he was a believable Kovacs.

The echo only happened once an hour and only bothered me when it was long.

I can't wait for his next novel. I hope sleeve's are just a smaller part of the next one and he blows my socks off with more cyberpunk.

WHY DID THIS NARRATOR GET THROUGH?

Any additional comments?

I’ve owned all 3 of these books for quite a while, and re-listened multiple times. This recording of Woken Furies is such a jarring difference from the two other Takashi Kovach books that I can’t listen to this book right after book 2. How in the world could the publisher/producer allow the narrator of this 3rd book to mispronounce the main character’s name every time, after the pronunciation of Takashi Kovach (It is a soft ch like watch, not Kovacks, like sacks, as this narrator says every time) was pointedly and very clearly detailed early in the first book, and again in the second book. I guess the author didn’t hear any of this recording before it went out.


Allow me to say, I have listened to many other books by this narrator..and my issue isn't necessarily with him as a narrator..it is his narration of THIS book, the poor sound effects, etc.

The book itself is not bad. It is not as strong in storyline as the first two books, but it is enjoyable. The audible version, however, ruins the experience for me. Terrible overuse of echo effect and other poor attempts at audio gimmicks, mispronunciation of important character names, and bad editing (midway through part two the listener hears that the CD has ended, put in the next CD. Nice.)

If you have listened to the other 2 books and enjoyed them as much as I do, yes, this is worth a credit to finish the adventures of Takashi. Just be prepared for the cheesy reverb, annoying sound gimmicks and the issues above.

New Reader, fading in and out, read in bathroom?

I disliked this reading compared to the two books before this. there was a lot of distortions in the sound, causing it to fade in and out and made it hard to follow what was going on. The guy also had some... interesting... choices for his voices when reading certain characters and situations... there were also several times where it sounded like he was reading in a bathroom. It could have been a cool effect, but it was just too much.

Amazazing!!!!

Must Read! Ol Dick did it again with a uncut, down and dirty thriller with more twists than Courtney Loves love life.

Not as good as Altered Carbon

This narrator was different from Altered Carbon, I found his voice to be more whinny. however, Tak is more whinny in general in this story (Sara, Sara, Sara, Mommy, Daddy abuse, abandonment). on the positive side, this story fleshes out more details of the world. in the end, it was time well spent, but a let down compared to Altered Carbon.

The narrator mispronounces names and words

Kovacs, as anyone whose read the first novel knows, isn’t pronounced Co-vax. He also butchers most of the Japanese names (wrong emphasis) and then there’s “lived” at least a few times as l-eye-ved, which isn’t even an English word. It was distracting throughout the very fun story…

I just couldn't hang with this actor.

I've very much enjoyed Morgan's trilogy until now. The change in narrators to William Dufris was jarring and unwelcome. Be it a stylistic quirk or awful editing, the entire first chapter is an echoey mess.
The audio quality in general is much poorer than the first two books.
I'm sure Dufris is a talented narrator, but his performance and pronunciation here are sorely wanting.
I'll have to read this one in paperback. (requested refund)