Slashdot Mirror
Altered Carbon
It would be easy to describe this book as "cyberpunk meets noir," but that would be a disservice to the reader, the author and the book.
Although this book is set in a future that is seems to be heavily influenced by the punk movement, with computers, hackers, weapons, and leather, this is no superficial, cartoon world setting for a quick romp through cyberspace. There is a depth and texture here that promises, and delivers, as a setting for a novel that could end up as influential as Vinge's True Names, or Stephenson's Snow Crash or Spillane's Mike Hammer.
The main technological trapping of this setting is the ability to digitize, store and transport human consciousness. Peoples' consciousnesses can, and are, digitized and loaded out of and into their bodies on a regular basis. The state uses this to punish criminals by storing their minds "in the stack" (digital prison) and the wealthy and powerful can have themselves "backed up" like yesterday's spreadsheets. Interstellar travel is via "digitized human freight." Human bodies ("sleeves") can be rented, bought and sold, to provide containers for these digitized minds. And this is just the background.
This is also a hardboiled detective thriller, easily the equal to Chandler or Hammett in both plot and characterization. There is a complex plot, the de rigueur dames and guns, but also some important themes that are surprising for the genre. The plot is never formulaic, with a depth and enough unexpected twists and turns to keep the reader guessing well into the last chapter.
The protagonist, Takeshi Kovacs, is no simple hardboiled detective; he's a cashiered UN "Envoy," qualified to do anything from holding a beach head or planning a military invasion, to taking over a government from within. People with this training are barred from public office and high government positions on most settled worlds. And Kovacs has been offered a job he can't refuse by one of the richest men in twenty planets: "Kovacs, find out who killed me."
On a deeper level, this novel asks some real hard questions, that get to the heart of what it means to be human. If you can digitize, back up and restore people, what is the meaning of death? Is the "soul" digitized, or just your memories? Does it matter? When bodies can be rented and exchanged, just what is "identity"? When people can buy new bodies and live for centuries, amassing power and wealth, how will that affect their humanity? Will they become more than human, or less? How will this effect human society? These issues are all raised subtly, this is no sermonizing sociology text masquerading as a novel.
But Morgan's novel remains at its heart a well-crafted detective story. No matter how corrupt the society, no matter how powerful the rich, in the end, justice comes from the smoking barrel of a hired gun, working for some fast cash, plus expenses. This books tries, and succeeds, on so many levels, that can only hope that this will be just the first novel from this new author. Somewhere, Chandler and Hammett are saying, "Ya' done good, kid. Now kiss the dame and get outta here."
(As I was finishing this review, I discovered that Morgan's second novel, Broken Angels, which continues Kovacs exploits, has just been published by Gollancz in the UK. I'll gladly pay international shipping to get my hands on this second book as soon as possible.)
You can purchase the Altered Carbon from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
If you can digitize and store, you can therefore copy. I wonder if the book goes into this possibility (or does it rule it out in some fashion, technical or otherwise). Also, it can also theoretically be "tweaked", and it would start to sound much like Blade Runner and fall into the, how do you know you are what you think you are category.
For my tastes though, such abilities are a bit too open ended (kinda like time travel), and its fine if it is just a portion (e.g. TT as a mode of transportation) vs central to the story.
A thought on futurist expectations and realities... a book just smacked down a movie. Bound and printed paper outstripped The Hulk on opening weekend for both. Between the proselytizing of digital media and ebooks (which appear to be failing) a sheaf of dead tree beat out the largest opening weekend grossing movie (not adjusted for inflation for .. er .. inflating hype purposes ;-) I think that's
a neat irony.
Did the butler do it? How about the Butler v5.021? A concept related to me back in astronomy (hence the space travel connection) was digitizing people and the prospect of making copies of them (religious ramifications sure to follow) How a person may fork and how they cope seems ripe for novel exploration
Last, no mention of Bladerunner and/or replicants?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
There are few things as annoying as reading a book with a friggin' message, which is usually what I feel like I'm getting with a Micheal Crichton (watch out - genetics can be bad! Uh - oh - beware time travel in the wrong hands! Whoops!).
Now, I can deal with a theme, like what you get from watching a Miyazaki flick like "Spirited Away".
I've often felt that most technology (notice the word "most", not "all" - the jury is still out on the usefulness of gas chambers and "Boong-Ga Boong-Ga") is neither good or evil - it's all in how its used.
Like in this case. Is it wrong to download your personality into a computer or another body so you can live "forever"? Depends on the circumstances, and it looks like the author is letting humanity's response to it play out what's good and bad about it, and where it can be used and abused.
Anyway, sounds like an interesting book - I think I've seen it on PeanutPress.com, so maybe I'll have something else to read since I finished with Potter the day it came out
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
It's a twist on detective fiction. You're trying to solve a case--but you get extra chances. But every time around, the killer gets smarter, learns more about the victim...
Original or no, I might have to pick this one up. I need to read some new, good SF again. *sigh*
More questions the books raises:
1. If you can download your conscious into different bodies... how would you know if that gorgeous babe you're in bed with is really.... a babe? 2. Would it matter? 3. Would it finally be acceptable to ask your wife to get a new body for your birthday?
On a deeper level, this novel asks some real hard questions, that get to the heart of what it means to be human. If you can digitize, back up and restore people, what is the meaning of death?
...etc...
:
That subject is a recurrent question in the Culture series of SF novels by Ian M. Banks : in the Culture, people's mind states are regularly backed-up, people change bodies, can be "restored" in younger bodies after death,
Banks portrays the Culture society as bored, its people always seeking thrills in ultra-dangerous activities, joining the Culture's secret services sections called Contact and Special Circumstances usually because it adds spice to life. He also describes people who voluntarily engage in dangerous activities without being backed-up, or let themselves grow old and die naturally, and generally describes quite well the choices those people make in a Culture where death, poverty and suffering are banished.
Read Banks, you'll be glad you did. Some Culture novels (not in order)
Excession
The player of games
Consider Phlebas
Look to windward
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Kiln People has similar background and is also a very engaging book about privacy, what it is to be human, and intellectual property rights. Brin does an excellent job a putting in humor as well.
While I have not read Morgan's Altered Carbon I know that I will because of the fun I had reading Kiln People and thinking about the philosophical questions present in Kiln People.
While on the topic one of the reasons that I enjoy's Brin's work so much is that he does a superb job of creating a believeable society and political structure given an amazing scientific advancement and its supporting technology or if something in physics was altered a little. Read the Practice Effect for an example of the latter.
Cheers and thanks for the review. I now have something else to read since I finished Harry Potter 5 so quickly.
Either give it away or get top dollar, but never sell yourself cheap.
In the book the UN is much weaker than it would wish to appear, where the rich are considerably more powerful and influential and seemingly beyond the UN's grasp.
So if you're going to be naughty remember to be rich too.
and It's worth your time.
Getting beyond the thumbnail film-noir meets cyberpunk, the book does cover some interesting questions.
Backing up humans is covered, but so is religious opposition to the process. Copying humans is likewise considered, as is modifying the flesh in unusual ways ( picture a very hot chick. now picture a very hot chick who secretes XTC when she's turned on. ) and some of the more usual ones ( installing the consiousness of a male in a female body ).
But dont think this is some preachy isnt-the-future-cool diatribe. Its complex plot is, as others have said, worthy of Dashel or Hammet with a similar man-against-system feel.
Overall, it gave me the same feel that Neuromancer gave me when I read it; a future darkly lit in a form that stands outside traditional genres.
A Human Right
I agree -- Altered Carbon is an amazing book. I couldn't put it down and read it in two sittings.
So when I heard that Broken Angels was out, I bought it ASAP (it's been available for a while here in Canada). you cannot imagine my disappointment at this classic textbook example of sophomore jinx! As much as I loved the first book, I hated the second and it took all I could muster to even finish it. Whereas the first book was tight, focused, gripping and exciting, the second is the exact opposite; slow, plodding and irretrievably dull.
Hopefully he'll find his muse again in future installments.
Or, should the site get /.'d, the relavent bit is:
A Human Right