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Broken Angels
First, a little background on the universe of Broken Angel. A few hundred years before the events in Altered Carbon, humanity discovers the technological remains of a space-faring species on Mars -- and naturally nicknames them Martians, even though it is clear Mars is not their home planet, just a colony. After decoding some of their technology and information, humanity begins moving out to the various worlds detailed in the Martian records.
The other big technological breakthrough is the ability to record a person's mind via a cortical stack implanted in the spine. This effectively abolishes death through injury or disease, as the stack can be recovered and the data stored -- and even downloaded into a new body, or 'sleeve.' It also makes Real Death, or the destruction of someone's cortical stack, a much more serious crime than mere organic damage.
Far from creating a technological utopia of plenty for everyone this tech-breakthrough, diaspora and near-freedom from death, leads to more revolutions, more killing, and more varied inventive ways of brutalising each other. New bodies, or sleeves, cost money and most people are unable to afford them, and are consequently kept "on stack." Raw, unfettered captialism is the way. Criminal behaviour gets you stacked for a number of years, and your body handed over to someone else. It also opens the way to such charming practises as virtual torture, with no hope of escape or death.
Takeshi Kovacs, born on the Harlan's World colony, is a former member of the Envoy Corps. A military branch that 'conditions' its members, effectively rewriting their personalities to make them better soldiers. The Envoy Corps are the most feared soliders of the Protectorate. The conditioning gives them iron emotional control, a lack of empathy, extra combat awareness, and skill at psychologically manipulating others. They also possess the ability to deal with being quickly and frequently re-sleeved when deployed into a combat situation via needlecast (a kind of hyperspace communication system) -- something that can, apparently, be quite traumatic for normal people.
Altered Carbon covered (in flashback) some of Kovacs' background story, and the reasons for his disillusionment and desertion from the Envoys; Broken Angels continues his story. After the events in Altered Carbon, Kovacs finds himself signed up to fight in a mercenary unit -- known as 'The Wedge' -- on the colony world of Sanction IV. Former Envoys are highly prized by commanders, and despite his distaste of command and responsibility, it pays the bills.
After being injured in a battle, Kovacs is approached by another soldier to get involved with the unofficial find of a Martian artifact ... one of the most extraordinary and potentially lucrative yet found. It's a race to claim ownership, against other ruthless corporations, betrayal, slow sleeve death due to radiation sickness (the Mandrake corporation engineers the nuking of a nearby city, just to clear out the area), and killer nanotechnology.
Like Altered Carbon, Broken Angels is a brutal read in parts. It doesn't flinch from the horrific things people do to each other, and is spectacularly inventive in thinking up ever more horrendous methods of punishment and interrogation. It throws in voodoo, 'soul markets' where dead soliders' stacks are sold, and an anatomiser -- a machine designed for a horrible ritual punishment in The Wedge.
While I enjoyed Altered Carbon, I thought it almost too much of a teenage-boy fantasy novel: An almost unstoppable bad-ass who can deal with anything, but is basically a good guy at heart; the almost fetishistic descriptions of weapons and gleefully detailed battles and brawls. It's all good stuff; well written and inventive, but a bit limited (except for the Jimmy de Soto hallucinations, which I thought were excellent). It was saved by its imaginative technology, hard SF speculation and clever detective story twists. Broken Angels seems a bit more mature. There is still the gleeful descriptions of battles, but the surrounding characters seem more fleshed out. 'Broken Angels' is no character-driven, emotionally deep masterpiece -- but it is a page-turner which neatly combines fast-paced action, imaginative technology and plot twists.
A quick note for any British readers who remember when the Conservatives (the traditional party of the Right) were in power: In the novel, the current whiney political officer of Kovacs' Wedge unit is called Lamont (he's been deliberately addicted to wire to keep him quiet), and the previous one was Portillo (he was regularly beaten, also to keep him quiet). It's a safe bet that Morgan is not a card-carrying member of the Conservative Party.
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It was a good novel, very Indiana Jones-like. Unfortunately, Morgan got into the habit of putting periods in odd places. His characters. Started talking. Like this.
Bugged me.
Other than that, a fun novel.
Moo.
I haven't read "Broken Angels", but I have read his previous novel, "Altered Carbon". It was decent, but not what I would call great scifi. It had a few scifi concepts, thrown into a basic detective plot. It felt more like a hollywood screenplay.. lots of action around a basic mystery, with scifi concepts that could quickly be explained in the story.
For a much better scifi work, with a lot of though t provoking concepts, check out "Permutation City" by Greg Egan. He has a similar concept of taking human consciousness into an electronic form. But, Egan covers it much more thoroughly.
Er, not really. It's more like the system in Greg Bear's "Eon" if anything. Storing one's mind for immortality is not a new concept in SF.
By reading this you acknowledge that you have read it.
I'd have to disagree with you -- I see ansibles as more likely than digitizing the human mind. We already understand quantum entanglement, so we understand how spooky action at a distance could create an ansible-like comm system.
Now, digitizing the human mind, that's a hornets nest. Since we still can't really pin down what consciousness is or how it emerges, just downloading and uploading a cognitive state is pretty scary, and frankly, beyond the realm of possibility at this time.
But thats just the way I see it, IMO.
Moo.
I have read both the Hyperion series and Richard Morgan's books. Both those series of books are excellent. The writing in both has a rough, vicious edge to it, although Richard Morgan's is much more extreme and is present consistantly throughout the book. I also like how lots of little details and seemingly meaningless things get pulled together at the end of both series to explain the ending.
That's about all there is for similarities though. I consider RM's writing to be sci-fi noir, a style I really like and one that very few authors have managed to do well.
Be sure to goto Richard Morgan's website and send him an email. He responded quickly to mine and must read all his fan mail.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
Damn Open Source zealots!!!!
Loved 'Altered Carbon', and I'm delighted a sequel is being made.
Fair warning for folks interested in the series though: The torture scenes get gruesome, almost to the point of Piers Anthony's "On The Uses Of Torture" short story.
Being body-swapped into the body of a young woman, on her period, and then being tied down and having your feet slowly blowtorched off.
Yeah. Reader beware. If you can tolerate the gruesome scenes, however, the book is excellent. And from the sounds of it, so is the sequel.
"To pass through the jungle; silence, courtesy, ferocity, as the occasion demands." -- Kamau, "Proper Passage"
Early Gibson is tough to read. Give him another shot with Pattern Recognition, and if you like it, Idoru. His writing style has come a long way.
;) It's not live yet, but it will be very soon (less than a week) and if you like what you see, feel free to join.
I don't normally pimp my site in a comment, but you might want to bookmark my new review site (as seen in my sig) so that you can find more sci-fi books. The initial group I have is very sci-fi friendly.
Moo.
After reading Hyperion, I had a similar impression. I liked the writing, but felt that the ending was a bit rushed for my taste. It was good reading, but nothing spectacular, I thought. I had bought all four books (Hyperion, Fall of Hyperion, Endimion, and Rise of Endimion), so I decided to continue and read the rest of the series.
I'm glad I did.
Hyperion, to me, seems to be more along the lines of The Real Story by Stephen R. Donaldson; it's kind of a set up for the entire cycle of books, rather than a stand-alone novel. While it does stand on its own, it does so more as a collection of similarly themed stories like I Robot.
The Fall of Hyperion finishes up the entire Hyperion tale and begins to explain a little of the Shrike mythology. As much as it wraps the Hyperion story up, it leaves tons of questions about what, exactly, is going on. Not so much that you're dissatisfied as a reader, but enough to make you wanting just a bit more.
Enter Endimion and Rise of Endimion, set 247 years after The Fall of Hyperion. These stories, in concert, wrap up every single loose end left over from Hyperion and leaves only one unanswered question in the last paragraph.
Of all the Sci-Fi I've read, I've never read a story that used time travel so effectively.
There's so little difference between politics and jihad lately...
While its not an absolute necessity to enjoy Broken Angels, I think that it will add just that little bit extra to enjoying it. There are some small references in BA to events in Altered Carbon and you will more quickly understand why things are they way they are in BA.
That said Altered Carbon and Broken Angels are some of the best reads I've had recently and I have no trouble recommending both of them without hesitation. Richard Morgans third novel, just released, Market Forces was quite a bit of a turn from what he wrote before (in some senses that is) but I enjoyed it. Not as much as as AC and BA but still a good read. I won't say much more because I don't want to spoil it.
Oh don't worry I think I remember!
Ok, flame retardent suit? check. Comments taken out of context nullifer? check. Atheist mode still activated? check.
In Altered Carbon the obscure religion opposed to the cortical stacks was: The Catholic church, or what actually remained of it at the time.
Since everyone has a stack in this future scenario, those that were Catholic opposed themselves being placed into another sleeve (aka body) for what was effectivly being brought back to life, if their stack wasn't destroyed aka real death (RD). As apposed to those with sleeve insurance policies, who didn't mind getting another chance.
One thing that I found curious about the character is that despite having a well-developed moral system, he seems capable of acts of tremendous violence. He is almost sociopathic in that regard, as he doesn't seem to have the emotional mechanisms which restrain him. This per se is not unusual in humans, but I'd expect it to be accompanied by some distortions in the rest of his psyche - but they are not there. Mostly (not entirely ) he is well adjusted, but once he is engaged in combat he nearly always goes for the most violent solution available.
Envoy programming? Aftereffects of being in combat for a long time? Not sure.
Despite the type of character Takeshi Kovacs is, I can help but like him, but really thats what anti-hereos are about, we relate to them because they get to do the things that we would like to do in similar situations. Takeshi is certainly not forgiving when he is wronged, but we feel sympathy towards him because of the hardships he has had to endure, even those he has brought onto himself.