Altered Carbon (Takeshi Kovacs, #1) in The Sword and Laser

Mar 17, 2013 Eric rated it it was amazing

Shelves: science-fiction, audiobooks, cyber-punk

This book immediately enters my top five all-time favorite sci-fi books (a category that is admittedly weighted heavily towards cyberpunk entries).

The set-up is fairly simple, although the world and its technology get complex quickly. Takeshi Kovacs is killed on his home world, Harlan's World, and is resleeved -- a process where a conscience can be ported to another body or synthetic body -- on Earth. As a former United Nations Envoy, his skills are required by a wealthy business magnate named This book immediately enters my top five all-time favorite sci-fi books (a category that is admittedly weighted heavily towards cyberpunk entries).

The set-up is fairly simple, although the world and its technology get complex quickly. Takeshi Kovacs is killed on his home world, Harlan's World, and is resleeved -- a process where a conscience can be ported to another body or synthetic body -- on Earth. As a former United Nations Envoy, his skills are required by a wealthy business magnate named Laurens Bancroft, a "Meth" -- one who has been able to avoid real death by continuous resleeving for centuries -- who needs him to investigate his previous body's suspicious death. If Kovacs solves the mystery, he earns his freedom. Of course there are complications, the first being that his current sleeve is that of a disgraced local cop.

This book has an intricately crafted world, with every detail working in perfect concert to create a setting that was tangible as it was futuristic and exotic -- and without creating any obvious logical holes in it (view spoiler).

For all the resleeving the book had, it also managed exceptionally vivid characters that transcended the sleeves they occupied, while maintaining a nuanced cyberpunk/noir vibe, no easy feat considering everything else going on simultaneously -- especially considering this was Richard K. Morgan's first novel.

Added to the world building, the memorable characters, and the hybrid cyberpunk/noir voice, is the depth of political, religious, philosophical, and economic threads woven in and out of this story, with an amazing absence of info dumping, and you have a masterpiece. This book is a must read for anyone interested in science fiction, especially cyberpunk, as well as any open-minded fan of the noir detective story. ...more

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Mar 27, 2014 Jlawrence rated it liked it

Shelves: sword-and-laser

Really enjoyed this at first - it was a fast-paced, smart, well-written cyberpunky/hardboiled murder mystery built around a body-swapping conceit: in this future consciousness is backed up to a physical 'stack' at the base of one's neck and can be transferred to another body and, for the rich, can backed up remotely in case of damage to one's stack. The richest can potentially live forever this way. Morgan drenches everything in grim, detailed atmosphere and turns the violence and sex dials to 1 ...more

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Mar 27, 2010 Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it it was ok

Shelves: sword-and-laser, sci-fi-fantasy, read2014

The basic idea of Altered Carbon is a world where you can live "forever" by being put into different sleeves, magnifying the disparity between rich and poor now that humanity is spread throughout the universe. Some people are even hired and their sleeves are modified or purchased by their employers or governments. Takeshi is hired by a wealthy meth (short for Methuselah) who hires him by force/obligation to solve what he thinks is his murder. It is Takeshi's first trip to earth and there are a f ...more

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Jan 20, 2016 Caitlin rated it did not like it

The premise sounded interesting, until I realized that the author didn't understand the importance of the physical structures of the brain regarding cognition, personality, etc. This was a problem, given that it's about downloading consciousness into different bodies, and especially glaring since he acknowledged the difficulties of moving a body different from what you're used to.

Also, the women were so criminally undercharacterized they didn't register as human beings. There were three semi-imp ...more

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Nov 19, 2010 Raq rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

I loved this book a lot. Morgan blends hardboiled noir mystery with post-cyberpunk science fiction, and creates a compelling and damaged hero in Takeshi Kovacs.

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