Altered Carbon

Richard K. Morgan
2002

This is apparently the first novel by Richard K. Morgan, which is astonishing given how good it is. There are very few novels that I think compare to Neuromancer for near future and cyberpunk type settings, and this one is fabulous. Technology concepts are introduced in a sensible and not overwhelming fashion, blending well with current events in the story. The implications of the technology are also explored as part of the ongoing narrative. Nothing is jarring, everything works to set the scene, the pace and the overall impression. Many established authors don’t manage science fiction that works this well.

Takeshi Kovacs is dowloaded into a ’skin’, a body, on earth. He has been paroled to investigate the murder, or suicide, of the rich and powerful Laurens Bancroft. Laurens is a Meth, one of the very old who transfer their consciousness to new bodies regularly and become narcissistic and bizarre as time goes on. Because Laurens has backups of his ’stack’, the information that contains a person and is transferred to a new body upon death, his recent death seems pointless.

Kovacs rapidly becomes involved in the lives of various people on earth. Lieutenant Ortega’s association with the previous inhabitant of his skin, Miriam Bancroft’s attempts to bribe him and an unknown enemy chasing him all conspire to keep him busy while he tries to learn what happened the night Laurens died.

There are some quite interesting quirks to the story. How does it affect your relationship to someone if you kill them, their backup returns and they don’t have any memory of what happened? How do you get rid of an enemy that has multiple backups in storage? Of course there are some things that are almost classic standbys in this scenario too, such as holding someone’s personality hostage and the quirks of meeting yourself in this system.

This novel had both smooth integration of future tech and attention to detail, and I can’t wait to read the next Takeshi Kovacs story.