Altered Carbon
The Takeshi Kovacs series, Book 1
Richard K. Morgan
Del Rey
Fiction, Sci-Fi
Themes: Artificial Intelligence, Clones, Diversity, Dystopias, Urban Tales, VR
****
Description
In a distant future, humanity has conquered not only the vast distances of interstellar space, but death itself. Implanted "stacks" record a person's
memories, which can be backed up in memory banks, inserted into virtual simulations, locked away for centuries-long prison sentences, needlecast across
the stars, or spun up into new "sleeves": living or synthetic bodies, with augmentations and implants available for those with sufficiently deep pockets.
Over time, this has led to the rise of a new ruling caste, the Meths, whose lifespans could potentially dwarf that of the Biblical Methuselah for whom
they are named. With unlimited power, however, comes unlimited corruption... but even Meths sometimes find themselves in need of assistance from the
lesser classes.
Takeshi Kovacs, a ruthless native of the Harlan's World colony, is a U. N. Envoy with a reputation that stands out even among his peers, who are known
for extreme tactics. On ice for various crimes back home, he finds himself needlecast to Earth, sleeved in the body of a Bay City police officer, at the
behest of one Laurens Bancroft. The job: investigate Bancroft's death, an incident that destroyed his inhabited clone's stack. It looks like a
straightforward case of sleeve suicide, one made moot by back-ups, but Bancroft won't believe he pulled the trigger on himself... and the more Kovacs
digs, the more he comes to believe that there's far more to the case than meets the eye.
Review
I watched the Netflix series based on this title, and was intrigued enough to read the book. There are significant differences, from smaller details
to greater plot points and characters, but the overall atmosphere - a futuristic, interplanetary dystopia noir where even the equalizing promise of death
yields to power - remains the same.
Kovacs is the familiar jaded antihero, a professional killer with the faintest nigglings of conscience that sets him apart, if sometimes marginally, from
the bad guys, but with a nicely humanizing backstory to add complexity and justification to his dark gray morality. He navigates a dark and gritty Earth
that has become a pale shadow of itself, a place that sent all its dreamers to the stars and has seemingly given up in its struggle for equality and come
to accept the fickle, if unspoken, rule of the Meths, who quite literally get away with murder on a regular basis (though, of course, murder isn't the
crime it used to be now that resleeving is an option - if not always an affordable or viable option.) Morgan explores the implications of stack technology,
how it can be used and abused, and how it impacts one's sense of self - indeed, how much of oneself is what can be recorded and how much is embodied
physically in chemical reactions, reflex memories, and other intangibles that make us who we are (or who we think we are.) The story also drops hints about
the extinct Martian culture whose ruins have inspired endless speculation on their nature and demise, and bits of the violent past of Harlan's World that
helped shape Kovacs, including the writings of legendary activist and freedom fighter Quellcrist Falconer. The plot veers through numerous characters, from
Meths to street pushers, past people from Kovacs's past and the life left behind by the unstable cop whose body he wears (including, not insignificantly,
the man's former personal and professional partner, Bay City Police Lieutenant Kristin Ortega), and from reality to virtual to flashback, much of the
journey heavily steeped in drugs and blood. It culminates in a finale that brings some measure of justice, if at a high cost and with not-entirely-clean
hands.
The character and location sprawl could get a little unwieldy at times, and once in a while the violence was more numbing than shocking, but overall it was
a decent ride. I might read on in this series, especially if I find the sequels discounted. (I admit, though, that I somewhat prefer the Netflix version.)