Product Description

Four hundred years from now mankind is strung out across a region of interstellar space inherited from an ancient civilization discovered on Mars. The colonies are linked together by the occasional sublight colony ship voyages and hyperspatial data-casting. Human consciousness is digitally freighted between the stars and downloaded into bodies as a matter of course. But some things never change. So when ex-envoy, now-convict Takeshi Kovacs has his consciousness and skills downloaded into the body of a nicotine-addicted ex-thug and presented with a catch-22 offer, he really shouldnt be surprised. Contracted by a billionaire to discover who murdered his last body, Kovacs is drawn into a terrifying conspiracy that stretches across known space and to the very top of society. For a first-time SF writer to be so surely in command of narrative and technology, so brilliant at world-building, so able to write such readable and enjoyable SF adventure, is simply extraordinary.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #298024 in Books
• Published on: 2007-08-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Richard Morgan's debut SF thriller Altered Carbon isn't for the faint-hearted. Its noir private-eye investigation races through extreme violence, hideously imaginative torture and many high-tech firefights.

In 2411, death is not forever. Afterward, they can read your personality from an implanted "cortical stack" and upload you into a new body--at a price. Hero Kovacs has worn many bodies on different worlds as a former member of the UN Envoy Corps, programmed killers to a man. Now the incredibly rich Bancroft brings him to Earth to investigate a killing... of Bancroft himself, restored from his digital backup and rejecting the police theory of suicide.

Half the vice-lords of 25th-century San Francisco are soon chasing Kovacs with futuristic surveillance, drugs and weaponry. Virtual-reality interrogation means they can torture you to death, and then start again. There's a bleak slave trade in rented or confiscated bodies--and Kovacs finds his current borrowed face is all too well known to both police and underworld.

Ultraviolent set-pieces follow, sprinkled with philosophical asides such as this reflection on a stungun: "It was the single forgiving phrase in the syntax of weaponry I had strapped around me. The rest were unequivocal sentences of death."

There are some James-Bondian implausibilities, such as Kovacs's final confrontation with the villain he's sworn to kill: rather than shooting and leaving fast, he discusses the plot for 10 pages until... but that would be telling. This is high-tension SF action, hard to put down--though squeamish readers may shut their eyes rather frequently. --David Langford

Peter F. Hamilton
'Hits the floor running and then starts to accelerate. For a first novel it is an astonishing piece of work.'

Adam Roberts
'Brilliant. Unputdownable. And lots of similar blurb-writing clichés, only in this case all true. I loved it.'

Customer Reviews

Great first novel
This is an exciting cyber-thriller (cyber in the pure sense as in cyber-punk) and Richard Morgan is only going from strength to strength. The plans are well underway to turn this book in to a movie.

The novel starts explosively and doesn't really let up until the end. A gritty tale of deception, corruption and power.

The concept is that bodies are just considered 'sleeves' in the future and are interchangeable and for criminals suspended in a digital chip, their bodies can be taken by the rich. This create a moral minefield which Morgans explores quite well while not quite attacking the whole system itself. There are synthetic bodies people can be 'sleeved' in to but they are we are led to believe, less able than natural bodies.

Basically this is a detective story set a few centuries in the future. There are some very violent scenes and one scene which is almost a massacre though by that time in the book you'll realise the people who are being killed probably deserve it.

I only just discovered Morgan but I am looking forward to reading his other works and seeing if he can keep up this high octane pace through another 400 and something pages.

If you like sci-fi or quite possibly even if you don't, this is an exciting thriller to while away a good few hours.

An incredible first novel, but still a bit rough and ready
Altered Carbon is an extremely good example of the rising group of British Cyberpunk novels, as led by the likes of Michael Marshall Smith (this novel is very reminiscent of 'Spares'). It combines a great sci-fi setting and superb eye for intricate detail with breathtaking nihilistic thriller pace. Packed with shockingly violent action set pieces and embittered realistic characters, Altered Carbon is an incredibly involving read.

The novel leads off with a punch, as the cynic Ex-con Takeshi Kovacs and his partner get blown away very violently by the police in a raid. This highly irregular start is solved when the main plot idea of Altered Carbon is revealed: Human minds can now be uploaded into data networks, and then sent across the stars to be downloaded into new bodies.

Due to Kovacs' military background, he gets transported to earth and downloaded into an aging chainsmoker, in order to solve a murder case. An extremely rich three hundred year old businessman has been killed, and after his resurrection cannot remember why he has died. Kovacs is called onto the case, and
is drawn into a sordid mass of sex, violence and drugs revolving around the death.

For a first time novelist, Richard Morgan has done an incredible job in creating a truly believable future world, full of bizarre and intriguing technological wonders and a run-down earth culture that begs for further exploration. The Language and superb prose sear throughout, and although the end is slightly off-pace, the novel as a whole is excellent.

The novel is not a classic, and I don't think itwill end up being considered as Morgan's best work. But it is an extremely good introduction to a solid writer who should be expected to influence the field strongly for a long time to come. He'll produce better, later, but for now Altered Carbon is a great book to start appreciating the up and coming work of Richard Morgan.

Get to the next screen...
This is probably one of the best books I have read in recent years, because it manages to blend a number of my favourite genres into one great tale. As a measure of how well the book has been received, I understand (from an interview with Richard Morgan) that Altered Carbon has been optioned by Hollywood, and has joined the select ranks of books which might make it onto the big screen.

Altered Carbon mixes equal measures of hardcore action, political intrigue and detective story with welcome dashes of wry humour (and even a little porn).

Set in a future where humanity has colonised the galaxy and death is no longer something to be feared, individuals are fitted with ubiquitous 'stacks' which can backup consciousness, allowing that person to be 're-sleeved' (at a cost) in a new body if their own is damaged beyond repair.

The central character, Takeshi Kovacs, is a renegade from the Envoy Corps, an elite branch of troopers who are conditioned to have superior combat skills. Killed while working as a mercenary on the colonised planet of Harlan's World, Kovacs wakes to find that he has been 'needlecast' (digitally freighted) and resleeved by a mysterious 400 year old benefactor called Laurens Bancroft. Kovacs is coerced into investigating Bancrofts recent 'death', which appears to be an open-and-shut suicide, only Bancroft refuses to accept that. We follow Kovacs as his investigations lead him into serious jeopardy, where more is at stake than the superficial death of just one man.

Altered Carbon contains some fantastic sci-fi conventions, most of which have been done before in some form or another, but never quite this slick. Although the book deals with futuristic concepts, it is gritty enough and seemingly 'real' enough, to be very accessible (compared to hardcore space opera 'Revelation Space, for example).

I especially enjoyed reading how the Envoy conditioning and Neurachem worked. You almost get to know these augmentations as well as Kovacs himself, and to me they seemed to be likeable 'characters' in their own right, especially when they are struggling valiantly to keep Kovacs upright and fighting on the 'Panama Rose'....

Although packed with technology, gratuitous sexual references and gore, the story deeply explores what it would be like to be essentially immortal, and to have the benefit of a backed-up existence. Morgan clearly associates immortality with hedonism, and it is interesting to see how the more depraved characters satisfy themsleves, given an unlimited timespan to sate these urges. Religion is also explored - if the mind is so easily transplanted, then what requirement is there for a soul?

These concepts are cleverly juggled in various ways to create some of the storys finest moments and twists.

The author, Richard Morgan, has a knack of creating appealing tidbits of information that, if he was inclined to explore them, could probably fill entire books of their own.

I sincerely hope he continues to explore.