Anyone read "Altered Carbon" by Richard K Morgan?

[GaYellowDawg]

Not usually the kind of book I read, but I couldn't put it down - nor could I put down the two sequels.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. Haven't heard of it.

What's it about?

[GaYellowDawg]

2. Detective/sci-fi/cyber

I like lots of science fiction, but I don't normally read much of the cyber-reality stuff. I actually liked this. There were some parts of the book that really made me flinch but I couldn't put it down.

From Booklist:
In a society in which death has been rendered practically obsolete, suicide and murder take on different significances. After a particularly brutal offing, former UN envoy Takeshi Kovacs finds himself "resleeved"--that is, his consciousness has been put in a new body--and hired as a private investigator by Laurens Bancroft, one of twenty-fifth-century society's old rich in Bay City (formerly San Francisco). Bancroft claims he was murdered, but the police say it was a suicide. After Kovacs gets hit at his hotel within hours of being resleeved, he sees the possibility that Bancroft was, in fact, murdered, and that someone wants to keep it very hush-hush. As he investigates, he uncovers a far-reaching conspiracy with ties to the most unsavory characters in his generally unsavory military and criminal past. This far-future hard-boiled detective story is a lovely virtual-reality romp distinguished by a conspiracy whose strands have the potential to generate several successful sequels, which is just what its publicity promises.

[pitohui]

4. this is pretty much the plot of a john varley from, like, 1975

in that story tho murder is only a property crime (destruction of the body) since the mind can be downloaded again into a new body, however, it becomes a damn nuisance when somebody keeps knocking off our heroine, it really makes it hard to get on w. your day when some fuck-off keeps killing you

[NewHampshireDem]

3. Yes, I have!

Terrific book. I've read and enjoyed all of his subsequent novels as well, except for 'Market Forces,' which was sort of like 'The Corporation' meets 'Mad Max.' It had enough of an idea for a short story, but not a whole novel. :(

I'm hoping that the next novel will find Kovacks playing detective again, rather than merc--the other two books didn't quite rise to the level of the first, IMHO.

I'd recommend the following books that are in a similar sci-fi-detective mode:

Neuromancer by William Gibson
Pattern Recognition by William Gibson
Gun, with Occassional Music by Johnathan Lethem
Word Made Flesh by Jack O'Connell (not sci-fi, but dark, gritty, and at times ultra-violent detective fiction)

The last two are hard to find, but definately worth seeking out.

There are probably a few others I've read, but can't recall at the moment!

[Salviati]

5. I think he may be done with Kovacks, at least for now...

On his website (http://www.richardkmorgan.com/) he says he's working on a new project now

Which brings us to what I’m doing now: a new novel, with the working title Normal Parameters, about which it’s too early to say much except that some of it takes place on the Peruvian altiplano, and all of it takes place about a century from now. Alongside this, I’m also playing around with a sword-and-sorcery-noir story, bits of which have been knocking about in the back of my head for a few years now. Again tentatively, it’s called Land Fit for Heroes and again, it’s too early to say anything much about it, not least whether it’ll actually get written or not. I have characters, I have scenarios, and I have a bleak lack of moral compass - Lord of the Rings, it ain’t gonna be. Whether it’s gonna be at all will depend on what kind of development I can get out of the material over the next few months. And so - back to the keyboard….

[NewHampshireDem]

6. Boo!

Don't mess with success, man. Write another Novacks novel!

BTW, just started Chris Moriarty's 'Spin State.' Looks promising.