Altered Carbon

A Takeshi Kovacs Novel (Takeshi Kovacs Novels)

by Richard K. Morgan

Mass Market Paperback, 544 pages

English language

Published Feb. 28, 2006 by Del Rey.

ISBN:: 978-0-345-45769-1
OCLC Number:: 64584649

(177 reviews)

It's the twenty-fifth century, and advances in technology have redefined life itself. A person's consciousness can now be stored in the brain and downloaded into a new body (or "sleeve"), making death nothing more than a minor blip on a screen. Onetime U.N. Envoy Takeshi Kovacs has been killed before, but his last death was particularly painful. Resleeved into a body in Bay City (formerly San Francisco), Kovacs is thrown into the dark heart of a shady, far-reaching conspiracy that is vicious even by the standards of a society that treats existence as something that can be bought and sold. For Kovacs, the shell that blew a hole in his chest was only the beginning.

21 editions

Yashima reviewed Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan

Review of 'Altered Carbon' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

Update Dec 2017: time to re-read this, Netflix has announced a series!

I enjoyed this quite a bit. It's reminiscent of Neuromancer in the use of jargon that you'll just have to find out yourself. Takeshi is an interesting character that was fun to follow around. And I learned: just because you can upload yourself into "a stack" and get a new "sleeve" when the old one wears out, doesn't mean death is eliminated. I find the "Envoy" conditioning interesting but sometimes a little too convenient as a plot device. Nevertheless the hero has to suffer quite a bit until the - by then - not so surprising resolution at the end. I am currently reading the sequel (completely different story about Takeshi) which is a good sign.

Noisy Deadlines reviewed Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan

Review of 'Altered Carbon' on 'Storygraph'

3 stars

The central idea of the book is great, that is, in the future we are able to transfer our minds into other bodies (sleeves) and that permanent death is not so common anymore. I enjoyed the world building, a kind of dystopian future where crime is everywhere and there are powerful corrupt people involved in government and security issues. The plot of the book starts well as Kovaks, the anti-hero protagonist is appointed to carry on an investigation about the supposed suicide of a very rich and powerful man. The plot slowly becomes very intricated, and I confess that by the end of the book everything seemed way to complex for me to grasp.

outofrange reviewed Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan

Review of 'Altered Carbon' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

I was more interested in exploring the "humans as data" speculation than ticking off the noir essentials (hardbodied femme fatales, covered up depravities, a suffering gumshoe, etc), but the book gets around to all of it with solid writing. It may even manage to exaggerate a genre that embraces exaggeration to begin with.

Steen Christiansen reviewed Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan

Review of 'Altered Carbon' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

A decent science fiction/noir thriller which is a little long, perhaps. The most interesting parts are the speculations about the role of human embodiment, rather than the more predictable plot.

state_electrician reviewed Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan

Review of 'Altered Carbon' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Amazingly entertaining book. It's among the recent SF books that read like scripts for big Hollywood productions. I guess it shows what this generation of writers did when growing up. They use the language and images so many people in the Western world grew up with and consuming these books is extremely easy and a great pastime.

Laura Lemay reviewed Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan

Review of 'Altered Carbon' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

I read this book some years ago, and re-read it this year. These days genre mashups are popular, but this was one of the first books to cross a hard-boiled detective with a science fiction world, and it works really, really well. The writing is good, the world-building is terrific, and there is plenty of action to propel the plot. If I had any complaints it would be that there's a few too many subplots, and things can get a little muddled, especially toward the end.

Michael P reviewed Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan

Review of 'Altered Carbon' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

An excellent look into a Science Fiction future. It combines some of my favorite parts of Detective Stories, Noir, and Transhumanism.

Daniel Darabos reviewed Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan

Review of 'Altered Carbon' on 'Goodreads'

1 star

All the gore and sex felt juvenile to me. When you take those away you are left with an unoriginal and thin setting that was set up just as a backdrop for the gore and sex. This is of course entirely subjective, but it is the same I have felt with [b:Snow Crash|830|Snow Crash|Neal Stephenson|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1477624625s/830.jpg|493634].

UPDATE 5 YEARS LATER: The TV series was awesome! Either I have become more "juvenile" in these years, or it's just a great series. I don't recall the book in sufficient detail, but from reading around online, the show has made a number of significant changes that may contribute to how much better I liked it.

Tough-guy one-liners feel cheesy in a novel. But on-screen with a deadpan delivery they work fantastically. "I know people like you." "There are no people like me.", "I don't care about her. Don't take it personally though: I don't care about anyone." etc, etc.

Solid focus on the societal effects of the DHF technology. This must have been there in the novel, but I guess it was subtle enough for me to miss it. Or it could be that what felt cliche in a book feels fresh in a show because I've seen it in other books but not in other shows?

A lot of deviations in the show directly work to make Takeshi more relatable. (Ortega, Rei, Quell, Elliot, Poe I think all had lesser roles or connections to Takeshi in the novel.) While the show is plenty violent it's probably still much tamed compared to the book.

astranoir reviewed Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan

Review of 'Altered Carbon' on 'Storygraph'

3 stars

I almost rated this 2 stars. There were some parts I liked, and others I didn't. Particularly, I felt like sex was overused in the book. To me, it felt like it was used as an excuse to say "Hey, this is an ADULT book!!!" when instead, it took me out of the story. I really enjoyed the mystery aspect of this book, though that's not surprising since I'm a fan of mysteries.

waconner reviewed Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan

Review of 'Altered Carbon' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

I enjoyed Altered Carbon, but it was not the easiest read on the planet. This was Richard K. Morgan's debut novel, in what became an informal trilogy, and it shows.

It was my impression that quite often he was trying way too hard to achieve style points, over simply being true to his characters and telling the story.

If you enjoy William Gibson or Pat Cadigan, give Morgan's Altered Carbon a go. He has interesting ideas, but as I said you may have to wade through all of the showing off to get to them.