Altered Carbon (Takeshi Kovacs Novels)

As I imagine is the case with many people, I began watching the show based on this book when it first came out. While impressed overall, I stopped a few episodes in once I realized it was based on a series of books. Always wanting to be exposed to the source material first, I didn't return to the show until I had read the trilogy.returnThis was definitely an enjoyable read. It ticked most of the boxes I'm looking for in something in the cyberpunk genre, though the remainder of the series tends to drift further and further from that. The noir, the 'hi-tech, low-life', feel is captured pretty perfectly here. The protagonist with a sometimes murky and always questionable past is a hero to no one, not even the reader, caught up in the mechinations of corporations, governments, and the ultra wealthy works both as a genre staple and I think is updated just enough to still feel directly relevant to the times today. What this doesn't get bogged down in is a lot of the high minded, economic, only quasi-scifi/cyberpunk (and more, near or not even future speculative fiction) that some of the genre greats like Gibson and Stephenson tend to work in these days. This is the shithole earth we get in Blade Runner as the most of the race has left us behind to spread throughout the galaxy, with a liberal dose of a neo-futuristic take on our current problems of wealth concentration by the one percent (and the social power dynamics that causes) and self-enforced cultural stagnation.returnI think ultimately if you're a fan of gritty, pessimistic, neo-futurist cyberpunk ala the early days of the genre, shadowrun, old Cyperpunk 2020 ttrpgs, this is going to be a delightful read for you. Though you may or may not enjoy the remainder of the series unless you have a burning desire to have some mysteries answered as it dovetails pretty sharply after this book into much crunchier hard scifi, and by the final book almost space opera. Which, while well written and still enjoyable in there own right, were definitely not what I was expecting. I think I most definitely would have enjoyed seeing returnI can also see some readers have objections to the overt sexualization of most characters in the book, and what could be interpreted as a small dose of misogyny. All I can say is, it feels a lot more like a modern take on the some of the tropes of crime-noir ported over into the cyberpunk setting. Pulp crime-noir has always had some serious objectification of women, albeit clothed in the language and mores of a different time, while juxtaposing it with dangerous, threatening, femme fatales. And cyberpunk, with its noir influence and focus on a gritty, dystopian future, has never shied away from showing us all the ways in which human life and behavior can be monetized, objectified, and exploited. I feel like this fits with that tradition, in the context of the current times and a taste for a bit more explicit raciness in what we consume as a society more broadly. The author, I think, has tried to counterbalance it by objectifying individuals of multiple genders, giving us strong, dangerous, female characters throughout, and showing us that in this world, flesh itself is a commodity to regardless of gender.returnI would have liked to see the author take a deeper look at the issues surrounding gender identity (instead of just so much sexuality) after setting up a world for us in which bodies are so easily altered or swapped, as well as a where whole additional realities are built with virtually with no limits on how/as what people can live as. We get a bit more of that in the subsequent books, but still a bit under-explored. Though it would have less direct relevance for the protagonist. Also, as previously mentioned, the rest of the series shifts pretty hard towards hard scifi/space opera. Still enjoyable, though I would've liked to have spent more time in the parts of the world more directly cyberpunk in feel.

After watching season 3 of the Netflix show I thought I should turn around and read the source material so I consumed them all. What I found was something far more substantial than the showrunners picked up on. The show is like someone read the novels, had a dream, then woke up and wrote down what they remembered of the dream--eg not much but a setting, sex, and explosions.

I enjoyed the world building here as it wasn't overly complicated and left us with a lot of questions regarding who we are if you take away the construct. That gives us ample room to play with the morality of life quite a bit more depending on whose subjective reality we're seeing it from.

This was perhaps the strongest book in the series. Lines are clear, people are not predictable but what you might expect, the crime and plays along the thin blue line are fun to follow and guess out. Quick, fun, not too dystopian, not too Blade Runner, and a whole bunch all its own.

Mise à jour après une deuxième lecture :

C'est étrange comme on peut avoir un ressenti totalement différent sur le même livre à quelques mois d'intervalle. J'avais essayé de lire ce roman au début de l'année et j'avais renoncé après en avoir lu la moitié. Cette fois, j'ai été captivé par le récit dès le début et malgré une petite baisse d'intensité au milieu, j'ai tenu bon et j'ai pris dans cette deuxième lecture un plaisir que je n'avais pas connu la première fois. Comme quoi, il est parfois bon de laisse une seconde chance à un roman qui nous a déçu mais dont on perçoit un potentiel à côté duquel on est peut-être passé la première fois. C'est bien le cas ici, sans que je comprenne bien pourquoi. Sans doute une question d'état d'esprit au moment de la lecture.

Première critique après une première lecture :

Altered Carbon est le premier tome d’une trilogie de romans de l’écrivain britannique Richard K. Morgan. J’ai découvert cette oeuvre à travers son adaptation en série TV par Netflix : j’avais trouvé cela sympathique sans en garder non plus un souvenir inoubliable. Malgré tout, la lecture récente du jeu de rôles Eclipse Phase, inspiré notamment de l’imaginaire décrit par Richard K. Morgan dans Altered Carbon et ses suites, m’avait donné envie de plonger dans la trilogie.

Il faut d’abord avoir conscience d’une chose : Altered Carbon est un polar dans un univers de science-fiction transhumaniste. Dans ce futur imaginé, l’esprit d’un être humain peut être numérisé et transféré d’un corps à un autre : la mort n’est vraiment réelle que si on efface toutes les sauvegardes de l’esprit d’une personne. Les plus riches passent sans cette d’un corps à un autre et peuvent ainsi vivre jusqu’à trois siècles, quand les plus pauvres doivent travailler toujours plus dur pour disposer d’un corps correct.

Je dois également faire une remarque sur la structure du livre : contrairement à de nombreux romans parfaitement calibrés avec des chapitres de taille quasiment identiques, généralement entre 10 et 15 pages, celui-ci varie les plaisirs : certains chapitres atteignent tout juste 10 pages quand d’autres dépassent les 20 voire 25 pages. C’est déroutant quand on est habitué aux productions littéraires récentes où tout est finement calculé pour plaire au plus grand nombre, et c’est suffisamment notable pour que je le signale ici.

Malheureusement, un polar dans un univers de science-fiction reste un polar, et c’est un genre qui ne m’a jamais vraiment plu. Si j’ai aimé certains romans policiers old-school (Agatha Christie a bercé mon adolescence), j’ai toujours du mal avec les polars, leurs ambiances sombres et poisseuses, et les enquêtes qui avancent péniblement avec un détective plus ou moins antipathique.

Après avoir tenu plus de la moitié du livre, j’ai fini par renoncer. L’univers décrit par l’auteur est passionnant, il donne envie d’en savoir plus, mais le récit m’a littéralement ennuyé. J’ai tenté péniblement de passer outre en poursuivant ma lecture mais j’ai fini par me résoudre à abandonner, constatant avec amertume que ce livre n’est pas fait pour moi.

Je ne peux même pas dire que c’est un livre raté, ou de mauvaise qualité. Je suis bien incapable de juger s’il s’agit ou pas d’un bon polar. Par contre, je peux dire que le décalage – sans doute voulu par l’auteur – entre l’univers très inventif et le récit très classique n’a pas produit chez moi les effets désirés.

"Inside, stained light from a window and a peculiar calm fell on me simultaneously."
The prose is a little muddy at times, so I'm a bit frustrated with how slow a read this is when I have to go over a lot of things twice (I can't use my reader! Woe!). The worldbuilding is great, the story is engaging, the hero is an unbearably smug Mary Sue. Heck, I'd be smug too, if I was some sort of super soldier spy consciousness travelling the universe and solving sexy mysteries. You'd best believe you'd be hearing about what my penis was getting up to while I had a casual conversation with someone. There's a lot of penis-describing. I can see why Netflix picked this up.

Finished book & show. Imagine my dismay when the bits of the show that made no sense weren’t explained or even present in the book. I mean, among other things, Reileen’s whole deal. No spoilers, but y tho, Netflix? I am frustrated by this whole deal.