Thirteen

Though this is a software issue we’re talking about now, rather than a hardware problem. At least to the extent that you can make that distinction when it comes to brain chemistry. Anyway, look—by all the accounts I’ve read, the Project Lawman originators reckoned that variant thirteens would actually have been pretty damn successful in a hunter-gatherer context. Being big, tough, and violent is an unmitigated plus in those societies. You get more meat, you get more respect, you get more women. You breed more as a result. It’s only once humans settle down in agricultural communities that these guys start to be a serious problem. Why? Because they won’t fucking do as they’re told. They won’t work in the fields and bring in the harvest for some kleptocratic old bastard with a beard. That’s when they start to get bred out, because the rest of us, the wimps and conformists, band together under that self-same kleptocratic bastard’s paternal holy authority, and we go out with our torches and our farming implements, and we exterminate those poor fuckers.”

Carl lifted fingertips to his face, brushed at his cheekbones. “You see this? When you’re a variant, people don’t look at this. They go right through the skin, and all they see is what’s written into your double helix.”
The Rim cop shrugged. “Perhaps you’d prefer them to stop at the skin. What I hear about the old days, we’re both the wrong color for that to be a better option. Would you really prefer it the way things were? A dose of good old-fashioned skin hate?”

“You know what it feels like, Marsalis? Constantly testing your actions against some theory of how you think you might be supposed to behave. Wondering, every day at work, every time you make a compromise, every time you back up one of your male colleagues on reflex, wondering whether that’s you or the gene code talking.” A sour smile in Carl’s direction. “Every time you fuck, the guy you chose to fuck with, even the way you fuck him, all the things you do, the things you want to do, the things you want done to you. You know what it feels like to question all of that, all the time?”
He nodded. “Of course I do. You just pretty much described where I live.”

Winner of the Philip K. Dick Award for Altered Carbon (see below), his debut novel, and the author of successful follow-ups Broken Angels (**** July/Aug 2004) and Woken Furies, as well as the stand-alone Market Forces (*** May/June 2005), Richard K. Morgan and his characters are hardly strangers to violent dystopias. Thirteen, published simultaneously in Britain as Black Man, tackles some difficult issues, including race and identity. The result is perhaps less compelling than some of Morgan's p

Winner of the Philip K. Dick Award for Altered Carbon (see below), his debut novel, and the author of successful follow-ups Broken Angels (**** July/Aug 2004) and Woken Furies, as well as the stand-alone Market Forces (*** May/June 2005), Richard K. Morgan and his characters are hardly strangers to violent dystopias. Thirteen, published simultaneously in Britain as Black Man, tackles some difficult issues, including race and identity. The result is perhaps less compelling than some of Morgan's previous work, and the novel could have been shorter. Still, the author can hardly be accused of simply retreading familiar ground. Thirteen is a solid effort for Morgan's devotees, as well as a good read for fans of military sci-fi with a twist.

This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.