In the twenty-fifth century, humankind has spread throughout the galaxy, monitored by the watchful eye of the U.N. While divisions in race, religio...
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reviews
Nov 12, 2011
Simeon
rated it: 
One of the best action sequences in modern scifi:
Sarah was turning her aim on the figures beyond the wall when the second commando of the night appeared braced in the kitchen doorway and hosed her away with his assault rifle.
Still on my knees, I watched her die with chemical clarity. It all went so slowly it was like a video playback on frame advance. The commando kept his aim low, holding the Kalashnikov down against the hyper-rapid-fire recoil it was famous for. The bed More...
Sarah was turning her aim on the figures beyond the wall when the second commando of the night appeared braced in the kitchen doorway and hosed her away with his assault rifle.
Still on my knees, I watched her die with chemical clarity. It all went so slowly it was like a video playback on frame advance. The commando kept his aim low, holding the Kalashnikov down against the hyper-rapid-fire recoil it was famous for. The bed More...
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Jul 21, 2008
Sandi
rated it: 
Wow. It’s no wonder Richard K. Morgan became such a phenomenon in the science fiction world so quickly. His first novel, “Altered Carbon” is so well crafted that it bears no hints of being a first novel. His imagination and story telling is absolutely amazing. Although it is absolutely full of graphic violence and has a few X-rated sex scenes, every part is so well written, it all fits. This book should have completely offended me. I can’t stand gratuitous sex and violence. But, the way M
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Feb 10, 2011
Dan
rated it: 
Takeshi Kovacs is killed on an another world and re-sleeved in Bay City in the body of a disgraced cop. His mission: find out who killed Laurens Bancroft, a Meth (short for Methusaleh) billionaire. Bancroft and is offering Kovacs his freedom as a reward. Only a lot of people don't want anyone to know why Bancroft killed himself. Can Kovacs get to the bottom of things before the demons in Bancroft's private life get him?
I bought this for a buck and it languished on my shelf for a More...
I bought this for a buck and it languished on my shelf for a More...
20 comments
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(16 people liked it)
Dec 30, 2010
Mark
rated it:
"Altered Carbon" is the first novel in Richard Morgan's "Takeshi Kovacs" series. It's a great book if you're a fan of the detective genre and science fiction. It hearkens back to the old hard-boiled Phillip Marlowe books by Raymond Chandler with a cyberpunk twist. It's very well done, intriguing, and a great read! 4 1/2 stars!
The Plot
In the world of Richard Morgan's future, a person can change bodies by downloading all of their memories from their o More...
The Plot
In the world of Richard Morgan's future, a person can change bodies by downloading all of their memories from their o More...
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Feb 01, 2012
SubterraneanCatalyst
rated it:
I'd call this book a cyberpunk noir. I'm not going to bother summarizing the story since you've seen it in the book description and in all the other reviews.
I didn't know this was Morgan's first novel but now that I do, yes, of course I'm impressed. This was smartly written and tight. I thought it was the perfect marriage of introspection and action. It kept me guessing to the end which is rare for me.
Have to admit I think I enjoyed this book for my own fairly eccentric More...
I didn't know this was Morgan's first novel but now that I do, yes, of course I'm impressed. This was smartly written and tight. I thought it was the perfect marriage of introspection and action. It kept me guessing to the end which is rare for me.
Have to admit I think I enjoyed this book for my own fairly eccentric More...
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(2 people liked it)
May 13, 2008
FicusFan
rated it:
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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(3 people liked it)
Mar 29, 2008
Kathy
rated it: 
Hmmm...I can't remember why I picked up this book. I think I read about it on a friend's blog. I read most of it today and finished it off. But it was sort of painful at times -- the last 50 pages were sort of agony to read, but by that point, you just have to finish the damn thing.
Not spectacularly written, but hardly unusual for a book in this genre. It was interesting enough for me to plod through it, and at one point I enjoyed it briefly, but I thought it was full of logical flaws More...
Not spectacularly written, but hardly unusual for a book in this genre. It was interesting enough for me to plod through it, and at one point I enjoyed it briefly, but I thought it was full of logical flaws More...
Mar 04, 2008
Steven
rated it:
One of the best books I have ever had the pleasure of reading. While not as grand in scope as the other two Kovacs novels (Broken Angels and Woken Furies) Altered Carbon serves as a perfect introduction to Morgans protagonist Takeshi Kovacs. Altered Carbon is a gritty fast paced sci-fi action/detective story set on a far future version of earth were death has became something of an inconvenience to those who can afford new bodies. Kovacs is contracted to investigate the death of Laurens Bancroft
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Nov 17, 2011
Melissa
rated it:
Nice! In trying to describe this to a co-worker, I came up with "sci-fi whodunnit." Laurens Bancroft is 300 years old & has just committed suicide, or at least that's what the police think. However, Laurens Bancroft is alive again, because a human's consciousness is now stored in tiny "stacks" in the back of their neck, and if you die you can just be uploaded into a new body, or "sleeve." He's sure he was murdered, so he hires Takeshi Kavocs to prove this. Kovacs is
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(2 people liked it)
Sep 27, 2011
Malcolm
rated it:
This is the first book by this author I've read, and I was very impressed. It's basically noir, very dark and rather brutal noir at that, but set in a very futuristic timeframe where people can "resleeve" into other bodies, sometimes their own, sometimes clones, and sometimes into ones that have been vacated by others.
If you like the movie "Chinatown", and have a reasonably strong stomach, I'd highly recommend this. The main character is engaging and sympathetic, More...
If you like the movie "Chinatown", and have a reasonably strong stomach, I'd highly recommend this. The main character is engaging and sympathetic, More...
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May 26, 2011
Lightreads
rated it:
I have a really hard time with bodyswap. I will suspend my disbelief for unicorns first, let’s put it that way. It’s just that it doesn’t matter whether we’re talking science or magic, it does not make sense. Assuming there actually was some incorporeal you that could be lifted out of your body and popped into someone else (which I don’t assume, but we’ll come back to that), if you got popped into someone else’s body, you would not be you anymore. Because the whole thing is a fallacy, and there
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(4 people liked it)
Feb 08, 2012
Violent, strange, compelling noir SF set in the distant future, where people can be downloaded into bodies, which they call sleeves. You can be male or female. Some - richer - people live for a very long time, and one of them hires the protagonist to investigate his murder. (He had a back up download, apparently.)
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(2 people liked it)
Jun 19, 2010
Nancy
rated it: 
I abandoned it after about 100 or so pages. I liked the future setting and the advances in technology that change the concept of life and death. Unfortunately, it read like a script for an action movie. Some good ideas, but too much senseless action and violence ruined it for me.
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(7 people liked it)
Jul 19, 2010
Lady Danielle "The Book Huntress"
rated it:
With my sinus allergies kicking my butt, I don't have the energy to write a really long review, so I'll keep it simple. I thought this was an excellent book, though not really a comfortable book. I don't think this book is for everyone. The language is very coarse, to be honest. Liberal use of the worst word for women in written language is employed. It starts with a 'c' and ends with a 't', and I think you can fill in the blanks. I winced just about every time. Despite this, and the fact th
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22 comments
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(11 people liked it)
Feb 09, 2011
Kathryn
rated it:
I desperately want to like this book more than I do. I picked it up for the first time well over a year ago, probably closer to 2 years ago. I set the book aside, for a variety of reasons, and came back to it 4 times before finally finishing. None of this bodes well for a final rating.
I love the world Morgan created but I hate every one of his characters. A 4 star rating for the world. A 2 star rating for the characters.
My experience with cyberpunk is limited, something More...
I love the world Morgan created but I hate every one of his characters. A 4 star rating for the world. A 2 star rating for the characters.
My experience with cyberpunk is limited, something More...
8 comments
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(11 people liked it)
Jul 15, 2008
Lily
rated it:
I really debated over what rating to give this book. Three seemed too low, 4 seems a bit high. Overall, it's a good read. A little lacking in emotional draw, but it makes up for that in interesting details and a few nods to philosophy.
I could go all feminist on this novel, too. Basically, Morgan has a pretty obvious power complex. If a woman is powerful in this novel, she is psychotic.
Also, all women are inexplicably drawn to the main character, Takeshi, who begins a More...
I could go all feminist on this novel, too. Basically, Morgan has a pretty obvious power complex. If a woman is powerful in this novel, she is psychotic.
Also, all women are inexplicably drawn to the main character, Takeshi, who begins a More...
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May 27, 2008
Jason
rated it:
Beginning of the winter I bought a deep stack of science fiction books to get me through the tough times. Altered Carbon was the last of those books to be read. And Holy crap, the best was saved for last! It has everything. Bitchin science concepts, cool tech, ruthless and thoughtful characters, gripping action scenes, and strangely erotic sex sessions. I really like the way that Morgan writes. Two particular examples of his skills are his ability to transition smoothly from a character
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Jun 11, 2008
Jennifer
rated it:
I was inclined to dislike this book from the beginning- I do read some fairly violent work on occasion, but the prologue to this volume bothered me more than I expected. Things do calm down (or at least get explained) later on, and once I became familiar with the general premise and the rationale for the violence, it grew on me.
Essentially Takeshi Kovacs exists in a world where people's minds are consolidated into a "stack" that can be transplanted from one body (or sleeve More...
Essentially Takeshi Kovacs exists in a world where people's minds are consolidated into a "stack" that can be transplanted from one body (or sleeve More...
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May 10, 2007
Patrick
rated it:
Ultra violent and ultra sexual (I know what you're thinking. "Patrick, that's usually 5 star material for you"), these are interesting takes on the hard boiled detective novel. They're set in the distant, distant future and humans have transferrable storage devices installed into their spinal columns called "stacks" that constantly backup their memories and personality. So essentially, no one can really die. You usually just get a new body. Of course, like with computers, har
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(2 people liked it)
Aug 18, 2010
KristenR
rated it:
Altered Carbon certainly starts off with a bang.
The sci-fi premise of downloadable personalities was great and Morgan held my attention in this future noir story with a cinematic descriptive style and vengeful murderous rampages.
At first I found the protagonist an odd choice for a detective, and the mystery was a bit convoluted. I disliked that certain characters and plotlines semed to come out of nowhere - there were several times I had to flip back to see if a particul More...
The sci-fi premise of downloadable personalities was great and Morgan held my attention in this future noir story with a cinematic descriptive style and vengeful murderous rampages.
At first I found the protagonist an odd choice for a detective, and the mystery was a bit convoluted. I disliked that certain characters and plotlines semed to come out of nowhere - there were several times I had to flip back to see if a particul More...
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(1 person liked it)
Jan 05, 2012
Kieran
rated it:
I used to read sci-fi all the time. And then something somewhere slipped - my sense of adventure, my technological interest (its hard when you work in the field to get excited by it) and the lack of decent sci-fi on supermarket bookshelves (I have a mortgage now, no excuses).</p>
I was leant this book in an experiment - a challenge to myself to read something I would not normally pick up and something to inject some fun into reading. The unknown - how i felt years ago before the Da Vinci co
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Feb 09, 2011
Zeruhur
rated it:
Bay City è un thriller cyberpunk di pregievole fattura. Morgan costruisce un futuro affascinante e inquietante cinquecento anni avanti a noi in cui il business primario è immagazzinare coscienze e vendere i corpi "sfitti". Così la pena detentiva si risolve con un "immagazzinamento" della personalità fino a che il tempo previsto non è scaduto e una nuova "custodia" (corpo) possa essere utilizzata. E' appunto un detenuto il protagonista, che condannato a parecchi dece
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Dec 27, 2008
Tony
rated it:
Morgan, a member of the Glasgow group of up-and-coming speculative authors, is an interesting writer, absorbing and reflecting lots of contemporary styles (most obviously William Gibson) and classic ones (if you read carefully you'll pick up Chandler among others), and he tells an interesting story with equally interesting characters and ideas. The only problem I had with this, the first tale of Takeshi Kovacs (pronounced "ko-vatch")was a fairly high level of gratuitous cruelty... I c
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Dec 21, 2008
Angela
rated it:
This novel was recommended to me a while back by LJ user cafiorello, and Cathy, I must now thank you profusely for that recommendation. This was a kickass novel.
Very gritty, almost brutal, with crosses and double-crosses all throughout its complex plot, Altered Carbon is a very violent sort of book set in an intriguing future where humanity has invented technology capable of storing your entire consciousness in a "stack"--and therefore rendering the physical body nothing mo More...
Very gritty, almost brutal, with crosses and double-crosses all throughout its complex plot, Altered Carbon is a very violent sort of book set in an intriguing future where humanity has invented technology capable of storing your entire consciousness in a "stack"--and therefore rendering the physical body nothing mo More...
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Jan 27, 2012
John
rated it:
Fine Debut By Morgan, But Recycled Gibson....
Richard K. Morgan's "Altered Carbon", is a stylish, well-written tale which easily draws comparisons to William Gibson's classic "Cyberspace" trilogy ("Neuromancer", "Count Zero", "Mona Lisa Overdrive"), with some of the rich film noirish atmosphere captured successfully by the late George Alec Effinger in his cyperpunk/film noir novels. However, is it really better than Gibson, or early B More...
Richard K. Morgan's "Altered Carbon", is a stylish, well-written tale which easily draws comparisons to William Gibson's classic "Cyberspace" trilogy ("Neuromancer", "Count Zero", "Mona Lisa Overdrive"), with some of the rich film noirish atmosphere captured successfully by the late George Alec Effinger in his cyperpunk/film noir novels. However, is it really better than Gibson, or early B More...
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Dec 05, 2011
Marcelo
rated it:
A hard-boiled detective story in which the protagonist dies in the prologue, but then goes to investigate the suicide of a man that's still alive. Weird? No, post-humanistic! In this book, the human body is a commodity, a merchandise not different from a car or a cellphone, and almost as disposable — if you have the money.
This was my first post-humanistic (or post-cyberpunk) novel, but it wasn't my first encounter with the genre. There's this role-playing game, «Eclipse Phase», that More...
This was my first post-humanistic (or post-cyberpunk) novel, but it wasn't my first encounter with the genre. There's this role-playing game, «Eclipse Phase», that More...
Oct 19, 2011
glimpsedafar
rated it:
Altered Carbon is my first exposure to Richard K Morgan's work and it's certainly left me with a favourable impression overall.
With a few forgivable exceptions - such as the complete handwaving of the superluminal travel required to transport the protagonist from Harlan's World, 186 light years distant, to the Earth at the outset of the story - the way technology is dealt with feels believable. This is a typical dystopian post-cyberpunk setting and relies upon several established trope More...
With a few forgivable exceptions - such as the complete handwaving of the superluminal travel required to transport the protagonist from Harlan's World, 186 light years distant, to the Earth at the outset of the story - the way technology is dealt with feels believable. This is a typical dystopian post-cyberpunk setting and relies upon several established trope More...
Oct 05, 2011
Janatuinen
rated it:
The novel is another example of taking the hardboiled detective genre into the future. One could of course say space, but most of the novels events are situated on Earth where the main character, Takeshi Kovacs, wakes up in the start of the novel. As appropriate for the genre, he is an overtalented individual who has fallen out of favour of the world due to his moral issues and adversity to abuse of power. He is thrown into a case involving just such power abusing creatures, Meths; centuries old
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Sep 24, 2011
Occamsbeard
rated it:
I thought I had read the majority of really good cyber punk or near future sci-fi books that deal with the era for a personal perspective. I have read some of Gibson and some of Neal Stephenson and even a lesser author accoladed author Mel Odom who did a great mixture of a noir Crime thriller complete with a sociopath in a cyberpunk setting. I bring that book up because the main character in this book is very much the flawed hero in the three cyber punk books that Richard K Morgan has done.
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Jul 22, 2011
Brad
rated it:
While reading 'Altered Carbon,' the following scene kept occurring to me.
A shopper enteres a bookstore. It is of course, raining savagely outside.
'I'm looking for a future-noir sci-fi...' The shopper begins.
'Neuromancer,' the clerk says, 'You're looking for Neuromancer.'
'I'm not so sure about that title. This one has got a criminal noir protagonist matched with a dark-haired, street-smart beauty...they go on a world-wide hunt for mysterious tr More...
A shopper enteres a bookstore. It is of course, raining savagely outside.
'I'm looking for a future-noir sci-fi...' The shopper begins.
'Neuromancer,' the clerk says, 'You're looking for Neuromancer.'
'I'm not so sure about that title. This one has got a criminal noir protagonist matched with a dark-haired, street-smart beauty...they go on a world-wide hunt for mysterious tr More...
