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Woken Furies (Takeshi Kovacs #3)

4.07 of 5 stars 4.07 · rating details · 7,162 ratings · 232 reviews

Richard K. Morgan has received widespread praise for his astounding twenty-fifth-century novels featuring Takeshi Kovacs, and has established a growing legion of fans. Mixing classic noir sensibilities with a searing futuristic vision of an age when death is nearly meaningless, Morgan returns to his saga of betrayal, mystery, and revenge, as Takeshi Kovacs, in one fatal mo...more

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Published September 27th 2005 by Del Rey (first published 2005)

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Jul 13, 2011 Melissa rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Oct 06, 2012 Bill rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

From the abbreviated experience I've had reading Mr. Morgan's books, I've come to the conclusion that he's a better scenarist than he is at building a thorough plot. Books like Thirteen and Altered Carbon are all over the place, tossing in characters, set-pieces and, if there's room, the kitchen sink that tend to distract from the overall story. What Mr. Morgan excels at is creating a believable and enticing future world. Thirteen featured an America divided into a few liberal outlying states su...more

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Oct 16, 2012 Kevin Veale rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The last, and in some ways the most interesting of the Takeshi Kovacs series.

Disclaimer right at the start: Like the rest of the series, this book is well-written and imaginative with a well-realised protagonist. That protagonist is not nice. The setting is not nice. These can lead to people reading a very good book that is not Fun.

So it goes.

Woken Furies begins with Takeshi Kovacs coming apart at the seams. He's done too much. Seen too much. When someone like him comes apart at the seams, the i...more

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May 24, 2008 FicusFan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, science-fiction, read-5-08, imortals, cyber-punk

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Wow! This is an amazing book and the best of the series. Morgan has matured as a writer and Takeshi has become more than just a one-dimensional, cardboard, super hero character who is all flash, violence and sex. I know it annoys many who want the same thing (Altered Carbon) repeated endlessly.

SPOILERS AHEAD !

In this book Takeshi goes home to Harlan's World. It is set about 100 years after the first book. He is working on a personal vendetta against a repressive religious sect whom he blames for...more Wow! This is an amazing book and the best of the series. Morgan has matured as a writer and Takeshi has become more than just a one-dimensional, cardboard, super hero character who is all flash, violence and sex. I know it annoys many who want the same thing (Altered Carbon) repeated endlessly.

SPOILERS AHEAD !

In this book Takeshi goes home to Harlan's World. It is set about 100 years after the first book. He is working on a personal vendetta against a repressive religious sect whom he blames for the death of and stack loss of the woman he loved in the first book, Sara.

He becomes accidentally sucked into a sale/crime/political deal that involves deComs, the Yakuza and the ruling Harlan family. When it all goes wrong he hides out with the deComs, bringing them the expected death and disaster.

deComs are basically poor outcasts that band together in teams and with weapons, computers, and bio-engineering comb through the empty wasteland of one of the islands on the planet where the last war took place. There are all kinds of smart machines and smart weapons that have been left without humans and have developed their own cultures and ideas and are harmful to human life. The deComs are sent out to kill/destroy/clear them. They are paid for their kills and use the money to refine their weapons and their bodies. They take in Takeshi without knowing who he is, or about his Envoy past.

Violence and plots ensue and through it all Takeshi has to start facing who he is and how he got to this point in his life. He has to look at the rage he has for Sara's killers and what it might be covering. An interesting method to achieve this is the use of a younger, illegal copy of himself that the Harlan's have re-sleeved and sent after him.

The Takeshi in this book seems to be older and losing it a bit, though his body is young, strong, and combat modified (though an older model). He is missing clues and he is not hearing or seeing things that should warn him the shit is about to hit the fan. The overall impression is of a man who has lost his mooring in life and is tired of going through the motions, but has no other ideas or options. There is still snark, sex, and violence but it is not the main feature of this book. Takeshi comes across as a real person, and he comes up against the real life current people of the memories he has of them in the past, and in his head. He has to re-evaluate his beliefs, griefs, and the rage that fuels him to act in set ways, often without thought.

Along the way we get to see more of the future that Morgan has created. We see the deComs, the Haiduci criminals, a surfer community, the swamps, sea, weather and abandoned land of Harlan's World. We also meet more Envoys. The aliens/Martians and their abandoned technology also come into it, and does the supposedly long Real Dead revolutionary Quellcrist Falconer. There are several buried surprises in the plot and an ending that seems to be hopeful, though not all tied up in a bow.

Morgan has said on his web site that he won't ever write Altered Carbon again, and I hope that means he won't be writing a repeat of the same type of book, not that he has finished with Takeshi and the future he is set in. I would still love to read about an older/wiser Takeshi, and more about his world and the aliens/Martians. (less)

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Oct 24, 2007 Celia Powell rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi

I enjoyed this a little less than the other two books in this loose series - by which I mean they have the same central character, Takeshi Kovacs, but don't particularly lead on from one another story-wise.

I found "Woken Furies" rather confusing - Takeshi is back on Harlan's World, his birth planet, and is embroiled in its internal politics - a new revolution is brewing. Tak has his own agenda, and it all gets terribly involved - I rather preferred the other stories where he was somewhat of an...more

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Jan 23, 2012 Dave rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I thought the previous books in the series, which weighed in at around 450-500 pages were about 100 pages too long, filled with fluff. Well, this book, which was about 200 pages longer had about 300 too many pages. The characters were forgettable, the plot was convoluted.

In the end, this series was "What If... Wolverine was in space"

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Jan 05, 2012 Kieran Delaney rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science, fiction, cyberpunk

I was utterly taken by Altered Carbon, Morgans first Takeshi Kovacs book - his second, Broken Angels, however was not great and felt like both the character and his writer were treading water. Woken Furies is a return to form, though not necessarily in the style of the original. Its still hard and fast, descriptive and intelligent but gone is the hard boiled detective noir to be replaced by grim action thriller that is positively epic in scale. An adventure that rolls from side to side of an ali...more

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Jan 29, 2011 Tancredi rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: preferiti, sci-fi, inglesi

Terzo e conclusivo episodio della serie di Takeshi Kovacs. Morgan non delude: tutte le caratteristiche di questa serie di romanzi di pura azione sci-fi ritornano, senza mai annoiare. E non mancano le novità.
Questa volta l'antieroe Kovacs se la deve vedere con un problematico ritorno a casa: un mondo completamente cambiato e quasi estraneo, una potente oligarchia locale appoggiata dalla yakuza, la ricerca di una vendetta ferocissima, l'amore (sempre trattenuto, sempre soffocato, evitato) verso u...more Terzo e conclusivo episodio della serie di Takeshi Kovacs. Morgan non delude: tutte le caratteristiche di questa serie di romanzi di pura azione sci-fi ritornano, senza mai annoiare. E non mancano le novità.
Questa volta l'antieroe Kovacs se la deve vedere con un problematico ritorno a casa: un mondo completamente cambiato e quasi estraneo, una potente oligarchia locale appoggiata dalla yakuza, la ricerca di una vendetta ferocissima, l'amore (sempre trattenuto, sempre soffocato, evitato) verso una donna che ospita nel suo cervello la copia della coscienza di una rivoluzionaria morta trecento anni prima... e soprattutto, se la deve vedere con se stesso: con una copia molto più giovane (e più inferocita) di se stesso, assoldato dalla yakuza.
Come ho già detto per i due capitoli precedenti, ciò che colpisce di Morgan è innanzitutto lo stile della narrazione, frenetica e vivida: ottima per un film. Tutte le lodi vengono qui riconfermate senza batter ciglio.
Ma c'è di più. C'è, finalmente, una caratterizzazione totale del protagonista: che attraverso lo scontro col se stesso passato, in un mondo che gli ricorda la triste infanzia, sfoga e rivela tutto il suo inconscio. Graziosi, e caratteristici, sono i dialoghi interiori a botta e risposta.
Non mancano poi occasioni per fare un po' di critica: se nel primo libro ce l'aveva con i cattolici, questa volta Morgan se la prende con gli islamici. Ovvero, c'è un continuo riferimento ad un nuovo ordine religioso (la Nuova Rivelazione), che ha come caratteristica principale una fortissima autorità maschile, la totale subordinazione delle donne (compare pure il burqa!), e persino la poligamia. E tra un attentato e l'altro Kovacs trova pure il tempo di dire la sua: del resto, sono proprio i "barba" (gli adepti della Nuova Rivelazione) che hanno scatenato la sua sete di vendetta.
La trama è originalissima, su questo non c'è dubbio, forse un po' troppo caotica. Per un buon terzo del libro, non si riesce a capire affatto che diamine sta succedendo. Ma poi, poco a poco, tutto diviene chiaro.
E arriviamo a questo punto a lei, alla pazza rivoluzionaria magicamente ritornata in vita dopo trecento anni: Quellcrist Falconer. Se "Bay City" è un romanzo fantascientifico-noir, e "Angeli spezzati" è una archeol-militar-space opera, "Il ritorno delle furie" è decisamente un romanzo politico. Tutta la trama, più che sulla vendetta personale del protagonista, è incentrata sulle conseguenze che avrà il risveglio della rivoluzionaria: una nuova rivoluzione, una nuova guerra civile? Utile o inutile? I personaggi si schierano e ben presto si dà avvio ad un dibattito finemente politico che si snoda lungo tutto il romanzo. C'è da dire che Morgan sa benissimo di quel che parla: ha, alle sue spalle, una specializzazione in storia e una notevole esperienza accademica. Kovavcs è un po' il suo portavoce: eternamente disilluso, è attratto da Quellcrist, ma vuole scongiurare una nuova inutile e disastrosa rivoluzione, che non porterà da nessuna parte. Che è un po' quel che disse esplicitamente l'autore:
<<la società è sempre stata e sarà sempre un sistema per la strumentalizzazione e l’oppressione della maggioranza attraverso metodi di potere politico dettati da un élite, attuati da criminali con o senza uniforme, e sorretti dall’intenzionale ignoranza e stupidità della maggioranza stessa oppressa dal sistema>>.
Ed è così Harlan's world: un'oligarchia locale (le Prime Famiglie), sorretta da potenti criminali arricchiti (la yakuza), e giustificata da una maggioranza instupidita, che rinuncia all'onere di dover pensare col proprio cervello, rimettendosi nelle mani dei potenti.
Insomma: siete sicuri che sia solo un romanzo di fantascienza?

Peccato sia l'ultimo della serie. L'epilogo è aperto: il bello deve ancora venire.

P.S. nota finale: sorprendentemente, il mio plauso va all'edizione italiana. Caso più unico che raro, la traduzione è veramente all'altezza.

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Mar 17, 2013 Mike rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Anyone

After recently reading Broken Angels, I was eager to get this third volume. Although the differences between the first two books should have made me less certain, from the title alone, I anticipated that in this book the Martians would make an appearance. After all, they have wings, the “Furies” of Greco-Roman mythology are often depicted as having wings, and the Martians seem well suited to bring retribution to mankind.

Oh, silly me. Mr. Morgan is subtler than that. Not that I was completely, ab...more After recently reading Broken Angels, I was eager to get this third volume. Although the differences between the first two books should have made me less certain, from the title alone, I anticipated that in this book the Martians would make an appearance. After all, they have wings, the “Furies” of Greco-Roman mythology are often depicted as having wings, and the Martians seem well suited to bring retribution to mankind.

Oh, silly me. Mr. Morgan is subtler than that. Not that I was completely, absolutely, unequivocally wrong; oh no, several things do “come to life” and after a fashion could be said to bring retribution (or at least its close cousins death & destruction), but of course that isn’t the primary plot of this novel. Again, given how different the first two books were, why should I or indeed anyone expect the author to give us anything other than a new setting, new players, and new revelations?

And he does so. Woken Furies is a worthy successor to Altered Carbon and Broken Angels. In this novel we get further insights into our anti-hero’s world, his early life and his formative years (ok, maybe decades). But all of that comes secondarily to the primary plot line; a seemingly chance encounter with a woman during the opening sub-plot. From their Mr. Morgan weaves a complex pattern of characters and sub-plots that encompass the entire history of Harlan’s World and its people.

Religion and philosophy have strong presences in this book, again. There are a couple of local, recent cults (the “Renouncers” and the “New Revelation”) as well as the familiar Quellcrist Falconer and her 300 year-old revolution and insurgency. I won’t spoil the party (but you can find untold summaries that will reveal all if you want). The themes are expertly woven into the storyline and characters. The amount of detail might be too much for some readers, but I think that it fits in well with the rest of the book.

The book is “jumpy” as past and present get shuffled in front of the reader, but not in an annoying way. The shifts are necessary to keep the central mystery intact until the very end of the novel but they read like natural reflections on things. Most of the threads get resolved as the book progresses. By the end, the reader sees the potential “future” of this universe but doesn’t feel gypped or that there must be another book in the works. (In fact each of the books leaves off without a definite need for a next volume, much to the credit of the author.)

If this is the last we see of Takeshi Kovacs, I for one think he has been fairly handled. Don’t get me wrong – I would like to see mankind explore beyond the range of these books, but I respect the author’s choice to leave things as they are. Someday I may do a full re-read. Four (4) stars for a solid, well-written book that kept me reading when I had many other things to do.

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Jan 21, 2013 Thomas Cavano rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

First, I have to say that to get to this book, you have to read Altered Carbon, and Broken Angels first. Don't worry, it won't be a burden. Richard K. Morgan writes a Sci Fi Noire that satisfies deeply. His hero, Takeshi Kovacs, is wry, unamused, insightful and, by the time we pick up his story,too wounded by his own loyalties. He is also funny, resourceful and as his own narrator, he knows how to tell a story.

Existential separation of mind and body is developed to the extreme in these novels,...more

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Jan 04, 2013 Gavin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Once again a great book by Morgan, I loved it. Only things that ate my goat were the constant references to “Envoy” this and Envoy intuition” and “Envoy blah” and “Envoy intuition” every third paragraph … I think if someone did the math he would have wrote “Envoy intuition” more often that Terry Goodkind sprouts about “Truth”. Extremely annoying especially when nothing out of the ordinary was ever intuited. Nearly fell over near the end of the book when the i word was used without the E word … g...more

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Apr 17, 2012 Jessica Evans rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A rare book where the ending is substantially stronger than what leads up to it. I was considering rating this a 4, but a strong finish doesn't really make up for a plenitude of filler; especially since that filler is still largely juvenile in the same capacity as the previous two books in the series. I mean for Quellcrist's sake Morgan, you don't need to make the main character fuck every significant female in the entire series. It just kind of cheapens it, turns it into blatant wish fulfillmen...more

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Nov 15, 2011 Ankush rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Better than the 2nd book, not as good as the 1st.

Things I liked:

You actually find out a lot about Kovacs' background; his friends, his family, his childhood. You get a much better idea of what drives him, and why he's such a badass.

Kovacs actually seems to have a reason for doing what he's doing, some, if not most of the time (in contrast to the 2nd book where he just seemed to be wandering around out of boredom).

The settings were interesting and varied, unlike the 2nd book.

The sci fi elemen...more

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Jun 09, 2011 Mad Professah rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The first two Takeshi Kovacsnovels by Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon and Broken Angels , are pretty amazing, so it's bittersweet to be reading and reviewing Woken Furies, which is billed as the third and last of the series.

Each of the three books featuring Takeshi Kovacs written by Morgan is so different it's hard to call them part of the same series, but they do all feature Kovacs, a hard-bitten, world-weary, brutally efficient killing machine and violent mercenary with his own unique sense...more

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Apr 17, 2011 Alan rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Charmers

Recommended to Alan by: Previous acquaintance

Third and home. The first Takeshi Kovacs novel, Altered Carbon, took him to Earth, where he was very much out of place. The second, Broken Angels, brought him back to space, but to an unfamiliar system in the midst of a civil war. For Woken Furies, Kovacs is back home on Harlan's World, the pelagic planet (Harlan's World is about 90% water-covered) on which he was born, and from which he was recruited into the elite U.N. Protectorate's Envoy Corps. (I don't think that it's an intentional homage,...more

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Nov 22, 2010 Brainycat rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: fans of sci-fi, dark fiction, antiheroes, post-cyberpunk

Shelves: scifi, read_in_2010

Altered Carbon
Broken Angels

The third and final installment in the Takeshi Kovacs trilogy Woken Furies was a bittersweet read for me. On the one hand, Takeshi is probably the best protagonist I've come across in years. I sincerely want to be him when I grow up, and I feel a special kinship to him. Richard Morgan is a fantastic storyteller with an incredible command of the language, making his books a joy to read. Unfortunately, this is the last planned book featuring Takeshi. I tried to draw it o...more Altered Carbon
Broken Angels

The third and final installment in the Takeshi Kovacs trilogy Woken Furies was a bittersweet read for me. On the one hand, Takeshi is probably the best protagonist I've come across in years. I sincerely want to be him when I grow up, and I feel a special kinship to him. Richard Morgan is a fantastic storyteller with an incredible command of the language, making his books a joy to read. Unfortunately, this is the last planned book featuring Takeshi. I tried to draw it out and savor every moment - but I got so involved in the story I finished it in just a couple of days. I'm looking forward to rereading the series again to revisit these characters and worlds that have become part of my mental landscape.

And that's a major theme of this book - when people live long enough to see history repeat itself, does it mean they have new choices about how they'll take part or does it mean they are just that much more prepared to do it all over again? How much freewill does someone have, when the same machinations of politics and capital force the same crucibles every few generations? In Woken Furies, the Trotskyist dogma gets marched out front and center, and Takeshi is constantly forced to evaluate how personal he wants to make the political. When we meet Takeshi at the beginning of the story, he's back on his homeworld, exacting revenge against a politically powerful cult of misogynistic theists (think Sharia law). While he's still an incredibly potent warrior and force to be reckoned with on any number of planets, his life has dwindled to a molten ember of hate fueled by revenge. We see Takeshi's personality stripped down to his essence, a tightly coiled spring that only comes to life in violent spurts. His cynicism has ceased to be just a glib way of brushing people off and has taken a life of it's own, and his capacity to care for anyone or anything else seems to have been replaced with a self-destructive urge that is more than slightly remniscent of Case at the beginning of William Gibson's "Neuromancer".

However, the similiarities to other stories end there. I do not intend in any way to imply that Woken Furies is derivative. It's as fresh and innovative as the rest of the series, and while the tone is dark and the protagonist is in the angriest and loneliest mental space of his long life, it is constantly fresh and surprising - no mean feat for the third book in a series. The story follows Takeshi as he's forced to evaluate how much he's willing to sacrifice to maintain his cold aloofness. Several times in the book, he's given the opportunity to join a cause larger than himself, and each time he involves himself just enough to get what he wants out of it - always with the argument that it doesn't matter what he does now, the march of history will trample all their dreams just like it has before. What he really means is that his dreams have been trampled, and he's too hurt and bitter to move on. His former Envoy commander calls him out on it, telling him point blank it doesn't matter how many people he kills, the woman he loved is going to stay dead. Takeshi's response is to tell her that at least killing the people who created the situation that led to his love's death gives him a momentary sense of relief. Unfortunately, like any drug, it takes more and more to get any reaction and through the latter half of the book Takeshi is floundering in his resentment, searching for something to lash out at.

His former Envoy commander isn't the only ghost from his past. The woman he was with in the first chapter of Altered Carbon is a driving force in the plot, as are his former Envoy comrades, gangsters he ran with as a young thug, and even a younger copy of his personality. This latter complication could easily fall into farcical nonsense, but Richard treats it with dilegence and care, and eventually the Takeshi of the timeline we know has to face the younger Takeshi who hasn't experienced the last century. As I've often said, "If I met my younger self, I'd kick his mouthy ass", and Takeshi(1) feels much the same. The scene where they finally meet may be one of the most powerful scenes in the entire series. Without giving away any spoilers, I'll just say that Takeshi(1) drives home one of the most important themes of the series: "Live my life for a hundred years and see how well you handle it, if you can make any better choices than I have".

Despite all this, the book ultimately ends on a hopeful note that I won't give away here. Like the other two books, Takeshi's efforts to make himself rich and forget his past lead him and his companions to some technology that's a "game changer" and may yet provide a way for "the little guys" to take on the powers that be. Takeshi's last thoughts as the last chapter close show he's begun living for something, hope, rather than spending his life fighting against everything.

This is another absolutely brilliant book by Richard K. Morgan, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone vaguely interested in scifi. Unfortunately, it may be hard to get into for people not accustomed to the genre thanks to Richard's liberal use of new terms and technologies that he never specifically defines for the benefit of the reader. I am looking forward to rereading the whole series many times during the rest of my life.(less)

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Jan 13, 2010 Gar rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Our hero drifts along rudderless and is sullen and snarly with everyone he asks for help along the way. Kovacs has changed from a mostly uninteresting adolescent wish-fulfillment character into merely an adolescent, in other words, and I get the sense the author didn't realize this is what happened.

He's pursuing a personal vendetta that he doesn't bother giving the reasons for until well into two-thirds of the book have passed, in what was meant to be an emotional reveal but wasn't. Huge chunks...more Our hero drifts along rudderless and is sullen and snarly with everyone he asks for help along the way. Kovacs has changed from a mostly uninteresting adolescent wish-fulfillment character into merely an adolescent, in other words, and I get the sense the author didn't realize this is what happened.

He's pursuing a personal vendetta that he doesn't bother giving the reasons for until well into two-thirds of the book have passed, in what was meant to be an emotional reveal but wasn't. Huge chunks of text violate the good-sense rule of "show don't tell" in writing. It took a serious effort of will to continue reading past an early point where he has an AI basically read a wikipedia entry on a historical revolutionary figure THAT HE ALREADY KNOWS ALL THE INFORMATION ABOUT. Ahem.

He's allegedly being pursued by a younger instance of himself (digital backups of the mind being the core sci-fi handwavium trappings in the series, remember), but that doesn't really lead anywhere except a final godawful confrontation in which they fight, our hero (of course) wins handily but (of course) decides not to kill him and (of COURSE) someone else kills the alleged nemesis to avoid any moral questions. The only thing to say in that scene's favor is that at least he didn't start to walk away and the defeated foe then produces a weapon leading to our hero spinning around and killing in self-defense.

Also, earlier there's a fight in a rain storm in which our hero ends up dangling helpless over a panther...excuse me, "swamp panther"...pit. This deserves mention because the author actually breaks cliche by having his opponent shoot him in the head as he's helpless.

Ha ha! No, of course that doesn't happen. Instead his opponent monologues a bit and they exchange verbal barbs and Kovacs grabs him as he tries to kick him into the pit (his opponent's gun has fucking evaporated, you can assume) and throws him in instead to be devoured.

You ever yawn so hard you get a spasm in your jaw muscles? Yeah.

Dull, plodding, done. Good riddance.

My advice: Altered Carbon is worth reading for some light popcorn entertainment. Skip both the sequels. If you must skip only one sequel, skip this one.(less)

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Apr 17, 2009 Steve rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Cyber Punk folks the world over

I was sad to finish this, the last of the Takeshi Kovacs trilogy. Morgan moves Tak into yet a new emotional / mental and in fact physical place, and the book starts out with him stealing the stacks of some priests. It seems someone is paying him to do this. But then he ends up fighting a war against renegade mechs up north on his home world then takes another left turn... and another... and another. There is really no way to tell where a Kovacs book is going unless you are re-reading it.

Slowly...more

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Sep 12, 2011 Gavin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi

I liked this book best of the Takeshi Kovacs trilogy, it was the most coherent thing I've read from Morgan, and (for a cynical leftist) he was scourging with his honesty both about the main character and the systems through which people govern one another and what can/has to be done to combat them. Another plus: Throughout the entire trilogy he's insisted on having his semi-self-insert sexed up to the nines by various women in variously graphic and usually inappropriate ways. While this is still...more I liked this book best of the Takeshi Kovacs trilogy, it was the most coherent thing I've read from Morgan, and (for a cynical leftist) he was scourging with his honesty both about the main character and the systems through which people govern one another and what can/has to be done to combat them. Another plus: Throughout the entire trilogy he's insisted on having his semi-self-insert sexed up to the nines by various women in variously graphic and usually inappropriate ways. While this is still the case here, at least he manages to make the shagging something of a plot device at one point.

I really like the threat of having Kovacs pursued by a younger version of himself (literally haunting him with his past, clever-clever but fun), I enjoyed the inevitable return to Harlan's World and the places he went with the deComs and Orbitals and I thought 90% of the narrative was necessary, engaging and paced as it should be. I even thought he evolved the premise of cortical stacks and personality transferral into a workable allegory for our own society, which was a great deal more than I'd expected going in. I'd go as far as to say that this is likely the upper end of what can be considered "pulp" sci-fi, not nonsense space opera ("Admiral Lasers fired up the quantum torpedoes and pushed the light-speed pedal to the metal") but, sadly, not quite up to playing with the big lads in speculative fiction.

While I understand the technology is obviously not meant to be hard sci-fi, in this one it really did start to fray at the edges. In the first novel you gave some credence to the fact that the reality of "stacks" and "needlecasting" were only recently established, so virtual back-ups and cloned re-sleeving capability were the preserve of the plutocracy, but this book is set -at least- a good century after the first (from what I can tell from his admittedly sketchy time-line). And since the stack itself is a piece of circuitry and metal that is apparently more damage-resistant than the human skeleton (so likely mostly protective space and/or padding) and fits within a single vertebrae (so very small): How is it that people can't back themselves up on hand-held devices? Let alone the future equivalent of 3G?

On top of this there is a ridiculous plot point about holding someone who is backed up as a hostage. I mean, come on. I understand the allegory of the kidnap and it's resolution (individuals are meaningless as the system will inevitably grind on), but still, if you're going to insist of symbolism start and end with Pratchett: Make it relevant, make it fit the narrative or don't bother with it.

All in all the Altered Carbon trilogy was good, dirty, misanthropist sci-fi. And that's something everyone should be able to get behind.(less)

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Aug 07, 2010 Regan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Dec 10, 2012 Matthew Iden rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: dystopic science fiction fans, hard boiled futuristic [think Blade Runner] aficionados

Shelves: science-fiction

Actual rating: 4.25

I heard once that in Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, the weather--so starkly and powerfully portrayed--is often considered a character in the movie as much as any of the actors.

In exactly the same way, Woken Furies is less about the protagonist, Takeshi Kovacs, than it is about the world and the culture of his dystopic future. Morgan's world-building is so overpowering that Kovacs isn't so much a character in the novel as a journalist, bringing us a report from the front lines...more

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Jan 01, 2012 Ricky Ganci rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I remember finishing this book and, even at the end, not remembering hardly any of it. There was the salamander sleeves, and the climbing, and the anti-Takeshi, but it was quite convoluted and really hard to follow. Quellcrist was a neat character, but I had to think that there was more that Morgan could have done with her than have her be ambiguous through until the end. The religious dialogue was fantastic, and Morgan flawlessly pursues such questions of faith in a world where mankind has sati...more

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Oct 24, 2011 Sahil Patel rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

this book is less sci fi, and more a book of hope, of how hope can overcome nihilism.

on the surface, great sci fi hard boiled detective noir.

takeshi my man, you are one messed up mofo. I hope I never cross your path. as the saying goes, if you throw a punch, you better be willing to end the fight. err, something like that.

at the end of this book, we finally learn what has been driving all of the rage behind the protagonist's seemingly sociopathic behavior. it turns out that the person who moti...more

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Sep 28, 2011 Chris Mapley rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi, martians, colonisation

This is actually the first one I've read in this series after finding out on this site that it was in fact the third Takeshi Kovacs novel.

Even so I didn't feel I lost out by not having read the previous stories. Everything I needed to know that was relevant was presented well and in an exciting manner.

I like this kind of future colony type of story especially when the mythology includes lost alien civilisations as a backdrop.

I wish my library had the first two as I'd definitely pick them both up...more

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Jun 17, 2012 David rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I got into this book a bit and realized that it is part of a series. Fortunately, not a series where the plot progresses from book to book, but rather a series with the same main character between books. There was definitely some back story I had to catch up on, but generally, this book worked well as a stand alone novel.

Getting past that, the main character was interesting and well fleshed out. Which makes sense, as the series is about him. He is not the most likable character, but that was a...more

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Jul 31, 2010 Ryun rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Emerging from the ashes of cyberpunk, Richard K. Morgan hit the scene with ALTERED CARBON, which won the Philip K. Dick award in 2003. WOKEN FURIES is a continuation of the exploits of ALTERED CARBON‘s (and sequel BROKEN ANGELS‘) noir protagonist Takeshi Kovacs.

Neurologically trained by the government to be part of an elite squad of infiltrators and insurgents, Kovacs is man a half-step away from humanity who is able to observe the brutal cycle of human nature with a sneer and, at the same time,...more

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Apr 04, 2013 Shane rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: stopped-reading

I was listening to an Audible production of this book, and now I am not.

In the first two books, Altered Carbon and Broken Angels, the protagonist is irritated by the mispronunciation of his name, makes the reader quite aware of that.

Well, if the narrator of this book had done his research, if he had read even the first chapter of the first book, he would have learned HOW TO SAY THE GUY'S NAME RIGHT.

This little blunder made the thing unenjoyable for me. The narrator of the first two books was ver...more

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May 13, 2011 Sarahlynn Lester rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I'm giving the whole trilogy 4 stars because I love Morgan's writing (at least the Takeshi Kovacs stuff). I stretched this trilogy over two years and savored each novel like candy. But the third installment is not as good as the first two. (When is it ever? Ditto Mockingjay, whatever came third in the Enderverse, etc.) In Woken Furies there's a bit too much philosophical debate and a few too many characters to keep track of for my taste. Already half lost in a partially defined far future world...more

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Jun 02, 2013 Linda rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction

This is the third of the Kovacs books and the third I've read. I had a hate/love relationship with this volume of the series. Kovacs has a lot of issues -- more than he had in Altered Carbon and Broken Angels. His experiences in this book only add to his burden.

What I liked about the book were the tough issues that are woven through it. For example, as much as I detest extreme religion such as the sect present in Woken Furies, I almost found myself agreeing with the young man who explained to K...more

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May 10, 2012 Saretta rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: language-eng, sf-cyberpunk, sf-military, sf

Terzo (e ultimo?) volume con protagonista Takeshi Kovacs.
La sua prima avventura era noir, ambientata sulla Terra, la seconda era fantascienza militare e archeoastronomia marziana, questa invece è ambientata nel suo paese natale (Harlan world) e parla di vendetta e rivoluzioni.
Dopo due secoli passati lontano dal pianeta troviamo Kovacs impegnato in una vendetta personale, questa lo porterà a incontrare una ragazza dalla doppia personalità (entrambe notevoli) e ripartirà la rivoluzione.
E' un volu...more

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About Richard K. Morgan

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Richard K. Morgan (sometimes credited as Richard Morgan) is a science fiction writer.

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Quotes from Woken Furies

“We all get our dreams stamped on from time to time, right? And if it didn’t hurt, what kind of second-rate dreams would they be?” — 26 people liked it

“Kovacs to a female believer in New Revelation: "..I’m calling you a gutless betrayer of your sex. I can see your husband’s angle, he’s a man, he’s got everything to gain from this crapshit. But you? You’ve thrown away centuries of political struggle and scientific advance so you can sit in the dark and mutter your superstitions of unworth to yourself. You’ll let your life, the most precious thing you have, be stolen from you hour by hour and day by day as long as you can eke out the existence your males will let you have. And then, when you finally die, and I hope it’s soon, sister, I really do, then at the last you’ll spite your own potential and shirk the final power we’ve won for ourselves to come back and try again. You’ll do all of this because of your fucking faith, and if that child in your belly is female, then you’ll condemn her to the same fucking thing” — 1 person liked it

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Woken Furies (Takeshi Kovacs #3)

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