Altered Carbon (Takeshi Kovacs, #1)

by Richard K. Morgan

About two meters tall, he looked as if he’d made his living wrestling swamp panthers before the present career opportunity presented itself.

Women are the race, Tak. No two ways about it. Male is just a mutation with more muscle and half the nerves. Fighting, fucking machines.

Kadmin had freed himself from conventional perceptions of the physical. In an earlier age, he would have been a shaman; here, the centuries of technology had made him more. An electronic demon, a malignant spirit that dwelled in altered carbon and emerged only to possess flesh and wreak havoc.

“You know, Trepp, last time you gave me a hard time about my dress sense, I killed you.” She shrugged. “Goes to show. Some people just can’t take the truth.”