Book report: Altered Carbon

TL;Dr: a pretty good murder mystery with too much pew-pew and humpin

I’ve been on a cyber-punk kick lately. Altered Carbon  is apparently in the canon, and I liked the show so I gave it a shot.

I’m a sucker for cyberpunk concepts, this book has a few that it explores well: what would happen if you could transfer your consciousness to another body? What if you could upload it to a virtual world? What if you could live (in one body, or one-body line) continuously? What if you could freeze your consciousness in time… I like how well Mr. Morgan spells these out.

And the murder mystery aspect is compelling. (Spoilers!) What if somebody was trapped into committing suicide – is that murder? What could make somebody do that? What does suicide mean if you can just bring yourself back?

This is all set in the distant future of course. So our hero has future stuff – Envoy training, so they are basically superman (or jack reacher). Plus other embodied goodies (super neruo stuff that make them go fast). Which is basically the crux of the story: our hero is so exceptional that he out exceptions everybody’s expectation. And this gets a bit tired. There’s only so much: “they tried to fight me, but I’m superman” that I can take. Same with the sex scenes – it’s a bit much.

This is also set in the Noir universe – the cops, the mob… It seems pretty familiar.

So overall: B+ – conceptually interesting, compelling story but a little schlocky.

Interestingly, it’s crossed over into a TV show and graphic novels. I liked the TV show quite a bit. The graphic novel I read: a bit less.