Yuffie's Book Reviews

Altered Carbon - by Richard K. Morgan

Omg so this book, despite having anatomy-transcending sex, is mindblowingly good.

The premise is everyone's souls are stored in a "stack", a tiny container surgically implanted into the base of your neck. So if you die, they can just download you into a different body, aka a "sleeve". The only way you can truly die is if someone blows up your stack. (and it does happen in the book a few times).

This leads to a lot of issues about immortality and having such extended lifespans, the socioeconomic issues that arise from this (only the rich can afford new sleeves, so a lot of poor people just end up in storage for the rest of eternity). There's a heavy psychological burden of having to suddenly wake up in another person's body and interacting with people that body used to know, getting caught up in that sleeve's life. There's a couple heavy scenes with this.

I totally have the biggest crush on the protagonist, Takeshi Kovacs, who is an ex-Envoy (super soldier) of the UN. He's been through several sleeves so he's kind of used to the constant bodyswapping, but even he feels the effects pretty hard at times. This guy is asshole of the century but the most badass dude ever. At one point, he's in an antigrav stealth suit and on a really high dose of a street drug that'll lower his body temp so he can get past the security's heat sensors, but he's high at the same time and he's like, breaking into a super high class whorehouse and outfitted with a shit ton of awesome guns and a knife. xD ahaha.

The writing is so incredibly detailed and dense to the point where I both hate it (because it actually requires me to think hard :P) and love it.

And his hotel is an AI who literally breaks laws for him and slaughters unwanted guests. This book is ridiculous! So instead of the typical computer whiz nerdy sidekick, he's got a freaking hotel! Ha! Best sidekick I have ever seen. He's also the only person staying in the hotel too, while makes it even funnier.

It took me a little while to warm up to Takeshi because he's is so emotionless and almost computerlike and a douche, but that personality is from his super soldier training where they beat the emotion out of him.

The book is written in a noir voice, which makes my head hurt in general, but by the end I was holding my breath as all these Chekov's guns were going off, and Takeshi was doing badass stuff with all his new friends (er... I use that term loosely) and it's so great. Even the gratuitous sex had a solid plot-relevant purpose (to show how good it was so then when she offered him a deal with like several clones of her, you can understand how this is legitimately a tempting offer).

This whole book is so well put-together. I was trying to explain it to my mom and described it as: cyberpunk detective noir scifi action thriller IN SPACE. So hopefully that sells you. :) This is honestly one of the best books I've ever read. Not huge with the philosophy or deeper meaning, but it had a couple moments that made my heart hurt and feel for Takeshi's unique situation. But if you want a high-octane action movie of a book packed with detail and really elaborately layered mystery plot with a huge cast of characters, check this out. This is what really high-quality fiction is, people.

5/5 stars