I just finished reading Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan. Has anyone here read the sequel? Is it worth reading? What is it called? Anyone who knows these things or wants to discuss downloadable souls and interchangeable identitys please post

A friend actually pressed that book into my hands a few weeks ago and told me to read it. Not managed it yet, but I'll get around to it a week or two.

He's also read his next two books and says the second one is good but not as good as Altered Carbon, and he was very disappointed by the third. I can't remember the titles I'm afraid.

The second Richard K. Morgan novel to feature the adventures of Takeshi Kovacs is BROKEN ANGELS. In this outing Kovacs is a mercenery for hire on a treasure hunt for a ancient alien spacecraft on Mars.

As much as I greatly enjoyed both Morgan's writing style and his anti-hero of Takeshi Kovacs, I did not enjoy this one nearly as I had ALTERED CARBON.Others may disagree, just my own opinion.

MARKET FORCES is Morgan's third and most recent novel. It however does not feature as the previous two did, Kovacs or tradedable bodies theme. Its setting is the near future and world finance and the 'warriors' who battle to ensure their companies and personal successes. I highly recommend this one. Richard Morgan even includes a sly refernce to his other two novels in this one.

2005 is to bring another another Kovacs outing.

Thanks to those who posted.

Denver, You will probably enjoy Altered Carbon. I know i did. The only thing that took getting used to was the new technology concepts, but that is generally true for any good sci fi book.

I got to go to the San Diego Comic-Con this weekend and was happy to attend a spotlight session with Richard Morgan. He was much cooler and funnier than I thought he would be and he let slip a few things about what he's working on in the future:
Woken Furies, his third (and for the time being) final Kovacs novel is coming out at the end of September. Also, he's working on a trilogy of what he described as noirish fantasy novels as well as a stand alone futuristic novel a la Market Forces.
I didn't really dig Market Forces too much, but I enjoyed Altered Carbon and Broken Angels was one of the few novels that made me feel uncomfortable and somewhat offended (in the best possible sense of the word) by the violence; something that hasn't happened since I read Frank Miller's Sin City.
I guess he's pretty prolific.
Also, for all those other aspiring writers, he let it drop that Altered Carbon took 14 years to publish.

I'm 80 pages into Altered Carbon, and I wanna know, is Broken Angels good? Grapevine says no, but I have to wonder how much of that comes from unrealistic expectations.

Altered Carbon is good, but not in the same class as the inevitable touchstones, William Gibson and Raymond Chandler. So I'm not overawed or expecting earth-shattering brilliance from Broken Angels.

quote:

is Broken Angels good? Grapevine says no, but I have to wonder how much of that comes from unrealistic expectations.

I kind of go back and forth on which one I like more. Altered Carbon is pretty much a hybrid (like you said, Zoneseek) of Chandler and Gibson; a fast-paced, cyberpunkish detective story. Broken Angels has more of a mixture of horror and military feel to it -- not too much mystery. It's cool because Kovacs is plucked from one sub-genre and drops him into another. However, Broken Angels is much darker than Altered Carbon -- it feels like the setting, images, and violence come with much more of a sting. It did seem like it took Broken Angels longer to get started, but I'd say it's on par with Altered Carbon as far as writing style, plot, etc., though it's definitely more of a downer. Hope that helps.

Read a few pages of Broken Angels, bought it. This is one of the rare times when I actually have a to-read pile.

Both Altered Carbon and Broken Angels have forty-two chapters. Hoopy! Unlikely coincidence, or subtle Hitchhiker reference?

I do dislike Morgan's. Use of. Sentence fragments. Simpler to use conventional dashes or ellipses to convey the cadence of speech. Gibson uses fragments, but that's mostly description, and he's much better at it.

People who like AC and BA should also try Peter F Hamilton and Alastair Reynolds.

AC was good, but this sort of sf noir been done before. BA took a different direction, but it didn't feel like a unified effect, there's the archeology dig, the mercenary adventure, the anti-war theme.

Great names though: Sutjiadi, Techakriengkrai, Dhasanapongsakul, and the excellent Quellcrist Falconer.

Dang! Market Forces has forty-eight chapters.

*bump*

I liked Altered Carbon because it mixes fanfiction homage with a big dose of violence and sex, and still reads quickly. Broken Angels keeps the mix, but rather than fresh faced it gets cynical and reflective. Still a good mix. Woken Furies gives the impression Morgan is as tired of Kovacs as Kovacs is of himself, but it suits perfectly the tale. I got the last two as Hardcovers, which means I was looking forward to them (though Woken Furies was 50% off).

I disliked both the premise and the characters in Market Forces, and the sex and violence get repetitive after four novels. J. Courtenay Grimwood suffers from a similar problem, but at least he tries to inject some variety...

So I will probably get both Black Man and Thirteen, his latest two works, as paperbacks. Shelf space is limited.

hey psycho, watch out - thirteen and black man are the same novel! black man is the UK edition, thirteen is the US. i'd guess the differences come from the ambiguous nature of the UK title - something i'm trying to work out myself.

i picked up black man when it came out here, money off so it was £10.99 hardback, and signed, i had got the previous editions in £9.99 paperback, so seemed reasonable. started it a couple nights ago, i'm getting a blade runner vibe - genetically modified humans from mars trips, being used to track renegade 13s. not very far into it yet, so not sure what i'm going to make of it.

going back. altered carbon was nice. its influences were clear, it had some weaknesses, but was good at what it was.

broken angels worked well, it was a sequel, but it turned things about, it didn't tread the exact same territory again.

market forces brought more emphasis to the violence in morgan's work, something i'm not entirely comfortable with. it had some good ideas, there were thing to appreciate, but i guess its his least satisfying.

i guess i agree with the idea that morgan was tired of kovacs in woken furies. for me it was a bit of a parody of his previous novels, cranking up to just lots of violence, token gesture towards the politics of the previous work, without really getting much more out of the martian aspect.

which does kind of leave the question, why didn't i wait for the paperback of the new one? because i'm an impulsive idiot i guess.

That shows how little interest I have devoted to Morgan lately.

I finally read this last month, on a long train journey (by UK standards anyway). I'd misplaced it, and only remembered recently.

It was a good read. I like cyberpunk and noir detective stories anyway, so it worked for me. Reminded me somewhat of Walter John William's Voice of the Whirlwind.

There were some very nice ideas, I think I'd personally have liked a bit more on the differences between bodies and how this affects the sense of self. That was certainly touched on, but never for long. It was more about the action, really. A decent read though.