A Long Road: Altered Carbon Book Review

My initial thoughts on Richard Morgan’s Altered Carbon were that the book would be right up my alley. A noir-inspired cyberpunk action story with a hardassed protagonist? What more could I ask for? The book is full of interesting ideas about a futuristic society where death is a temporary condition so long as your stack (a digital file of your personality/memories/soul) is intact. Interstellar travel is accomplished by means of transferring your stack from one body to another body, either a clone or someone else’s body. The concept of decoupling physicality from consciousness creates some refreshingly intriguing story ideas, as well setting up a number of moral quandaries that Morgan deals with, such as sleeping with another man’s girlfriend while inhabiting his body.

The book starts off well, with the main character brought in by a rich Meth (the derogatory name given to the almost immortal super rich who run human civilizations across the galaxy) to solve the Meth’s own murder, which has been classified as a suicide. Kovacs, the main character, becomes embroiled in a much a complicated conspiracy of which the Meth’s death was only a small part.

My main criticism of the book is its pacing. At times, the book moves along with great fluidity but often the plot bogs down in side plots that seem added more for world building purposes than as a natural progression of the main story. The plot moves along in peaks and valleys and I often found myself wishing the author would just get on with it already. The entirety of the pit fighter scenes, as well as the Kadmin/Patchwork man adversary felt extremely forced. Almost 100 pages of the book read like an elaborate, slow yet un-enlightening setup for the final confrontation. The book dragged on so long there were minor characters who ended up playing a major part in the resolution that I just couldn’t remember because it had been so long since I read about them first. A better story editor might have been able to alleviate those problems.

In the end, it was a decent read, though I don’t immediately want to pick up the next book in the series. Fans of noirish cyberpunk will probably enjoy it despite its flaws. I’d give it 3 out of 5 stars.

December 6, 2011 at 6:13 pm | Books | No comment

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