I just finished Richard K. Morgan's ALTERED CARBON and found it to be one of my most pleasant discoveries. I found it in the "Cyber Punk" section of Powell's Bookstore in Portland Oregon. Because I like Varley, I was intrigued that it utilized memory recording and cloning as an essential element of the story. As it turns out, ALTERED CARBON is as fine a novel as I have ever read, it earns an "unsurpassed" rating. In it you will find a future so fully realized that its dangers feel as real as our own present. It is a dark future, but so inevitable, given the technology, that nothing seems exaggerated, despite the superhero-like abilities of the protagonist. Told in a first-person film-noir style that very quickly makes you empathize with the hero, this is a real thrill ride. Not for the faint of heart. This is the dark side of SF, with both Blade Runner glitz and the grime.
The characters in ALTERED CARBON are some of the most memorable in all of SF. Foremost is Takeshi Kovacs (rhymes with match) the body-jumping private eye that is everybody's worst nightmare when he's on a case that his life depends on, and he has to make it personal. Then there are the Meths like Laurens Bancroft, 300 year old power brokers that think they are above the law, and can prove it. Bancroft is dead, at least his latest body is, and he hires Kovacs to prove he didn't commit suicide. Kristin Ortega is the cop who has a vested interest in the case seeing as how Kovacs is wearing her boyfriend's Ryker's body for the duration of his assignment, while Ryker does time in a virtual slammer. Need I say more? This book has what every Varley fan likes best, and in large doses. Richard K. Morgan, your next favorite author, I guarantee.
