Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan
01/10/2002 . Source: Geoff Willmetts 

Pub: Gollancz. 534 page paperback. Price: £ 6.99(UK), $ 9.99(CAN). ISBN: 0-57507-390-X.

Buy from Amazon US - Buy from Amazon UK
nb: US titles may only be available from Amazon US, and UK titles from Amazon UK.

Check out website: www.orionbooks.co.uk

This book has been getting a lot of hype in the media press before it landed on my lap. Not only is this a first novel but the rights have been bought up by Joel Silver - the producer behind the 'Matrix' films.

The novel is set in an indeterminate distant future where personalities are placed in different bodies - also called 'sleeves' - as a matter of course depending on your religious belief, whether you could afford it or employed that way.

Being caught after criminal activity risks being deprived of your body and it's musical chairs as to whether you could get the original back after sentence. If you want to visit another planet then your personality can be transferred rather than make any physical trip.

Quite how anyone can keep track of who is who is also one of the problems that isn't delved into in this story. It's a pity that this aspect wasn't addressed a little better than it was here cos it would have raised the SF element higher.

As it is, this turns into a Film Noir/Chandlerisque adventure where the personality of a convicted mercenary ex-soldier (also called an Envoy cos their personalities are changed sufficiently to feel no remorse when they kill) called Takeshi Kovacs is brought to Earth and into a new sleeve to solve the murder of the rich long-lived Laurens Bancroft.

The victim is still alive. His personality was resurrected from an imprint taken two days before the murder but wants to know what drove himself to take such measures.

From here, Kovacs finds himself exploring the criminal underworld in his investigations. He also discovers the personality of the man who originally owned the body until recently was a police detective gone bad and there were a lot of people who wanted to even the score. This is where my comment about knowing who's personality owns what body really should have been addressed even if it would add a hundred pages to the story.

Information is provided at a regular rate with no unexpected McGuffins to get the character out of a jam.

It's a nice premise in allowing a certain amount of limited immortality by body swapping and enough variations allowed to move to a different, clone or even android body depending on what you can afford and when you make back-up copies of your personality.

Providing your memory stack plug in the back of your neck wasn't destroyed, it's a practical form of immortality that you could escape death. It's all taken as matter-of-fact and appears to have gone past the worries of whether you really want to pass on your genetic heritage to the next generation.

On closer examination, you'd have thought there might have been stronger government control or better means in determining just who is actually who.

Still, this novel is bound to find its market and Richard Morgan will no doubt follow this book up with another story set in this reality.

As an SF adventure story, there's plenty in here to keep you turning the pages.

GF Willmetts