Review of Altered Carbon

Takeshi Kovacs, a one-time U.N. diplomat/commando to the far reaches of the colonized worlds, has been forcibly returned to Earth and resleeved in a new body at the behest of the ultra-wealthy Laurens Bancroft because he wants Kovacs to investigate why Bancroft, allegedly, took his own life. This suicidal act is out of character and pointless since, like most other rich elites, Bancroft was simply brought back to life a new body, albeit, without memories of the few hours leading up to his death. Bancroft insists someone murdered him, and he wants to know who and why. Kovacs, doubtful but not having a choice in the matter, effectively becomes a private investigator, delving into the murder. Other powerful people, including Bancroft’s own wife, try to stymie the efforts of Kovacs, never mind the police and the criminal elements of Bay City, who he runs into and angers as soon as his search gets underway. Though he doubts Bancroft’s read on the situation, Kovacs does discover there is a long-reaching conspiracy in which even people like Bancroft are pawns.

Altered Carbon is a cyberpunk neo noir story in the tradition of William Gibson’s Neuromancer. On the whole, it does a solid job of looking into the science-fiction elements—integration of real and digital worlds, artificial intelligence, the ability to be resleeved into new bodies via cortical stacks, and so forth—without getting lost in the technical weeds. Characters with nuts-and-bolts insight provide it, but the first-person point of view with Kovacs means the readers are locked into his level of knowledge and his concerns, which are surprisingly more humanistic if deeply jaded. Kovacs is more of a spiritual successor to characters like Sam Spade and Lew Archer than most science-fiction protagonists. Readers looking for hard science-fiction with deep dives into how the future tech works are not going to find a lot of it here.

Dystopia is implicit in the nature of cyberpunk, and Altered Carbon does not disappoint. Bay City, other parts of the Earth, and beyond the solar system seen through the story reveal a setting that is fractured and where wealth and power is concentrated in the hands of a few individuals and corporations, many of whom have direct ties to illegal enterprises as well as legitimate ones. Despite all the technological advances that have occurred, humans and their failings have remained fundamentally the same. Human society and human life falls far short of any Utopian ideals no matter what solutions tech-optimists are peddling.

Altered Carbon sticks for multiple reasons, not the least of which are the strong fundamental craftwork of the book. The novel has an effective hard-boiled detective story at its foundation, so everything else can be layered on top of it without the whole tale collapsing under its own weight. The technologies play into the characters motivations and the plot, so these elements work together, even for readers who do not focus on the science-fiction aspects of the story. In addition, Kovacs makes for a good protagonist. Skillful, trapped into this job, and world-weary, he is both understandable and compelling, giving the audience a great window into this setting and how it operates in no small part because he is an outsider while also being tied into the organizations and technologies that that shaped human life to the point where it exists.

As with most good science-fiction writing, Altered Carbon is a story not just about the future but also about the present. Its thematic exploration of both increasing wealth inequality and the growing intimacy between digital and real life is enough to make it resonate. Added to this is the look into the commodification and disposability of the human body—most evident in resleeving—can be particularly unsettling. In a time where unbelievably rich individuals talk seriously about living forever and how technology will solve all problems, including the ones it creates, Altered Carbon exposes the hollowness of those ideas. Similarly, as mega corporations rush to patent genes and take other steps to control the lives of individual human beings, they seem much less like businesses than would-be autocracies. Readers might hope this idea is confined to villains in speculative fiction, but Ida Auken’s misguided “You’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy” has been taken as a blueprint by some tech and social leaders. Altered Carbon showcases the many destructive outcomes of a society pushed in that direction. These thematic ideas add depth and weight to the novel.

Altered Carbon is worth reading because, as a novel, it succeeds in so many ways. There is a Netflix adaptation, but it makes so many changes that, aside from basic plot beats, it can feel like a different story. In particular, the Netflix show is different in tone, presenting the future as more like Disney’s Tomorrowland, whereas the novel feels closer to Blade Runner. As is often the case, the book is better than the show. Anyone who enjoys hard-boiled, cyberpunk, and science-fiction stories should read Richard K. Morgan’s Altered Carbon.

Source

Morgan, Richard K. Altered Carbon. Del Rey, 2018.