Science fiction meets the hard-boiled detective story in this tale of a future in which humans have moved to other planets and practically conquered death, all by discovering how to download the human personality, memories and perhaps the soul into a microchip that can be transplanted from one body to another (the exact procedure for how this is done is never adequately explained, by the way). Sure, the plot is sometimes a little muddy and disjointed, and sometimes the science is suspect, but the premise is fascinating, and Morgan explores many aspects of it. He introduces us to Meths (short for Methuselahs): emotionless people who have lived hundreds of years in clones of their perpetually young bodies. He shows us the consequences of emerging out of prison, where the punishment is years of suspended animation in cold storage, thrust into a body that is not your own. How much of love is physical or chemical, and how much is mental? Morgan asks. And when death is so meaningless, how much is a life worth?

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This first Takeshi Kovacs novel is, I think, the best so far. (I didn’t like the 2nd at all). It makes a fun read if you like sci-fi and hard-boiled crime with definitely hard-boiled characters and action. Most cyber-punk seems dated by the time it gets into print, but if you take it for what it is, Altered Carbon is a kick.

Since I’m more into SF than noir, it’s not really my thing. Also, a bit too much violence for my tastes.

I’m kind of busy, what with the baby and all, plus learning Scheme, plus learning Spanish, plus practicing the guitar. Nonetheless, I find some time to read this “SF noir.” Although it’s good SF, in a strange way it seems sort of dated, even though it’s only a few years old. I don’t get quite the, “Aha!” feeling I get when reading my favorites like Cory Doctorow, David Brin, or Vernor Vinge. These authors all seem to be part of a long conversation on which I’m eavesdropping.

Vince recommended Richard K. Morgan’s Altered Carbon to me, knowing my love of classic John Varley stories and film noir, and it was a fun read. Morgan has the tone of far-future noir down pat, with an intelligently speculative setting and lots of hard-boiled action. If you enjoy the typical noir antihero - aggressive, haunted, misogynistic - then Takeshi Kovacs should be right up your alley; subversive, this is not. But the choking masculinity effectively evokes the ghosts of Mickey Spillane, of Hammet, of Chandler, and more recently, the graphic fiction of Frank Miller. So! If you’re looking for that kind of literary fix, this may be right up your alley.

Directly afterwards, started reading Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, which in many bizarre ways is exactly the same book (well, at least as far as I’ve gotten in it).