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Altered Carbon - Richard K. Morgan
Our Department Chair noticed my interest in sci-fi novels, and recommended two books to me, including Altered Carbon, which turned out to be drop-dead amazing. AC is set in a future where the technology to download a person's mind and personality into a "cortical stack" at the base of the brain, and transfer this chip between physical bodies (or "sleeves"), has extended life for most, and made immortality possible for the few who can afford continual re-sleeving and personality back-ups. These immortals, or "meths," are hundreds of years old, and are hated by the general populace for their cold and detached attitude toward morality. Just Takeshi Kovacs' luck, therefore, to awake from storage and find he has been re-sleeved at meth Laurens Bancroft's expense, with an ultimatum for a contract - solve the mystery of Bancroft's apparent suicide, or be returned to the shelf.
I read Rudy Rucker's Software not long ago, so Morgan's elaboration of the consciousness-divorced-from-physicality concept was a nice "sequel." I was especially intrigued by his portrayal of the ugly consequences of wealth inequality, in a world where the technology of immortality is largely limited to the economic elite. (Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy also fruitfully explores this issue.)
I will definitely be checking out the other Takeshi Kovacs novels!
I am also fascinated by this topic of separation of mind and body, so I immediately went to the library page to reserve Altered Carbon and found, fittingly, that it's only available as an eBook. So I need to install a hoopla app so I can download to my Kindle....but I first need to charge up my Kindle because I never use it and it died to spite me. In a few days I may be able to latch on to this book!
ReplyDeleteJust finished reading this - Like you, I thought it was a great sequel to Software and a very entertaining read altogether. And, amusingly, the book embodied itself, in that it seemed to me like a police procedural that had been inserted into a new sleeve - a very futuristic SF body. Nice recommendation - thanks!!
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