Altered Carbon

[sqbr]

Yesterday afternoon I decided to take a break from the big pile o' library books to read "Altered Carbon" by Richard Morgan, one of the Swancon guests.
Last night at midnight, I finished it (and then had insomnia for unrelated reasons). As a result I am So Sleepy so this is just rambly thoughts.

Like "Devil in a Blue Dress" it's quite good noir, but more of the cyberpunk end (without the shallow flashyness of a lot of cyberpunk), which is more my genre. I really liked it, though as warned it's quite violent, has some somewhat skeevy attitudes towards women, and amazingly bad sex scenes. Someone needs to tell him the word "globes" is not sexy.

As with Iain M Banks I was not convinced by the attempts to undercut the intense straight-guy-ness in this seemingly gender-equal far future with stuff like vague references to gay/male prostitutes we never meet. For example, every single woman is hot, and a disproportionate number want to sleep with the main character. On the plus side he actually gets put in a female body for a while and seems less upset at it (in principle) than he was earlier at being put in a caucasian one(*), but then there were some creepy comments about the way women "feel touch differently to men". I guess if you're going to write all your female characters kind of the same you could do worse than making them all sensible, competent, and driven.

The world building was great, not mind bogglingly inventive but not in-your-face-expositiony either, just there as a believable and effective backdrop. Good mystery too, thus the up-till-midnight reading :)

I find myself interested in more of this world and this character, I'll have to go hunt some down and then horribly torture them and torch off their heads.

(*)The main character is ethnically japanese/eastern european, something which I felt was dealt with pretty well

Comments

[tommmo.livejournal.com]

Your thoughts on the book mirror my own almost exactly. Great concept, nice sense of bleak noir and tense pacing and a cool, involving mystery. A lot of the characterisation was sus, though, and the treatment of female characters extremely dodgy.

The good aspects were good enough that I enjoyed it overall, though.

[bunny-m.livejournal.com]

Note: all three of the Takeshi Kovacs novels are very different in style.

Altered Carbon is very firmly cyberpunk/film noir, Broken Angels is more sorta-SF-War/first contact-ish, and Woken Furies is a very interesting homecoming/revolution/sociology novel.

They continue to be quite violent, although not to the level that his latest two books, Black Man (Thirteen in the US,) and The Steel Remains. Those two, especially ..Steel.. are not for the squeamish.

Someone needs to tell him the word "globes" is not sexy.

So do so. You'll be at this year's Swancon, yes? I don't remember the sex scenes being especially bad, but then I tend to skim over sex scenes in all books 'cause they just don't interest me. *shrug*

[alias_sqbr]

Oh yes, me too. And apparently this is one of his weaker (and less gory!) books.

[alias_sqbr]

ha! Given that two things which are guaranteed to make me embarrassed are talking (a) to authors I like or (b) about sex I'd get to "Hello Mr Morgan" and then burst into giggles and run away :)

[rydra_wong]

*wanders by*

FWIW, I had a very similar reaction to the overwhelming straight guy machismo, and didn't bother checking out subsequent books, because eh, just not my thing.

But I picked up a copy of The Steel Remains (after being charmed by a column wherein Morgan laid the smackdown on fanboys freaking out about the protagonist being gay), and was genuinely pretty impressed.

It does make Altered Carbon look positively fluffy, but OTOH I recall the sex scenes as being relatively globe-free.

[alias_sqbr]

I have heard that this is very much a first novel and he gets a lot better. And more violent :)

A fantasy novel with a gay protagonist sounds really interesting, as with noir there's so many tropes of the genre which assume a straight male protagonist. (Reading these last two noir books I kept wondering if there are any with gay male/straight female protagonists and how they characterise their women)

Also, did you come here via pingbacks? I don't remember linking to you recently so maybe not. I'm curious to see how they change the flow of lj communication.

[stephbg.livejournal.com]

It's my favourite so I consider it the strongest :-)

And yes, the violence, testosterone and sex keep on keeping on in the others. It's easy to get distracted by all that, but the quality of the writing is actually pretty good. I found they all improved on the second reading.

[stephbg.livejournal.com]

Ooh, can I watch?

I'm pretty keen to see how RM mixes it up with the sisterhood at Swancon. Just because he writes a certain way doesn't make him necessarily that way inclined in person. I've met some pretty shy and fluffy horror writers :-)

[rydra_wong]

Also, did you come here via pingbacks?

Nope, through surfing the 50books_poc friendslist *g*.

A fantasy novel with a gay protagonist sounds really interesting

Yes! Particularly since it's gritty violent macho swordpunk rather than the Mercedes Lackey brand of fantasy.

And in fact, there's also a lesbian main character (who is marvellous -- she's a brilliant druggie half-alien engineer and scholar who kills people with knives. A lot). Needless to say, though, it's the gay male protagonist who got the fanboys panicking.

[alias_sqbr]

Oh, yes, and at least from what I've seen his writing isn't so incredibly misogynistic that I'd expect him to be very bad personally anyway.

[alias_sqbr]

hah, yes, I can imagine, after seeing the way they react to slash :)

[tommmo.livejournal.com]

Your thoughts on the book mirror my own almost exactly. Great concept, nice sense of bleak noir and tense pacing and a cool, involving mystery. A lot of the characterisation was sus, though, and the treatment of female characters extremely dodgy.

The good aspects were good enough that I enjoyed it overall, though.

[bunny-m.livejournal.com]

Note: all three of the Takeshi Kovacs novels are very different in style.

Altered Carbon is very firmly cyberpunk/film noir, Broken Angels is more sorta-SF-War/first contact-ish, and Woken Furies is a very interesting homecoming/revolution/sociology novel.

They continue to be quite violent, although not to the level that his latest two books, Black Man (Thirteen in the US,) and The Steel Remains. Those two, especially ..Steel.. are not for the squeamish.

Someone needs to tell him the word "globes" is not sexy.

So do so. You'll be at this year's Swancon, yes? I don't remember the sex scenes being especially bad, but then I tend to skim over sex scenes in all books 'cause they just don't interest me. *shrug*

[alias_sqbr]

Oh yes, me too. And apparently this is one of his weaker (and less gory!) books.

[alias_sqbr]

ha! Given that two things which are guaranteed to make me embarrassed are talking (a) to authors I like or (b) about sex I'd get to "Hello Mr Morgan" and then burst into giggles and run away :)

[rydra_wong]

*wanders by*

FWIW, I had a very similar reaction to the overwhelming straight guy machismo, and didn't bother checking out subsequent books, because eh, just not my thing.

But I picked up a copy of The Steel Remains (after being charmed by a column wherein Morgan laid the smackdown on fanboys freaking out about the protagonist being gay), and was genuinely pretty impressed.

It does make Altered Carbon look positively fluffy, but OTOH I recall the sex scenes as being relatively globe-free.

[alias_sqbr]

I have heard that this is very much a first novel and he gets a lot better. And more violent :)

A fantasy novel with a gay protagonist sounds really interesting, as with noir there's so many tropes of the genre which assume a straight male protagonist. (Reading these last two noir books I kept wondering if there are any with gay male/straight female protagonists and how they characterise their women)

Also, did you come here via pingbacks? I don't remember linking to you recently so maybe not. I'm curious to see how they change the flow of lj communication.

[stephbg.livejournal.com]

It's my favourite so I consider it the strongest :-)

And yes, the violence, testosterone and sex keep on keeping on in the others. It's easy to get distracted by all that, but the quality of the writing is actually pretty good. I found they all improved on the second reading.

[stephbg.livejournal.com]

Ooh, can I watch?

I'm pretty keen to see how RM mixes it up with the sisterhood at Swancon. Just because he writes a certain way doesn't make him necessarily that way inclined in person. I've met some pretty shy and fluffy horror writers :-)

[rydra_wong]

Also, did you come here via pingbacks?

Nope, through surfing the 50books_poc friendslist *g*.

A fantasy novel with a gay protagonist sounds really interesting

Yes! Particularly since it's gritty violent macho swordpunk rather than the Mercedes Lackey brand of fantasy.

And in fact, there's also a lesbian main character (who is marvellous -- she's a brilliant druggie half-alien engineer and scholar who kills people with knives. A lot). Needless to say, though, it's the gay male protagonist who got the fanboys panicking.

[alias_sqbr]

Oh, yes, and at least from what I've seen his writing isn't so incredibly misogynistic that I'd expect him to be very bad personally anyway.

[alias_sqbr]

hah, yes, I can imagine, after seeing the way they react to slash :)