Altered Carbon - Takeshi Kovacs #1 review
“The personal, as everyone’s so fucking fond of saying, is political. So if some idiot politician, some power player, tries to execute policies that harm you or those you care about, take it personally. Get angry. The Machinery of Justice will not serve you here – it is slow and cold, and it is theirs, hardware and soft-. Only the little people suffer at the hands of Justice; the creatures of power slide from under it with a wink and a grin. If you want justice, you will have to claw it from them. Make it personal. Do as much damage as you can. Get your message across. That way, you stand a better chance of being taken seriously next time. Of being considered dangerous. And make no mistake about this: being taken seriously, being considered dangerous marks the difference - the only difference in their eyes - between players and little people. Players they will make deals with. Little people they liquidate. And time and again they cream your liquidation, your displacement, your torture and brutal execution with the ultimate insult that it’s just business, it’s politics, it’s the way of the world, it’s a tough life and that it’s nothing personal. Well, fuck them. Make it personal.”
"Quellcrist Falconer
Things I Should Have Learnt by Now
Volume II”
This review will have more quotes than the profile of a girl that wants to show how deep she is on facebook! Believe me I have quotes, I have all the quotes, I have the best quotes!
One word : brilliant! The first of a trilogy written by Richard K. Morgan, this book has that "real feel" that you find so rarely. It's to be treasured like a beautiful sunset, or summiting a hard mountain for the first time, or undoing a girl’s bra with one hand - a rare and beautiful event that does not repeat itself. Indeed if I could forget a book only to be able to read it again this would be one of the books that I would choose.
I am biased, as I have a heavy skew towards sci-fi noir books. There's just something about a hardass detective(woman or man) that gives me a raging literary boner(TMI?).
Noir is usually a style that has some pretty well defined rules in my mind:
1) Choose a Dame with a Past and a Hero with No Future. Hero must be obsessed with the Dame. Hero does not have to meet the Dame, he is in love or obsessed with an idea, not a real person.
2) Hero must have at least one scene in which he gets ready for a fight. I see it similar to how the samurais prepared for war. The author had better spend some serious time polishing this scene, as it's one of those pivotal moments.
3) Hero gets beat up but he just does not care because he is that cool.
4) Hero goes on a rampage. This is where the author needs to shine! This is the one moment on which the book hinges. If the author doesn't make you hate the bad guys and enjoy every moment of this part he does not know what he is doing! This is the culminating point of the justice porn err noir sci-fi book.
The protagonist does not have all the answers. I like that, I don't quite trust the ones that do. Humanity holds the outer worlds in its grasp using the Envoys - specially conditioned super-soldiers. The special conditioning is only available for the soldiers, making them more and less human at the same time. The Hero, Takeshi Kovacs is a former soldier hired by a Billionaire to see why he committed suicide.
“You live that long, things start happening to you. You get too impressed with yourself. Ends up, you think you’re God. Suddenly the little people, thirty, maybe forty years old, well, they don’t really matter anymore. You’ve seen whole societies rise and fall, and you start to feel you’re standing outside it all, and none of it really matters to you. And maybe you’ll start snuffing those little people, just like picking daisies, if they get under your feet.”
The book is full of awesome quotes. I actually have to stop myself from posting more.
I love that the author uses sci-fi in this book only to create the premise and to help the story. It does not feel forced or contrived in any way.
Do not read if you are not a fan of senseless violence and justice porn. So basically if you don’t like the noir genre. Also, the book might be a little long and it's not hard sci-fi so the technology is not really explained. It kind of appears when there's a need for it.
Update:
There's a 10 episode series coming from Netflix with a huge budge - 6 million per episode. The trailer is all kinds of amazing and if they make the series half as good as the book it's gonna be amazing!
Watch the trailer here!
Pros:
- Great writing
- Dark atmosphere
- Great mix of sci-fi and noir
Cons:
- The Hendrix - the hotel AI is one part that felt a little forced
- A bit long
Score: 8 out of 10
"Quellcrist Falconer
Things I Should Have Learnt by Now
Volume II”
This review will have more quotes than the profile of a girl that wants to show how deep she is on facebook! Believe me I have quotes, I have all the quotes, I have the best quotes!
One word : brilliant! The first of a trilogy written by Richard K. Morgan, this book has that "real feel" that you find so rarely. It's to be treasured like a beautiful sunset, or summiting a hard mountain for the first time, or undoing a girl’s bra with one hand - a rare and beautiful event that does not repeat itself. Indeed if I could forget a book only to be able to read it again this would be one of the books that I would choose.
I am biased, as I have a heavy skew towards sci-fi noir books. There's just something about a hardass detective(woman or man) that gives me a raging literary boner(TMI?).
Noir is usually a style that has some pretty well defined rules in my mind:
1) Choose a Dame with a Past and a Hero with No Future. Hero must be obsessed with the Dame. Hero does not have to meet the Dame, he is in love or obsessed with an idea, not a real person.
2) Hero must have at least one scene in which he gets ready for a fight. I see it similar to how the samurais prepared for war. The author had better spend some serious time polishing this scene, as it's one of those pivotal moments.
3) Hero gets beat up but he just does not care because he is that cool.
4) Hero goes on a rampage. This is where the author needs to shine! This is the one moment on which the book hinges. If the author doesn't make you hate the bad guys and enjoy every moment of this part he does not know what he is doing! This is the culminating point of the justice porn err noir sci-fi book.
The protagonist does not have all the answers. I like that, I don't quite trust the ones that do. Humanity holds the outer worlds in its grasp using the Envoys - specially conditioned super-soldiers. The special conditioning is only available for the soldiers, making them more and less human at the same time. The Hero, Takeshi Kovacs is a former soldier hired by a Billionaire to see why he committed suicide.
“You live that long, things start happening to you. You get too impressed with yourself. Ends up, you think you’re God. Suddenly the little people, thirty, maybe forty years old, well, they don’t really matter anymore. You’ve seen whole societies rise and fall, and you start to feel you’re standing outside it all, and none of it really matters to you. And maybe you’ll start snuffing those little people, just like picking daisies, if they get under your feet.”
The book is full of awesome quotes. I actually have to stop myself from posting more.
I love that the author uses sci-fi in this book only to create the premise and to help the story. It does not feel forced or contrived in any way.
Do not read if you are not a fan of senseless violence and justice porn. So basically if you don’t like the noir genre. Also, the book might be a little long and it's not hard sci-fi so the technology is not really explained. It kind of appears when there's a need for it.
Update:
There's a 10 episode series coming from Netflix with a huge budge - 6 million per episode. The trailer is all kinds of amazing and if they make the series half as good as the book it's gonna be amazing!
Watch the trailer here!
Pros:
- Great writing
- Dark atmosphere
- Great mix of sci-fi and noir
Cons:
- The Hendrix - the hotel AI is one part that felt a little forced
- A bit long
Score: 8 out of 10
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