Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan

[Babel_17]

“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.”
― Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon

http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/2095852-altered-carbon

I think that quote gives a good sense of what to expect from the novel. I'm nearly 200 pages into it and from nearly the beginning I felt myself becoming very impressed by the talent on display.

It was like reading some of Iain M. Banks' early stuff. The style and flow of The Player of Games comes to mind. Though I'm feeling sentimental about Banks and so might be seeing echoes of him more so than I normally would.

According to Wikipedia's page on Ken MacLeod*, a friend of Banks, "He is part of a group of British science fiction writers who specialise in hard science fiction and space opera. His contemporaries include Stephen Baxter, Iain M. Banks, Alastair Reynolds, Adam Roberts, Charles Stross, Richard Morgan and Liz Williams."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altered_Carbon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_K._Morgan

Huh, he was also the writer of Crysis 2, a big budget video game.

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_MacLeod

[Salviati]

1. The other books in the Taikashi Kovachs series are all pretty awesome as well

They all have slightly different feels to them, but I really enjoyed them all. I haven't been able to get into his new series though. I'll probably give it another go this summer, see if it hits this time.

[Babel_17]

2. Thanks for the heads-up

I'm still not done with Altered Carbon but I have definitely noticed some similar uses of technology between this and what Iain M. Banks used in his later books.

Virtual hells and minds being backed up and then downloaded into new bodies get used by both authors. They make it seems obvious, given the context of their worlds.