Morgan surfs that wave brilliantly and keeps his balance for the entire duration of ALTERED CARBON. It's playing with fire, because you're always a hair away from falling into cliché but Richard K. Morgan uses conventions and tropes as a way to anchor a complex and challenging story into a layout that's familiar with readers and I thought it's extremely clever. The mystery is rather standard, but the use of cyberpunk elements (such as the technique of sleeving) keeps it from ever going stale. I could give you a dozen reasons why I liked ALTERED CARBON, but at the end of the day, it's just a good book that everyone should appreciate. Most first time novelists make it obvious or overexplain. It's a sign of maturity and confidence that's rare to find in a first novel, to leave the reader interpret the extend of the issues you hint at. Morgan expertly leaves that threat looming, partially though Takeshi Kovacs' relationship to his own sleeve, who everybody used to know on Earth. I'm not saying this necessarily happen in ALTERED CARBON, but author Richard K. Sleeving causes a wide array of issues ranging from the obsolescence of Judeo-Christian values (Christianity is considered a cult in ALTERED CARBON) to the creation of a social cast called the Methuselah, who could potentially inhabit any body and therefore corrupt the fabric of your reality. That said, ALTERED CARBON wouldn't really be a cyberpunk novel without philosophical questions about the human condition.
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