Altered Carbon Audiobook By Richard Morgan cover art

Altered Carbon

Altered Carbon, Book 1

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Altered Carbon

By: Richard Morgan
Narrated by: Todd McLaren
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About this listen

Four hundred years from now mankind is strung out across a region of interstellar space inherited from an ancient civilization discovered on Mars. The colonies are linked together by the occasional sublight colony ship voyages and hyperspatial data-casting. Human consciousness is digitally freighted between the stars and downloaded into bodies as a matter of course.

But some things never change. So when ex-envoy, now-convict Takeshi Kovacs has his consciousness and skills downloaded into the body of a nicotine-addicted ex-thug and presented with a catch-22 offer, he really shouldn't be surprised. Contracted by a billionaire to discover who murdered his last body, Kovacs is drawn into a terrifying conspiracy that stretches across known space and to the very top of society. Read by Todd McLaren.

©2003 Richard K Morgan (P)2005 Tantor Media, Inc Hard Science Fiction Science Fiction
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I got the second book too and will probably need the third very soon !

Best sci-fi in years !

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This book had been in my TBR pile for several years and the wait generated quite some expectation. I enjoyed the book but I have to say that I expected more. I want to mention that I didn’t watch the show, so this review is just about the audiobook and I won’t mention anything about the TV show.

Men have perfected the technique of storing human conscience in a very small chip of memory, or stack, how it’s called in the book. This allows rich people to skip from body to body and reach the closest thing to immortality. A body is a commodity, which means, that a cheap and effective way to imprison anyone is just removing the stack from the body and storing it for the required time, which also allows making a profit by renting the body itself, and even using other’s bodies.

Takeshi Kovacs is an envoy from another planet. A special agent turned rogue, he has been imprisoned for many years but his sentence was just paused to provide his services to a very rich man on Earth, and maybe gain a pardon if things go well.

What I expected to be a technothriller was in fact a noir cyberpunk tale. It was good, just not exactly what I expected. The book is clearly written for a male public by a male writer with a male main character, with plenty of boring and unplausible sex scenes, and a female nemesis that is tempting and dangerous in equal measure. All this made the story a bit difficult to digest at times and it made it feel a bit outdated.

The world-building was great and I liked the idea of cheap synthetic bodies for the ones that couldn’t recover their own. I could have done with a synthetic myself to avoid allergies and other health ailments, but I digress. At least, if the book made me think about some of the core concepts, it means the world-building was well done.

The story was interesting and complex, and the more I knew about the story, the more intrigued I was. The character development was not as good though, and this might partially be why I liked the book but I didn’t love it. It was difficult to connect to the characters and feel some empathy towards them. I didn’t care much about Kovacs, probably due to how he was written.

Todd McLaren’s narration style went well with the noir atmosphere but it didn’t exactly enhance the story, or at least, helped to hook the listener. I found his narration a bit dull with not so great sound quality. It was okay, but I would have preferred a more polished narration. The character’s voices sounded all quite similar, male and female, except’s Kovacs, who had a different voice.

Not what I expected

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If you are a patient listener, are good at remembering names, and like sci-fi this is a book for you!
Voicing might seem a little dull at times, but actually the choice of voicing gives the book it's own charm.
For me the 3/5 is a good solid score, that is entertaining above average, but still lacks a little in voice acting. The books biggest difficulty are the many characters you are introduces to, after hearing all the book, I got them correct placed, but it confused me a lot in the first 75% of the book.

Slow starting book with an action packed ending

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Sound is really bad on this one. Especially voice acting part between characters.. Very muffled.

Overall a good cyberpunk story, very different from the tv show.

Sex scenes were too long and pornographic for my taste. I mean... Nearly 20 minutes at one point.

Sound is pretty bad on this one.

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Lots of interesting ideas. But the sex was awkward: it felt shoehorned in to make the story "more adult." It was mechanical and out of place.

Unlike a lot of the other ideas, the sex wasn't really used: yes, our digital soul is at the mercy of our base physical body. And sometimes the body makes demands of its own. (I understand.) This just wasn't followed-through sufficiently.

The made-for-TV version missed some cool extra details and twists. But it also added some. The characterization of the hotel-AI, for example, is better on screen than in the book. So is the history of the Envoys.

The narration is awkward at times. There are gaps between speakers in conversations that feel overly long. Sometimes I even wondered if my phone had crashed. If the intent was to make the listener wonder if the narrator/MC was a "synth," Bladerunner did it better.

I'm not going to continue with this series. Nor will I seek out the narrator. But I will continue to explore the author's other works. (I liked the series that starts with The Steel Remains: very adult, but fantasy rather than sci-fi.)

Watch the TV show instead

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I own all five of his books, in print, audio & video.
Thank God for Morgan, the sci-fi/CyberPunk futures he gives you in his works maybe a glimpse of what we have in store in the coming years.
Morgan is one of my favourite writers, he has taken the time to flesh out his characters and Takeshi Kovac is a creation like no other, a one time U.N. Envoy, Merc for hire, general Hard-Man and problem solver.
Morgan writes full fuelled boys own rip your fucking head off stories, in worlds created and as fully populated as you can witness out your own front door.
His works are dense, considered, controlled and as clear as mud but once you get hooked you just go with it
Be warned but he is addictive.

Thank God for RK Morgan A CyberPunkFuturist.

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Watched the TV show prior to listening to the book. Book is probably better but show is great too. Excellent reading by Todd. Would definitely be recommending this to my friends.

Wild ride

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Ultra Violentce, Superbly Original Technology & Primal Sex. With every other human emotion & state of mind woven in to a Hurricane paced plot that blows your mind. Leaving you with one last thought, "I Fucking need to download book 2 NOW".... I pity anyone who trys to stop you !

Spews Translucent Rawness.

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Read it first over 10 years ago. This is my first Audible book. Story new again, better than ever! I feel great!

Good fot a lifetime

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I don't know whether it was misreading or some typos in the original source material, but the narrator says "yazuka" once, before saying the correct "yakuza" later in the book. Near the end he also says "casual link" where only "causal link" would make sense in the context. I found these mistakes distracting from an otherwise compelling story and voice performance.

Great audiobook, some distracting mistakes

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