Altered Carbon

The Book in 1 Sentence

A true dystopian where the idea that 5 people run the world is more accurate to be 5 people run the galaxy.

Brief Review

Altered Carbon is what you want in a Cyberpunk novel and the world created is so well presented, I wish that CDProjektRed had used this as their template rather than the CyberPunk RPG. The characters make for a well loved world and the story makes sense, with one very notable exception.

Why I Read this book

So the series came out when I was working at the White House and I listen to this for the first time then. I recently replayed CyberPunk and wanted to relisten to this to see if my opinions changed.

In-Depth Review (Favorite Quotes)

This is a solid book. I think the idea of a, we will call it this, special forces member trying to find their way after the end of their time in the military in a world where their time was basically just to quell political dissidents. The history sprinkled in for the characters and how they are woven back and forth with new details presented as the story goes in is masterful.

I really enjoy the idea of someone not believing they killed themselves because they have 300+ years of knowledge to know they wouldn't do that. With that, the idea of just a intuition presenting and playing a Sherlock Holmes type mentality really makes this a great Noir type book, which I am not sure it was meant to be.

There is a LOT of language and sex and I think that is meant to be a norm in the life there as well as kind of the norm in the life we have now if you look advertising and just the junk that our politicians, celebrities, and business moguls can find themselves in.

I also think the introduction of new technology and the fighting styles that go with it are really interesting. The idea that your mind is saved to a disk and that can be extracted to move you is a crazy, but somewhat cool idea.

Book vs. TV show

The show was cancelled after the second season which up until that time was season for book. Altered Carbon is Season 1 and so on. Having watched the first season and read this book, I think the TV show really does the book some solid justice and helps to provide a more concise character web than you get in the book until the VERY end. There are some nice changes to the TV show that make sense for it and I would highly recommend it. I also just really like the pink backpack that he puts the guns and drugs in. Just super funny.

Rating

An 8 that had the potential for so much more if they had chosen a different character that Kovatch recued. The story is will written and introduces a lot of deep lore throughout the book. It is worth the read for sure.