Mass Market Paperback, 544 pages
English language
Published Feb. 28, 2006 by Del Rey.
It's the twenty-fifth century, and advances in technology have redefined life itself. A person's consciousness can now be stored in the brain and downloaded into a new body (or "sleeve"), making death nothing more than a minor blip on a screen. Onetime U.N. Envoy Takeshi Kovacs has been killed before, but his last death was particularly painful. Resleeved into a body in Bay City (formerly San Francisco), Kovacs is thrown into the dark heart of a shady, far-reaching conspiracy that is vicious even by the standards of a society that treats existence as something that can be bought and sold. For Kovacs, the shell that blew a hole in his chest was only the beginning.
I really enjoyed this book. An hard-boiled, engaging story which aligns with the themes and the style of its genre, but succeeds at the same time in creating something really unique. Language is simple, straight to the point; explicit at times, but under no circumstances vulgar. A Dense, intricate plot, a crescendo of suspense.
I heard about Altered Carbon in a discussion about real-life respawn. I immediately saved the book to my read list.
What I didn't expect was a book which discussed the subject lightly, while still being a great book and keeping me sticked to it 'till the end.
The book is about a future in which humans devise a method to store the human consciousness in an artefact which is implanted in to the base of the brain. With this, when you die, you could possibily be downloaded to a new body.
Enters Takeshi Kovacs, an Envoy who is hired by a very rich guy who thinks he didn't killed himself, and instead, was murdered.
To anyone who likes the cyberpunk genre, or the philosophical implications of being able to be downloaded to other bodies, a must-read.
