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Anne's Reviews > Altered Carbon
Altered Carbon (Takeshi Kovacs, #1)
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Anne's review
bookshelves: audio, crime, libby-app, noir, read-in-2020, sci-fi, mystery
Sep 15, 2020
bookshelves: audio, crime, libby-app, noir, read-in-2020, sci-fi, mystery
I had no idea this was a book until someone here on Goodreads mentioned it to me.
Now, they mentioned it because they were giving an example of a book that had an annoying amount of sex. And I can now attest after reading this one that, yes, I also could have done without all the juicy scenes.
Honestly, this story just didn't work for me. I thought it was far too long, the plot was really convoluted, the characters were kind of wooden, and the sex scenes were unnecessary. <--not being a prude, they just didn't add anything but length to an already dense book.
The gist is that in the future you are re-sleeved into new bodies of varying quality when you die thanks to a disk thing implanted in your neck that downloads your consciousness. Or if you can't afford to be re-sleeved, you get shelved until...well, until. It's a cool concept and Morgan did a good job exploring the ins and outs of how something like that would work. There's a religious faction that's against resleeving, the new dilemma of death vs real death, and (of course) lots of ways to porn it up with cheap sleeves.
The ideas are very interesting. But. This thing just dragged on and on and on with a resolution that was just so incredibly unsatisfying.
There are a few more books in this series, but I don't really think this is my cuppa, so I'll more than likely stop here.
Now, they mentioned it because they were giving an example of a book that had an annoying amount of sex. And I can now attest after reading this one that, yes, I also could have done without all the juicy scenes.
Honestly, this story just didn't work for me. I thought it was far too long, the plot was really convoluted, the characters were kind of wooden, and the sex scenes were unnecessary. <--not being a prude, they just didn't add anything but length to an already dense book.
The gist is that in the future you are re-sleeved into new bodies of varying quality when you die thanks to a disk thing implanted in your neck that downloads your consciousness. Or if you can't afford to be re-sleeved, you get shelved until...well, until. It's a cool concept and Morgan did a good job exploring the ins and outs of how something like that would work. There's a religious faction that's against resleeving, the new dilemma of death vs real death, and (of course) lots of ways to porn it up with cheap sleeves.
The ideas are very interesting. But. This thing just dragged on and on and on with a resolution that was just so incredibly unsatisfying.
There are a few more books in this series, but I don't really think this is my cuppa, so I'll more than likely stop here.
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Reading Progress
September 4, 2020
–
Started Reading
September 4, 2020
– Shelved
September 15, 2020
–
Finished Reading
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by
Alex
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rated it 4 stars
Sep 15, 2020 04:40AM
It's an interesting world and concept but the stories never match it. If you want keen on this one you're right to leave the others.
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The most interesting part of this trilogy is that you can read book 2 Broken Angels without having to read Altered Carbon. Broken Angel takes place 200 hundred years after Altered Carbon in a completely different part of the galaxy & Takeshi Kovacs is the only reoccurring character in the story which reads like an Ocean's Eleven plot, but in space. I enjoyed it & yes it did have a lot of unnecessary sex scenes.
Alex wrote: "It's an interesting world and concept but the stories never match it. If you want keen on this one you're right to leave the others."Did you read the others?
J. Griff wrote: "The most interesting part of this trilogy is that you can read book 2 Broken Angels without having to read Altered Carbon. Broken Angel takes place 200 hundred years after Altered Carbon in a compl..."Ooooh. So did you think the 2nd book was better? I like heist plots.
Jarod wrote: "Yeah obscene amount of sex scenes that didn't need to be there."They weren't necessarily bad sex scenes. I think I've read enough trashy romance novels to be considered somewhat of an 'expert' in terrible sex scenes. But even so, there was really no need to go into detail like he did with these. They didn't help move the story along, and ultimately didn't matter at all because it was meaningless to the characters.
Anne wrote: "Alex wrote: "It's an interesting world and concept but the stories never match it. If you want keen on this one you're right to leave the others."Did you read the others?"
I've read the 2nd book Broken Angels. The 3rd book Woken Furies is closer in story to Broken Angel than Altered Carbon.
Anne wrote: "Alex wrote: "It's an interesting world and concept but the stories never match it. If you want keen on this one you're right to leave the others."Did you read the others?"
Yeah. Both have good ideas, but like Altered Carbon they have all the problems. You see it as well in the other books he writes; a some good sci-fi concepts, lost in a muddled plot filled with over the top gore, chapter long sex scenes that feel dirty. I liked the idea of Woken Furies, but it never seems to go anywhere.
J. Griff wrote: "Did you read the others?"I've read the 2nd book Broken Angels. The 3rd book Woken Furies is closer in story to Broken Angel than Altered Carbon."
So both are heist plots instead of murder/mysteries? Huh.
Alex wrote: "Yeah. Both have good ideas, but like Altered Carbon they have all the problems. You see it as well in the other books he writes; a some good sci-fi concepts, lost in a muddled plot filled with over the top gore, chapter long sex scenes that feel dirty. I liked the idea of Woken Furies, but it never seems to go anywhere."Haha! I've heard the sex scenes get progressively longer for no apparent reason. There's a lot of missed potential here. Great world-building, but the plot was confusing for all the wrong reasons.
Fantastic review, Anne. I have been reluctant to read this because I've heard it's drawn-out and has stiff characters.
Heh. I just read it and barely remember the sex scenes. Probably because at this point, I've read so many sex scenes that they all blur into a big un-erotic smudge on the page. While I really enjoyed the television series, the book was a slog.
Jen/The Tolkien Gal/ジェニファー wrote: "Fantastic review, Anne. I have been reluctant to read this because I've heard it's drawn-out and has stiff characters."And...yes. Confirmed! It is drawn out and has stiff characters.
P. wrote: "Heh. I just read it and barely remember the sex scenes. Probably because at this point, I've read so many sex scenes that they all blur into a big un-erotic smudge on the page. While I really enjoy..."I didn't pay much attention to them for that very reason. I've got about 2,000,000 trashy romance novels under my belt so nothing here shocked me. I'm not used to reading graphic sex scenes in my sci-fi/mystery/thrillers, though. Aaaaaaand now I know why most authors don't do it. It's so off-putting to have to slog through pebbled nippples when you just want to find out whodunnit.
