Altered Carbon

In the twenty fifth century, mankind has spread out across the galaxy.  In part, this is thanks to the technological advance of the cortical stack, a small storage device implanted in the brain stem of every human born which allows one to backup his/her mind and personality.  The “stack” also allows stored minds to be swapped between bodies, a process called “sleeving.”  For those who can afford it, virtual immortality is possible as, when you die, your mind is simply re-sleeved into a new (or used) body.  Criminals are no longer contained in prisons and jails, but “put on the stack” as their minds are imprisoned, some for hundreds of years, while their original bodies may be sold or leased out.  The advance of “needlecasting,” or transmitting, minds and personalities as signals across space allowed unmanned drones with vat-grown, bodies to traverse the interstellar gulf, and the minds of the colonists were sleeved into these bodies once the human craft landed.

Of course, all is not tranquil and serene on the protectorate worlds, and wars, mass slaughter, and political intrigue abound.  Finding armies to be unwieldy things at times, the UN commissioned a new force called the Envoys: specially trained commando units who also act as diplomats and investigators when needed, they are the spiked tip of the UN’s big stick policy.  Takeshi Kovacs (pronounced something closer to “Kovash” than “Kovaks”) is a former Envoy turned criminal, which seems to be a fairly common occurrence among the borderline-psychopaths recruited to be Envoys.  Killed by police on his home planet of Harlan’s World, Kovacs awakens to find himself re-sleeved on Earth, and hired by the the rich and powerful (and, since he can afford frequent re-sleeving, the very long-lived) Laurens Bancroft to solve a murder, Bancroft’s own murder in fact.  Convinced, despite a police investigation turning up no evidence, that he did not try to kill himself by blowing off his own head, Bancroft hires Kovacs to find out what happened in the missing hours between his last backup and his most-recent death.  Well, hired is a nice term for extort, given that Kovacs really only has a choice between working for Bancroft or going back into virtual prison.

What follows is a fairly typical hardboiled detective story, with hidden motives, dangerous women, corrupt cops, plenty of disreputable characters, and lots of intrigue.  It is, however, a hard-boiled detective story with some intriguing premises and settings.  It is on an Earth that is at once familiar but startlingly different given how stacks, sleeving, AI, and other technological advances have changed everyday life and culture.  While the hardboiled detective story at the book’s heart doesn’t feel all that new, overall Altered Carbon is an entertaining read with intriguing speculation on post-human technology.

Hardboiled SF: What Altered Carbon Does Well

The premise of the stacks and sleeving are what really attracted me to this book, and they are borne out in the prose and the overall plot in very satisfying ways: the awkwardness Kovacs feels at being sleeved in a new body, the uncanniness surrounding the rich and powerful who have been around for centuries but look young and vital, the heartbreak at seeing a loved-one’s original body being used as a sleeve for someone else.  The book thankfully toys with the dividing line between one’s mind and one’s sleeve, as certain desires, habits, and predelictions are not just within the mind but become hardwired in the body as well.  For instance, Kovacs, who wants to quit smoking, is re-sleeved into the body of a heavy smoker, and struggles mightily with the urge to light up that has become as natural a part of this sleeve as breathing thanks to its original occupant.  One wouldn’t think that such a thing would matter in this world, but given that re-sleeving isn’t cost-friendly to everyone and that it is still possible to experience real death if someone blows out your stack, mortality isn’t as trifling a thing as one would expect in this world.  The morality of it is explored as well, as a frequent theme in the book is how Catholics reject the idea that a re-sleeved human is really the same person, the same soul.  This theme is actually an important plot element in several places.

Kovacs is a good narrator in a couple of ways (and a bad one in ways I will discuss in the next section).  First, he is new to Earth and Earth’s cultures.  Growing up on a world that was built with by Japanese corporations with eastern-Europoean labor, Kovacs is the product of an interesting ethnic and cultural mixing.  He frequently has to figure out local slang or customs, and pines for the familiar culture of his home world.  Through him we not only get a glimpse of what life on the outer colonies is like, but a suitable mediator for our experience with future Earth as well since his unfamiliarity with the locale and it’s conventions mirrors our own, so things are just as new to him as they are to us.  Indeed, he’s even unfamiliar with this new body as he’s not used to being sleeved in a Caucasian.  Second, Kovacs comes across as arrogant and stubborn, using the myths and whispers about the badass Envoys to his advantage whenever he can.  This story is told in first-person through Kovacs, and he is an unreliable narrator in that he is very subjective and prideful.  He’s kind of an asshole: you probably wouldn’t want to meet him, but it’s fun to watch how he (mis)treats others.

There is plenty of action and some cool weapons for the adrenaline junkies, and some well-described settings to tickle the fancy of both cyberpunk fans and fans of the hardboiled detective novel: from the ostentatious grandeur of the estates of the rich to the oppressive and dangerous gloom of the streets at night.  It’s exactly what you could want from a book proudly wearing the label of “Hardboiled SF.”

Download Errors: Where Altered Carbon Could Have Been Better

Kovacs just wasn’t very endearing.  Of course, being kind of an asshole you wouldn’t expect him to be, but jerkwad protagonists can be endearing not in a I-want-to-have-a-beer-with-him kind of way, but in the anti-hero sort of way, the same way Phillip Marlowe and Sam Spade can be.  Sam Spade and Phillip Marlowe definitely show signs of selfishness, stubbornness, and douchebaggery at times, and Kovacs is cut from some of the same cloth.  I just never got invested in Kovacs that much, however.  Perhaps it’s the effect of reading so much of The Dresden Files.  Those books take many of their plot elements and the characterization of their protagonist, Harry Dresden, straight from hardboiled detective fiction, but Dresden is sympathetic and I can root for him, whereas Kovacs is no where near that endearing, even as an anti-hero of sorts.

The detective story itself has a suitable amount of conspiracy, intrigue, betrayal, lies, deceit, etc. to make it interesting, but overall it feels kind of formulaic: a fairly typical noir-ish detective story with a glitzy update.

Cyberpunk is also a strong influence in this novel.  A comparison to Blade Runner has frequently, and deservedly, been made in several other reviews I have read.  Altered Carbon hits all the major points on the Cyberpunk checklist, but all in all it doesn’t innovate it much and can feel all too familiar.  This isn’t a deal breaker, not by far.  Overall the book is an entertaining ride, but one can justly describe this novel as a fairly typical hard-boiled detective framework overlayed with some new, but hardly groundbreaking, Cyberpunk dressing.  It competently uses these elements, so the feeling I got was that the book was not so much hackneyed and derivative as it is wearing these elements like a comfortable and familiar set of clothes.

Concluding Thoughts:

Altered Carbon is an entertaining ride, and it uses the hard-boiled detective genre and cyberpunk influences well, but it didn’t quite engross me as much as I thought it would.  After getting past the wonder and cool speculation of stacks and sleeving, there was just the detective story, which didn’t enthrall me as much.  Still, I’m glad I read it.  I have heard that the sequel, Broken Angels, is very different, so I plan to give it a try.  As a debut novel, Altered Carbon certainly stands out (it won the PKD award after all), and is worth a read.