Altered Carbon

What a refreshing cyberpunk novel, with a debt to noir fiction! An action-packed romp, with Gordian-knot plotting!

A former member of an elite military corps, neurochemically treated criminal Takeshi Kovacks operates on Harlan's World, hundreds of light years from Earth, a planet that he has never visited. Killed by commandos in the beginning of the book, he's digitally frozen, the equivalent of prison in the 26th-century. Only the poor die now - the majority of people have their personality backed up regularly and recorded in microstacks embedded in the flesh at the back of the neck, ready to be retrieved and resleeved in a new body that previously belonged to someone else, usually some unfortunate soul in penal storage, or actually dead.

Kovacs's mind is beamed across space to Earth via a needlecast transmission and downloaded into a new sleeve. One of the mega-rich near immortals is willing to offer Kovacs a sweet deal from some detective work - finding out who murdered his now resurrected client and why. From there on the ride is true grit, with a penchant for extreme, graphical violence, explicit sex and a plot recalling the confusion of The Bourne Identity.

Ripping along at a high-adrenalin pace, the book is a basejump rush of a novel full of virtual glitter. There is nothing of that dull sense of wonder that dominates the hard sf sub-genre of late. I can think of only two other contemporary works that equally enliven authentic cyberpunk - Neuromancer and Snow Crash - at angle that would not be out of place in a Hollywood blockbuster (say "Blade Runner" everyone).

Hardboiled, to the core! I for one will continue to follow the Kovacks adventure with Broken Angels and Market Forces.

[Richard Morgan has sold the movie rights to Joel Silver.]