Altered Carbon
September 23rd, 2007 by HenWhen two people at work separately recommend a book, I tend to listen. So it was with Altered Carbon, a future-based detective story, with the major twist being that it is in a world where bodies are sleeves and people slip between them, and back themselves up, at will.
I mostly read while walking to work, and when catching the bus/walking home, and it was a battle to stop myself trying to read this when I got home. Very good book - not quite a Neuromancer or Cryptonomicon; but definitely up there with Snow Crash. The wikipedia entry suggests that a movie will be out in 2009 - though cynicism makes me suspect this is only a vaguely likely.
Looks like I’ll be ordering the sequel, Broken Angels, sometime soon.
September 23rd, 2007 at 8:55 pm
Hi Henry– I liked Altered Carbon a lot too. A book with similar technology (but very different feel) is David Brin’s Kiln People. Didn’t know a sequel was out — will keep an eye out for it.
September 23rd, 2007 at 9:28 pm
Yep, Altered Carbon was on of my favorite books to read this year!
September 24th, 2007 at 9:37 am
David Brin also published an “exchangeable bodies” type book in 2002, Kiln People: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiln_People
I really enjoyed Kiln People, but I am a Brin fan.
September 24th, 2007 at 4:57 pm
I think Altered Carbon was better than the others thus far. The followup books remain well written, they are just slit-your-wrists bleak. They make DADoES/Bladerunner look optimistic, even!