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Richard K. Morgan wrote a trilogy series in 2002-2005, Altered Carbon, Broken Angels, and Woken Furies. NetFlix has turned the first book into a kickass 10-episode SF series, set mainly in the Dystopian 25th Century, but with flashbacks that explain how our orphaned protagonist Takeshi Kovacs became a CTAC cop, a Marine, an "Envoy" revolutionary/terrorist, and died....then was ressurected as a private investigator two hundred years later in the 25th Century, on old Earth versus his home world.

Altered Carbon is a Neo Noir story in the Dystopian style of Blade Runner, and production values are high, and the material streams in UHD resolution to anybody with a NetFlix account who has a UHD display enabled for that account. The visual quality is right up there with the best ever video made for TV, better than most movies made in the last decade.

The central theme of the three Takashi Kovacs novels (he's a citizen of Harlan's World, of mixed Japanese/Polish ancestry) is the cyber "stacks" implanted at the base of the skull which store a backup copy of your memories. Following death, you can be reborn in a new "sleeve" body. The new sleeves can be artificial silicone, or human clones if you are wealthy enough. For the extremely wealthy, you can upload backup copies of your stack memories to external storage - even offworld storage. Our hero TK is resurrected in the human sleeve of a cop who was condemned to death and executed, to investigate the murder of a rich man ... who hires TK to investigate his murder after his own resurrection from his most recent backup.

There is kick-ass action, violence, and gore. There is enough full nudity and sex that it distracts from the storyline sometimes. But production values remain high throughout all ten episodes, and I reccomend that all NetFlix subscribers watch this. The plot is actually a beast, and even with 10 episodes, there is a lot of plot to follow. I'm hoping for two more seasons from the two additional TK novels, which unlike the present series are military SF and space opera more than noir.

Agreed. I'm a big fan of Morgan. I binged watched this over the weekend and loved it.

I agree with all your main points. For me, the fighting actually gets a little boring after a while (so many shows use that), but it reflects the plot/pace of the book very well.

I really like that except for minor details, the series does a great job of representing what the book was about and how it felt to read it.

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Now, to me, Morgan's greatest book was "Market Forces" (though most people would disagree, based on reviews). But for folks on this site, there is a very heavy dystopian meme. And either peak oil or climate change (or both) is an implied reality, as the only people allowed to have cars are the rich and powerful (gasoline is SUPER expensive). Everybody else walks or takes public transit (which is limited).

But if you like to ponder the idea of a near future novel that asks the big question, "What if in reality, there were no rules?" -- this novel takes a VERY interesting stab at that, IMO. The bonus is this is played out in the form of corporate elites being modern Samurai, dueling for corporate deals / economic survival on roads, which is all sanctioned, legal, and expected.

I hope the "Kovacs" series does well, and then they do a series on "Market Forces". Plenty of violence there, but much of it in a more imaginative form than endless standard fights. Plenty of philosophy too in the form of "how does one keep the ethics of being a Samurai Warrior when none of the rest of the Warrior class cares about ethical core values?"

Yes, I think the martial arts fighting meme came about with the Matrix movies, although it has a long ancestry in Asian Cinema, perhaps seen best in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

It has been a few years since I read his books, but IIRC, Market Forces is 22nd Century Earth, the suburbs still exist, before the Corporations succeeded the governments, and before stack/sleeve technology, and before the discovery of the alien "Martian" (or "Elder Race" if you prefer) artifacts on Mars that kick-started the human tech of intersteller space travel.

It has occurred to me that when RKM completes his works, we may find that they are all related in a consistent "future history", a concept invented by another great SF writer who has fallen into disfavor of late.

Megantix wrote:I never read Altered Carbon, so I can't comment on it. Just thought I'd chime in to say that Chasm City is probably best SF Mystery/Noir story I've ever read - it's utterly compelling and brilliant. It's part of a larger universe of novels by Reynolds, but it can be read as a stand-alone and works perfectly well as such.

Thanks for the idea. I'm always looking for new SF authors, and think I'll give this a try, but start with Revelation Space as the first book in the series, so if I like his stuff, that makes reading the series a better overall experience (based on past SF series I've read).

It's funny. Normally, I sort of hate standard mysteries, but couched in a good SF plot / idea, I can enjoy many sub-genre's, as long as they're done well.