It's Forty Two!

I’m currently reading the “Altered Carbon” trilogy by Richard K. Morgan. (On the second book at the moment.) This is high quality Sci-Fi. Raw and brutal and yet it makes you wonder how the future of humanity will turn out.

In Morgan’s universe human consciousness is stored in a small chip at the back of the scull. Your body is just a piece of meat you can replace. This leads to a society where human life has little value and torture has an entire new dimension. The main character of the series, Takeshi Kovacs, is a hired gun who in the first book investigates what looks like a rich man’s suicide. In the course of his investigation he runs into many of the aspects of futuristic human life. Little details like how advertisers impose advertisements directly into your brain and also the awkward issues following people changing body are things that pop up regularly to make the story more entertaining and humorous. But the story also leads us into the dark side of the human nature. The wealthy can now practically live forever and gain wealth and influence indefinitely, while the poor is limited to mere one or two lifetimes of existence. If you’re put in storage, the punishment for serious crime, someone else may very well buy your body and run off with it. One such case is the body the main character possesses in the first book, the body of a convicted police officer.

I’m now greatly enjoying the second book on my iPod while on my daily subway rides. I have to warn you though. Many of the descriptions in the book are quite violent and detailed, but if you don’t mind that, they greatly enhance the story.