Shellhead
09-02-2008, 11:54 AM
A while back, I complained here that cyberpunk seemed to have vanished as a genre. However, it seems that I just wasn't looking carefully enough, like maybe in the UK. For example, Ian McDonald has written a couple of great books that incorporated some cyberpunk themes and technology. John Courtney Grimwood wrote an excellent cyberpunk trilogy set in a big city in an alternate reality version of North Africa. And then there is Richard K. Morgan.
Some of my favorite cyberpunk works have some roots in hardboiled detective fiction along the lines of Raymond Chandler. Richard K. Morgan has written an impressive cyberpunk trilogy in that tradition, featuring a character named Takeshi Kovacs. I don't believe that the trilogy has a name, but the individual books are Altered Carbon, Broken Angels, and Woken Furies. Altered Carbon won the Philip K. Dick award, and is listed at imdb as in-development for a 2009 release.
Like the older hardboiled detective types, Kovacs is tough. Extremely tough. Each book features an intricate but solid plot with possibly a few too many characters in the first and third books. There is a lot of violence, but also a surprising level of introspection. Like all good hard-boiled detective stories, the hero is jaded, but still manages to encounter situations so appalling that they cause him to react with righteous outrage.
Morgan's writing is very good. He is economical with his use of language, like Roger Zelazny at the top of his form. There are some interesting science-fiction concepts, and they are explored with respect to some interesting ethical issues. The dialogue seems very natural, and the plot-driven writing is intertwined nicely with the motivations of the various characters.
Unlike most trilogies, it isn't essential to read these books in order. Each book takes place in a distinctive setting that is somewhat removed from the others, though the character development of Kovacs himself carries over from book to book. The best of the trilogy is Broken Angels, the second book, for taking cyberpunk to an unusual but exciting setting, no man's land in the middle of a planet-wide civil war. Oddly, the cast of Broken Angels is a smaller and more developed group than found in the other two books, but the lethality of the overall situation keeps the plot moving along at a brisk pace.
The other two books are well worth reading. The first book is an unusual murder mystery that play fairly. And the third book takes Kovacs back to his roots, to very literally confront his past mistakes. If you enjoy the writing of Philip K. Dick (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep), George R.R. Martin (Tuf Voyaging) and/or George Alec Effinger (When Gravity Fails), you should definitely give Richard K. Morgan a try.
Some of my favorite cyberpunk works have some roots in hardboiled detective fiction along the lines of Raymond Chandler. Richard K. Morgan has written an impressive cyberpunk trilogy in that tradition, featuring a character named Takeshi Kovacs. I don't believe that the trilogy has a name, but the individual books are Altered Carbon, Broken Angels, and Woken Furies. Altered Carbon won the Philip K. Dick award, and is listed at imdb as in-development for a 2009 release.
Like the older hardboiled detective types, Kovacs is tough. Extremely tough. Each book features an intricate but solid plot with possibly a few too many characters in the first and third books. There is a lot of violence, but also a surprising level of introspection. Like all good hard-boiled detective stories, the hero is jaded, but still manages to encounter situations so appalling that they cause him to react with righteous outrage.
Morgan's writing is very good. He is economical with his use of language, like Roger Zelazny at the top of his form. There are some interesting science-fiction concepts, and they are explored with respect to some interesting ethical issues. The dialogue seems very natural, and the plot-driven writing is intertwined nicely with the motivations of the various characters.
Unlike most trilogies, it isn't essential to read these books in order. Each book takes place in a distinctive setting that is somewhat removed from the others, though the character development of Kovacs himself carries over from book to book. The best of the trilogy is Broken Angels, the second book, for taking cyberpunk to an unusual but exciting setting, no man's land in the middle of a planet-wide civil war. Oddly, the cast of Broken Angels is a smaller and more developed group than found in the other two books, but the lethality of the overall situation keeps the plot moving along at a brisk pace.
The other two books are well worth reading. The first book is an unusual murder mystery that play fairly. And the third book takes Kovacs back to his roots, to very literally confront his past mistakes. If you enjoy the writing of Philip K. Dick (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep), George R.R. Martin (Tuf Voyaging) and/or George Alec Effinger (When Gravity Fails), you should definitely give Richard K. Morgan a try.