Short Book Review: Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan

In the 25th century, your consciousness can be stored in a "cortical stack", which is attached to the base of your skull. When death occurs or you get old and have the money, you can be downloaded into a new body, called a "sleeve", or imprisoned in a virtual world. Pretty handy. Takeshi Kovacs, a former member of a the U.N. special forces unit called the Envoys is removed from his virtual prison on another world, and downloaded to a sleeve on Earth. He is given a deal, solve the murder of a wealthy businessman and get paroled, or return to prison. The man who hires him is the murder victim, still walking around thanks to regular off-site backups, but unaware of what happened to him between the time of the last backup and his murder. Kovacs takes the deal and diligently investigates a murder that the local police are convinced was suicide.

This novel is both a post-cyberpunk tour of Earth and a solid detective novel. There is an interesting mystery as to who murdered the business man, and a good subplot in that the sleeve Kovacs is wearing is that of the lover of the policewoman who initially investigated the case. The lover, a cop himself, is serving time in a virtual prison for corruption, while Kovacs is walking around in his body. The ending was just OK, but the plot twists and turns leading up to it were excellent.

Rating: 4 stars