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Title: Broken Angels by Richard K. Morgan ISBN: 0-345-45771-4 Publisher: Del Rey Pub. Date: 02 March, 2004 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.43 (14 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: The best new SF writer in ages....
Comment: I have now read Broken Angels and Morgan's first book Altered Carbon, and although most other reviewers seem to like AC better, I think the 2nd book is actually better. Altered Carbon was a brilliant book, but many of its concepts have already been done. It was the setting and character of Takeshi Kovacs that made it so outstanding. You should however go right out and read it if you have not yet done so.
With Broken Angels Morgan is moving into a different territory. There is still the "great mystery" that is the subject of just about any book of this type, but Morgan does a better job with the characters and plot. The one thing that I actually like that seems to upset other reviewers is that he does not always explain the 'cultural artifacts' that he inserts. I like how he references some idea, only to move on, leaving it for future exploration or your own imagination of how it ties into his world. In particular, I love the Quellist quotes that lay throughout both books. I'd love to see him write a "biography" of Quellcrist Falconer and hope its already planned. Given the big revelation at the end of the book, he certainly intends to continue with the Quellist involvement in the books.
Just as a possibility, by looking at the acknowlegements section of this book, it should be clear that he leans towards a feminist/evil government/evil corporation world view and it impinges upon his writing. I think in many ways he is trying to do for these subjects what Andrew Vachss has done for child abuse with his books, but he's not quite as good an author as Vachss.
Anyway, please go out and read both of these books. They deserve to be read as some of the better sci-fi with cyberpunk overtones that have been published in a while. I'd have to rate them as my most favorite books since Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson.
Rating: 4
Summary: It's not Altered Carbon, but it's still fantastic
Comment: Last year I read Richard K. Morgan's first novel, Altered Carbon, and was blown away. Such smart, edge-of-your seat darkness is hard to come by. But it also meant that Morgan set a very high standard for himself in his debut.
Broken Angels is a wonderful book and I recommend it. It's a page-turner, but I have to say it isn't as hard-hitting as Altered Carbon. Still, to say that it is not as good would be unfair because the two books can't be compared. Where Morgan's antihero, Takeshi Kovacs, was ex-special-ops-turned-private-eye-by-circumstance in the first book, this time he returns to his military roots as a mercenary fighting a planetary rebellion. The mystery novel is a genre that lends itself to the twist and turns that makes Altered Carbon great. Morgan (perhaps smartly) avoids comparison by choosing a much more subdued wartime setting for this adventure.
One thing that remains constant is the darkness; you can't get more noir than this. While Morgan's consciousness-digitizing technology was cool and mind-bending in the first book, here it is dehumanizing and bleak. In one scene, Kovacs goes to a "souls market" where piles and piles of "stacks" (digitized personalities of real people) could be bought. Death is no longer the worst punishment possible; centuries of torture can be inflicted on your digital self. War and the attendant death have lost meaning. All this and the zero-sum power games played by governments, corporations, and guilds seem to contribute to Kovac's increasingly nihilist worldview.
Another difference that I wasn't so thrilled about is that while Kovacs was cast as a beat-down mercenary and half-hearted criminal just trying to "get to the next screen" in the first book, here he ultimately finds himself in the middle of one of the most important events in human history. I was expecting more of the anonymous and reluctant protagonist, so I guess I was a little thrown off.
Nevertheless, this is a fantastic book, and Richard K. Morgan is a great writer who I'm sure I'll pick up again. If you like Altered Carbon, you should definitely give this a shot. And is you haven't read Altered Carbon, what are you waiting for?
Rating: 5
Summary: Best new sf author in a decade . . .
Comment: Morgan came out of nowhere in 2002 with _Altered Carbon_, the first novel about Takeshi Kovacs, overstressed, dangerously empathic diplomat/soldier trying to stay alive (more or less) four centuries into a future in which the mind lives in a bit of metal housed at the top of the spine and can be re-installed in any convenient "sleeve." This time out, a disgusted Kovacs is recruited by a deserter from the other side to set up an expedition to check out a major find left by the long-disappeared Martians -- who are the only reason humans are out in space to begin with. It's a quest tale, and a very good one, but the real pleasure, for me, is in the author's masterful portrayal and development of the characters. You don't necessarily have to like Kovacs, and you certainly wouldn't feel comfortable around him, but after two excellent novels, you would probably begin to understand him. There's some great quotable passages here, too, about the nature of war, and government, and loyalty, and the human situation in the universe. If _Broken Angels_ doesn't win the Hugo or the Nebula, or both, there is no justice. But, then, Kovacs knows that already.
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Title: Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan ISBN: 0345457684 Publisher: Del Rey Pub. Date: 04 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: The Golden Age by John C. Wright ISBN: 0812579844 Publisher: Tor Science Fiction Pub. Date: 14 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Spin State by CHRIS MORIARTY ISBN: 0553382136 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 30 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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Title: Quicksilver (The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 1) by Neal Stephenson ISBN: 0380977427 Publisher: William Morrow Pub. Date: 23 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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Title: The Confusion (The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 2) by Neal Stephenson ISBN: 0060523867 Publisher: William Morrow Pub. Date: 13 April, 2004 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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