The Books Of Richard Morgan
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Richard Morgan is a Scottish-based Science Fiction author whose first novel was published in 2001. It quickly attracted a fair amount of hype, from both favourable reviews and the fact that the film rights were quickly snapped up by 'Matrix' producer Joel Silver. Altered Carbon and its two sequels have been well received and it is seems likely that Morgan will have a highly successful future as an author.
Altered Carbon
His first novel was “Altered Carbon”, a science fiction murder mystery set on Earth several centuries in the future. Every science fiction universe tends to have a defining technological gimmick; in this case, it is the use of technology that allows a human mind to be digitised. A person's mind can be captured by equipment implanted in the base of their skull, retaining all its memories up to the moment of death (assuming that the equipment itself isn't damaged in any fatal incident). It can then be scanned in from the corpse (or from a living person) and transferred or stored like any other form of computer data. If a recently deceased person has enough money he can have his personality re-implanted into a new clone. Rich people also have regular 'backups' taken so that even if their body's own storage is damaged beyond repair they still have a recent record of the state of their mind.
The concept makes for a murder mystery with a difference. When a rich and powerful Californian businessman named Bancroft is killed, the police investigation quickly decides that he committed suicide. When his digital backup is installed into a clone body he refuses to accept the decision – claiming that he would never commit suicide and that the police are prejudiced against him. The man he calls upon to investigate the cause of death is Takeshi Kovacs – a mercenary and former member of the elite UN Envoy Corps, a military unit feared throughout the galaxy for their effectiveness and ruthlessness. Taken out of a virtual prison and beamed across light-years Kovacs finds himself on Earth for the first time. He is faced with the dual challenges of a puzzling mystery and culture shock from the differences between Earth and the colony worlds.
Kovacs is a very likeable, charismatic character, despite his abrasive personality, obvious serious personality flaws and tendency for excessive violence. Many of his actions may be quite well intentioned, but he is a former mercenary with a very murky background and he is quite willing to shoot first (and second, and third and…) and then ask questions later. His investigations soon manage to irritate some of the more powerful locals, and he finds himself the target of assassins. However, Kovacs has an aptitude for combat and anyone who gets in his way would be well advised to have had a digital backup made recently. The supporting characters – such as Bancroft, Bancroft's scheming wife and the policewoman leading the investigation (who is both a help and a hindrance to Kovacs) – are often intriguing, and although their actions may sometimes be reprehensible there are always rational explanations for why they act the way they do.
The futuristic background is convincing and interesting, and although it has been influenced by past dystopian science fiction, there is also a fair amount of originality. Like all the best science fiction mysteries the explanation for the crime is inextricably linked to the futuristic technology and society – although it does take a long time for the reader to have any clue about what might be going on. The biggest criticism might be that the plot does seem to ramble a bit, not until the end is the structure of the plot revealed and until then it mainly consists of Kovacs collecting seemingly unconnected leads and engaging in occasional brutal action set-pieces. There’s also a James Bond moment towards the end where Kovacs and the villain discuss the villain’s evil plot for a few minutes rather than trying to kill each other. Early on it is also a bit difficult to care too much about the outcome – the effects of the crime on Bancroft are purely temporary and he isn't particularly likeable anyway. However, as the plot progresses it becomes clear that Bancroft is far from being the biggest victim of the events leading up to his death. In addition to the investigation, we get more than a few flashbacks to earlier incidents in Kovacs' life – from his underprivileged upbringing on a squalid colony world to a disastrous military campaign on Innelin. These flashbacks are interesting, and help to explain Kovacs' unique character, but they do distract from the main plot to some extent.
The action sequences are possibly the most entertaining part of the book – although anyone squeamish might want to consider reading something else. The action is violent, uncompromising, fast-moving, impressive, always stylish and sometimes more than a bit unpleasant. Kovacs' idealism means he ends up being more of a vigilante than an investigator and the fact that some of his opponents are truly despicable makes it easy to cheer him on, despite the moral ambiguity of some of his actions.
In summary, a fast-moving, intelligent, entertaining and ambitious science fiction novel whose only flaw is an occasional lack of focus.
Broken Angels
Morgan's second novel again stars Takeshi Kovacs - this time working as a mercenary on the planet of Sanction IV – fighting against a vicious rebel army opposed to the galaxy-spanning corporate culture. After being injured in battle, he winds up in hospital with a former rebel soldier (in disguise as one of Kovacs' comrades). He is presented with a potentially profitable proposition – a chance to explore a rare working example of the technology left behind by the long-vanished Martian race. In Morgan's universe the Martians were once a proud technologically advanced civilisation whose colonies spanned the galaxy (despite the name they probably didn’t originate on Mars, but it was one of their colony worlds). However, millions of years before humanity evolved they mysteriously vanished leaving behind some enigmatic technological artefacts.
Kovacs is persuaded to free a prison-camp inmate who used to be a Martian archaeologist. She believes she has discovered a hyperspace gateway on Sanction IV that leads to a working Martian spacecraft. Kovacs finds a minor corporation willing to sponsor the potentially lucrative expedition and assembles a crack team of recently deceased mercenaries (newly resurrected with personality traits rather reminiscent of their counterparts in the film “Aliens”) and sets off to investigate the artefact. Unfortunately, the gateway is located in the middle of the warzone. Fortunately, there's little danger of being shot at – as the area has just been depopulated by the rebel's nuclear weapons and is filled with lethal amounts of radiation. It's also the location for field tests of a new weapon consisting of a colony of artificially intelligent nanobots. Throw in some rival corporations, his former mercenary company (likely to be irritated at his desertion) and the fact that he can't really trust any of his team and the scene is set for an interesting story – even before they reach the mysteriously abandoned Martian spaceship.
The plot is quite fun, and there are many intriguing plot points and musings on the futuristic society, but somehow it is not quite as good as “Altered Carbon”. The plot largely lacks a conclusion – we never really learn all that much more about the Martians. Altered Carbon's central mystery was closely related to Morgan's future society, the alien artefact plot could essentially take place in any science fiction future and it largely ignores the most interesting part of Morgan's world – the ability to store and transfer human minds. There is quite a lot of depth, but much of it seems unconnected to the main plot and it's hard to escape the feeling that the alien artefact plot has been done better elsewhere.
Despite these criticisms it is still a highly entertaining book with intriguing characters, some nice plot twists and some impressive action scenes. Again, the action sequences are not for the squeamish although the impact of Kovacs' uncompromising way of doing business has worn off slightly after reading the first novel.
In summary, an interesting, entertaining science fiction novel with plenty of good points. However, it probably could be better and isn't as good as Morgan's first novel.
Woken Furies
The third novel in the Kovacs series (and the fourth book published by Morgan) is “Woken Furies”. Set several years after “Broken Angels”, the start of the book finds Kovacs having returned to his home planet, “Harlan’s World”, and engaged in a brutal personal vendetta against a misogynistic religious cult. Harlan’s World was not the most pleasant place for someone to grow up; a small planet dominated by the elite First Families, big Corporations and the Yakuza. Harlan’s World’s history is dominated by the legacy of the Quellist rebellion, a violent uprising against the corporate forces that dominate human civilisation lead by a young woman named Quellcrist Falconer which initially threatened to take over control of Harlan’s World and even spread to other planets before being brutally suppressed. Now, centuries after the rebellion, rumours are flying around that somehow Quell herself has returned (not entirely improbable in a universe where personalities can be digitally stored) and this causes understandable discomfort to the current rulers of the world. Before long, Kovacs is distracted from his vendetta, first by finding himself roped into a military expedition into the deadly environment of New Hok – a continent still infested with deadly military machinery left behind after past wars, and then finding himself helping the Quellists as they try to stage a comeback.
Kovacs also finds himself hunted, most seriously by a clone based on a snapshot of his mind taken 200 years ago. The younger Kovacs is even less inclined to compromise than the modern-day version and his cloned self is a potentially deadly foe.
Woken Furies is another good novel, but some things are starting to feel a bit over-familiar from the previous two Kovacs books. In particular, Kovacs’ relationships with the people around him sometimes feel like re-runs of his encounters in the previous books, although there are some novel twists this time around, principally the Kovacs clone and the woman who might be reincarnation of Quellcrist Falconer. It is moderately impressive that even after two books Morgan is still able to make Kovacs’ actions even more excessive, his vendetta against the religious cult is extremely nasty, although Morgan’s habit of making his villains so despicable does start to seem like an easy way of trying to make his hero’s violent actions more acceptable. The requisite exciting and visceral actions sequences are present here again, although the early scenes in the New Hok expedition do possibly have an overdose of technical jargon and it is a bit difficult at times to really understand everything that is going on. The novel builds to a satisfying climax, and with Morgan seemingly taking a break from Kovacs books it seems a reasonable place to stop without overusing the character.
In summary, this is another good Kovacs book, although probably the weakest in the series so far.
Market Forces
Morgan’s first non-Kovacs book was “Market Forces”. Unlike the far future setting of his other novels, this is set in a decaying mid-21st Century Britain. The world has been ruined by decades of economic collapse (and the concurrent collapse of democracy) and numerous wars and rebellions around the world. Inevitably, there have been some who have profited among the chaos and they are the focus of this novel. While most of Britain’s population live in what are effectively ghettoes, the City of London is still one of the world’s main financial centres and the people who work there still form a wealthy elite. The big money in this decade is what they call ‘conflict investment’, basically providing weaponry and expertise to the many wars and rebellions around the world in exchange for large piles of cash.
At the start of the book Chris Faulkner, the novel’s protagonist, has just landed a high-profile job at Shorn Associates, one of the biggest Conflict Investment companies. This is a potentially very profitable job, but also a dangerous one due to the rather unlikely methods used by the different conflict investments companies to decide which company gets a contract and which employees get promoted. The standard means of deciding these things is for the Conflict Investment managers (such as Faulkner) to have motorised duels, sometimes to the death, charging around deserted motorways in souped-up vehicles. It has to be said, as a premise for a supposedly serious science fiction novel this is more than a little bit silly, it may work quite well as a satire on the competitiveness of corporate culture but it is a bit hard to suspend disbelief when a dystopian science fiction thriller relies on a plot device seemingly inspired by Death Race 2000. If you can suspect disbelief the rest of the novel’s plot is reasonably interesting as Chris finds himself torn by the conflicting demands of his alluring but immoral job on one hand and his marriage, friendships and conscience on the other. Chris is generally not a dislikeable character, although he is doing a very dislikeable job it is clear to see how he got there, his harsh experiences growing up in the ghettoes of central London after his father’s tragic death as the economy began to collapse have left him with a desire to have the money and security he can only get by working for big business.
The novel is an effective satire of corporate culture, although even ignoring the vehicular duels the worldbuilding still doesn’t feel entirely plausible. Although Morgan himself is clearly idealistic and not a big fan of big corporations he doesn’t lecture or preach in this book, Chris’ character arc is determined by decisions that follow from his personality and background, rather than by any simple quest for redemption. Morgan has written an idealistic book that is also very cynical about idealists, Chris’ father-in-law who urges Chris to use his talents for the discredited UN’s attempts to police the world are derided as being well-meaning but ineffective.
In summary, this is an entertaining satire on corporate culture although the more unlikely aspects of the premise do detract from the story and make this one of Morgan’s lesser works.
Black Man
Morgan’s next book “Black Man” (retitled “Thirteen” for its American release) is a book that is in many ways similar to his earlier Kovacs books, and in some ways different. The book is set a few centuries before the time of “Altered Carbon” (although not explicitly stated, it does seem that it could be in the same universe) in the early years of the 22nd Century. Earth is in a relatively peaceful state after a violent 21st Century which saw a series of wars, the break-up of the USA, the colonisation of Mars and a series of partially successful attempts at genetic engineering humans. The protagonist (hero isn’t really an appropriate description) of the novel, Carl Marsalis, is the product of one of those attempts at genetic engineering. He is what is called a variant 13, a man genetically engineered to have the skills that are very useful in a Special Forces soldier but less so for a normal member of society. The variant 13s are aggressive, independent, stubborn, resourceful and capable of emotionless ruthlessness when necessary, which the nations who develop them think would make them perfect soldiers (although their tendency towards independent thinking would seem to make them unlikely to always follow orders reliably). The projects devoted to developing them were eventually shut down and after a series of crimes committed by variant 13s turned public opinion turned against them. Most of the variants 13s have now either been exiled to Mars or confined to isolated reservations, Marsalis is one of the few allowed something like a normal life. He has this special status because he is a bounty hunter working for the UN Genetic Licensing Authority, his job is to hunt down unlicensed 13s and either kill or capture them.
When the story begins he is languishing in a Florida jail as bureaucrats bicker over when the local justice system has any right to try him, until two investigators working for the powerful Mars colonisation agency – former NYPD cop Sevgi Ertekin and bureaucrat Tom Norton – offer to help him get out of prison if he’ll help them with a tough case they have to solve. Their investigation centres around tracking down another variant 13 called Merrin who high-jacked an Earth-bound shuttle from Mars, brutally murdered his fellow passengers and, after crash-landing on Earth, has gone on the run through the ruins of the former USA, systematically killing seemingly unrelated people. The rest of the novel focuses on their attempts to track down Merrin, make sense of his killing spree, and unravel the conspiracy behind the crimes. Along the way Marsalis and Ertekin become close and after they are targeted by hired killers Marsalis begins to regard the investigation as more of a personal vendetta.
The plot ends up being quite labyrinthine, by the end it seems that just about everything that happens (even if it originally seems unrelated) ties into the conspiracy. Unfortunately, it ends up seeming a bit unconvincing how neatly everything works out and there are some unlikely coincidences as well as a few hackneyed plot devices. As a police procedural this is also a bit unconvincing, as too often the plot develops not by any genuine deduction but by an intuitive leap by Marsalis which every single time turns out to be significant. This is not to say that the plot isn’t compelling, because it frequently is, particularly in the latter stages of the novel, but it is unfortunately flawed despite an intriguing premise.
As well as the plot itself Morgan also spends a lot of time trying to develop some of the themes of the novel – principally the morality of genetically engineering humans and the issue of discrimination based on genetic makeup. It is an interesting subject, but Morgan’s exploration of it is often based on the characters taking a break from their murder investigation to have an in-depth discussion on the moral issues surrounding genetic engineering. It seems a bit out-of-place to have so much philosophical discussion in what is ultimately an action thriller, and it would have been better for Morgan to rely on his plot to convey the themes rather than the characters having to explicitly and repetitively discuss them. The worse example of this is the climatic shoot-out between Marsalis and the novel’s main villain in which they sit down and have an extensive discussion before having the inevitable fight. The other main theme is based around one of the nations that make up what was once the USA – a southern state sarcastically referred to as ‘Jesusland’ – whose government is based heavily on Christian fundamentalism. While fundamentalism is a subject that deserves lots of satire, Morgan’s attempt at criticising it is obvious and unsubtle. There’s a lot of talk in this novel but although the concepts are potentially interesting it fails to say anything particularly original or notable about them.
As in Morgan’s previous novels there are some good action scenes in among all the talking, but not of them are really particularly special or memorable apart from the attention-grabbing prologue. Possibly the best feature of the novel is the generally strong characterisation – Marsalis is an intriguing and unusual character and although his character doesn’t necessarily develop a huge amount it is still interesting in the novel to see that as the story goes on it is clear that he is a much more complex character than initial appearances suggest. Sevgi Ertekin and Tom Norton are also interesting and strong characters although some of the supporting characters are a bit weak and the villains most don’t get enough character development even though they do at least have generally believable motivations.
In summary, this is a reasonably entertaining but disappointing novel that is mostly fairly well written, has an intriguing premise and strong main characters but has some serious flaws in the pacing and plotting. It is still definitely worth reading, but could have been significantly better.
Morgan's next book will be "The Steel Remains", the first book in a new sword-and-socrery series.
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Comments? Agree/Disagree with the Reviews? Suggestions? Random Ramblings? Whatever you might want to say, feel free to e-mail me at william@wmarnoch.freeserve.co.uk .