ALTERED CARBON

Murder, torture and prostitution in a violent far future

By Chris Wyatt     March 13, 2003

When you hear that MATRIX producer Joel Silver has optioned the first novel from an unknown writer, you have to be a little impressed. Long before ALTERED CARBON hit US book shelves, expectations were already high. So high, in fact, you have to wonder if any book could really deliver on them...

Well, CARBON comes pretty damn close. The story is a far-future film noir, about a detective brought out of "storage" and hired by an ultra-rich businessman to investigate his own (the businessman's) murder. In the world of altered carbon, all humans have a "cortical stack"meaning a small computer unitcentered at the base of their skulls. This stack records the person's mind, so that when the body dies it can be transferred to a new one.

Barring deaths violent enough to destroy the stack itself, this technology potentially banishes "real death". The minds of the dead are just neatly put into new "sleeves" (bodies). Hence, the 300 plus year-old businessman is in a position to investigate his own death, which he is convinced was murder, despite a police ruling of suicide.

The worlds, environments and political ramifications of cortical stack technology are so worked out, so detailed and so believable that the book feels "real", as if Morgan had access to a window looking out on an alternative dimension. Also, Morgan piles on plenty of other intriguing SF ideas, like "neurochem" biological enhancements, planetary colonization, and AI cyber-hotels. All the high concepts really weave together well.

In some ways however, CARBON struggles. It is a book that is caught uncomfortably between the desire to be art and the desire to succumb to trashy, exploitationist violence. The book sports some truly literary science fiction moments, and some impressive dialoguebut it also wallows in the details of blatantly gratuitous gore that don't move the story forward-- like a vaginal torture scene.

Let me be perfectly clear, we're not talking about the poetic ultra-violence of a Jack Womack or an Anthony Burgess. We're talking about the pulpy, graceless violence of a Roger Corman picture. That kind of B-movie can have a place... but in CARBON it is at odds with the more artistic, cerebral material. It's like the book tries to take both the high road and the low road, but ends up committing to neither.

Despite this internal conflict in the material and also despite distractingly repetitious anti-catholic rhetoric (I'm not catholic, but the arguments get old) CARBON is still impressive, smooth... and ultimately rewarding. Also, apart from the great SF stuff, the book works well as a mystery. The novel can be recommended to all readers with thick skins and a love of action.

Questions? Comments? Let us know what you think at feedback@cinescape.com.