erhaps lucky readers will recall Takeshi Kovacs from his two earlier slam-bang appearances: Altered Carbon (2002) and Broken Angels (2003). Kovacs lives in the far future, when a handful of Settled Worlds across the galaxy are all under the loose rule of the Protectorate. Kovacs was once an Envoy, a super-soldier-cum-spy-cum-assassin, charged with enforcing the Protectorate's policies, and ensuring that no planet stepped out of line. But that was before a series of brutal letdowns, betrayals and self-defeats catalogued in the earlier books. Now Kovacs is back on his homeworld, from which he was recruited centuries ago: Harlan's World, named after its founder, Konrad Harlan. Settled for 400 years, the planet once shone brightly as a beacon of liberal rebellion under the legendary woman Quellcrist Falconer. But that was long ago. Now Falconer is centuries dead, and the First Families rule in oligarchic fashion.
But is Falconer "Really Dead," in the parlance of the day? It's very hard to die irredeemably in this era, as personalities (even souls, if you're inclined to talk that way) are digitally recorded on a regular basis and "resleeved" into synthetic or cloned bodies. Kovacs himself has "died" dozens of times. Maybe Falconer is out there somewhere, too.
When Kovacs comes to the unplanned aid of a woman named Sylvie Oshima, he begins a long quest to learn the truth about Falconer. He accompanies Sylvie on her job into a deadly region overrun with "mimints," autonomous killer military machines left over from previous conflicts. Escaping from traps there, he ends up back in civilization with Sylvie, among the Quellist underground. He'll eventually hopscotch across the whole planet, from island retreat to big-city streets in his self-propelled mission. And at every step of the way, he'll be dogged by a killer at his heels: a merciless younger version of himself, illegally resleeved in a top-of-the-line body.
Not so pleased to meet me
Takeshi Kovacs has to be the worst friend you can have. Everyone who's affiliated with him eventually ends up slaughtered. His enemies die in smaller numbers than his buddies and allies. If you had a choice, you'd be wise to get on his bad side. This bit of existential noir styling—man hounded by cruel fate that scythes down those closest to him—is typical of Morgan's approach to SF. He doesn't skimp on the ideas or weird stuff, but it's all securely embedded in a matrix of hardluck Darwinism, interpersonal screwups and societal malaise. The result is like reading Keith Laumer filtered through Greg Egan filtered through James Crumley. It's a stiff drink.
Your mileage may vary regarding how many times you can blissfully enjoy seeing Kovacs getting banged up, soldiering on through misery and deceit and debating with himself about whether to just abandon any shreds of nobility. But you can't claim that Morgan doesn't pour heart and soul and considerable talents into his prose and plotting. His dialogue is blunt and caustic, yet witty. His noir-obligatory hypertrophied and oddball metaphors and similes are indeed over the top, and ofttimes too scatlogical to be quoted here. And his repertory troupe of characters are all convincingly limned.
Whether he's describing the 20-million-population city of Millsport in Chapter 28, or devoting a whole chapter (Chapter 31) to a terrifying climb up a sheer cliff, Morgan has the knack of conjuring up immediate and vivid pictures in the reader's mind. And his final revelations about the abilities of Sylvie Oshima pack a wallop.
But I suppose what's most endearing about Morgan and his hero is that in this ultra-technological world, where even death has been conquered, he manages to affirm the importance of individual humans. Takeshi Kovacs is Raymond Chandler's famous battered knight with neurochem upgrades.
