Woken Furies: Netflix Altered Carbon book 3

The book cover was detached and the spine was crumbled. Book was in a damaged condition on receipt

Having just finished the third of the Takeshi Kovacs novels (the first was the excellent 'Altered Carbon', the second the fantastic 'Broken Angels') I am sat here missing Kovacs already and dealing with an overwhelming sense of wanting more! That usually tells me it's been a good read: and boy - 'Woken Furies' is a simply stunning read.The significant difference between this outing and the previous two is that we find Kovacs a lot older, more world weary, even more dissatisfied with the life he leads and looking for something 'more' - though throughout the novel he clearly doesn't know what that 'more' is. Morgan's inspirational idea which drives the main point home is that the ruling Family of Harlan's World send a much younger version of Kovacs out to kill the older Kovacs; in essence, he pits the young, brash, wild and mad killer who ran amok in 'Altered Carbon' against the more mature, more experienced - and yes, more mellowed Kovacs that we find at the start of this novel. The difference between the two Kovacs versions is amazing - to the point that we actually begin to feel the rediscovery of the humanity of the older Kovacs. By the end of the novel we even, perhaps for the first time, begin to like Takeshi and share a sense of optimism not only for his future but for the world in which he lives. This is Morgan's greatest achievement in 'Woken Furies'.He begins to let us care for the lead character, and he begins to let his main character start to care again about the people he is living and working with. Remarkable.The story itself is a wild malestrom of subtle clues, double-twists and highly unexpected plot twists; the action is frenetic, always well informed in terms of the technology and science being used, and blended to create a set of scenarios that draw you in both intellectually and emotionally. By the end, Morgan has us literally not wanting to leave Kovacs behind. He is facing a new dawn; there is real hope beginning to emerge in the man - and we desperately want to see what happens next.Roll on the next Envoy novel; I can't wait. In the mean time, this merits reading and re-reading to pick up all the clues and brilliant characterizations that Morgan creates for us. Excellent novel; stunning writing; fantastic character. I cannot recommend this highly enough.

I really enjoyed this novel, which is the third in Richard K. Morgan's series about a mercenary, Takeshi Kovacs, who lives in a far future where personalities are digitized, stored in metal canisters called "stacks," and downloaded into a series of "sleeves," or bodies. Although this novel does not have as profound an impact as the first in the series, Altered Carbon, it is a big improvement over the second book, Broken Angels, in terms of plotting and the cast of secodary characters.This time, Kovacas is back on his home planet, Harlan's World, where the "first families" -- decendents of the original settlers from a dying Earth -- are running a repressive oligarchy that (what else is new?) lives off the backs of average workers. It has been centuries since the workers rose up in revolt, originally led by the mythical Quellcrist Falconer, a sort of female Che Guevarra figure. Now, it appears, Falconer is back, having been digitized and stored for almost 200 years in a data dump somewhere in the depths of a Harlan's World stack warehouse. Kovacs runs into Falconer and, skeptical though he is, eventually finds himself helping her and the descendants of her followers challenge the first families' dominance of his home planet.There are lots of sidelights in the plot, including a group of surfers who are underground Quellists, Japanese yakuza gangsters and their Slavic equivalents called "haiduchi," and a bunch of "deComms," who are teams of young risk-takers that go around disarming war machines left over from the last time that Quellcrist Falconer led a revolt against the first families. While all of this may sound a bit confusing, it is not; in fact, the plot lines make perfect sense and are totally believable, which I would argue is the single most important mark of a great science fiction story.Morgan's characters are well drawn and his attention to detail is impressive, particularly in the way he provides realistic explanations for things such as the weather patterns on a planet that is 98% water and has two moons. He endows Harlan's World with interesting plant and wildlife too, such as the swamp panthers that are raised to fight one another to their deaths in gladiator-like pits run by haiduchi, or the formidable ripwings, which are reptile-like creatures that fly pteradactyl style around "the World" preying on mountain climbers and other unwary humans.The novel ends in a perfect set up for the next installment in the adventures of Takeshi Kovacs and the presumptive Quellcrist Falconer -- Is it really Quell, or is this personality a mere trace copy left floating around in the planetary data banks? Will Takeshi ever find the stack of his great love, Sarah, who may be drifting somewhere at the bottom of the Harlan's World sea? Are the ultra-high tech Martians still alive and, if so, where are they? Can a far-future mercenary find happiness in a cheap, synthetic sleeve without neurochem and a gecko gene splice for climbing cliff faces? Some, or perhaps even all, of this will be revealed in the next installment, which I hope comes very soon. Kovacs is addictive, and Morgan a welcome supplier of top flight story-telling.

Compared to the first two books, the third instalment in this series offers more introspection from Kovacs, which provides insight into his character and motivations. Some readers may not be interested in this element of the novel, but I found that it strengthened my connection to Kovacs's character and offered me more understanding of his motivations than I had previously. It does make the novel read slower than the previous instalments because of this, though. Nonetheless, the sex and violence are on par with the last two novels, which makes up for any lack of excitement the reader may experience from Kovacs's ponderings.In its contemplation of humanity, the final book in the Altered Carbon series is very much the same: it shows us the very best -- and the very worst -- of people. The book feels more philosophical than its predecessors, however, as it ponders consciousness and the very nature of what makes us who we are: is it nature or nurture who shapes us into the villains or heroes of our narratives?

Moins bien que le er tome