Category: Reviews

Altered Carbon Review: A Deep Dive into Punk Sci-Fi

Hello dear readers, I am back once again. This time, a quick review of a series I recently watched on Netflix. It’s considered punk science fiction, set over three hundred years into the future, and consists of two seasons.

It includes the relatively novel idea that you can upload your mind into different bodies called sleeves. There are laws that you cannot double-sleeve, that is, exist in two bodies at the same time, but you can have backups that can be activated if you die. So yes, things get complicated.

From Wikipedia –

The series starts 360 years in the future, with most episodes of the first season set in the year 2384 in a futuristic metropolis known as Bay City. In the future, a person’s memories and consciousness (termed digital human freight, or DHF) are recorded onto a disk-shaped device called a cortical stack, which is implanted in the vertebrae at the back of the neck. These storage devices are of alien design and have been reverse-engineered and mass-produced but can only be made from the material on Harlan’s World. Physical human or synthetic bodies are called “sleeves” and stacks can be transferred to new bodies after death, but a person can still be killed if their stack is destroyed and there is no backup. Only the wealthiest, known as “Meths” have the means to change bodies through clones and remote storage of their consciousness in satellites, so they never have to die of old age before being resleeved.

Takeshi Kovacs, a political operative with mercenary skills, is the sole surviving soldier of the Envoys, a rebel group defeated in an uprising against the new world order.[8] In the first season, set 250 years after the Envoys are destroyed, his stack is pulled out of prison by 300-year-old Meth Laurens Bancroft, one of the wealthiest men in the settled worlds. Bancroft offers him the chance to solve a murder—Bancroft’s own—to get a new shot at life.

The second season takes place in the early 2410s, set 30 years after the first season: Kovacs, now in a new sleeve, continues to search for his lost love and Envoy leader Quellcrist Falconer.

Both series have great pacing, and I remained fully engaged throughout. It contains great action scenes, and the world-building is excellent.

Of particular note is the relationship between Takeshi and his AI companion Edgar Poe, who runs the hotel where he stays. It is unclear why Takeshi decides to stay there. Nobody else has stayed in decades. This is one of the drawbacks to the series. It is based on a book that probably goes into great detail, but is at times glossed over in the series.

They are a great watch, and I give a score of four out of five.

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Review of “The First Lady” by James Patterson and Brendan Dubois

Well, readers what can I say. This is the first novel I have read by either of these authors. It won’t be the last. There is so much of the writing style that I want to emulate. The short, fast paced chapters and the exquisite use of language. The cliffhangers that make it so difficult to stop reading. Hopefully, these are the kind of things I can integrate into my own story telling.

This is an exciting quasi political mystery thriller, which has many twists and turns about a fictional First Lady of the United States that goes missing. The cause of her disappearance is muddied by the fact that her husband, has been caught out having an affair in the full glare of the media. You are left wondering has she just sneaked off somewhere to be by her own or has something more sinister happened? Is she kidnapped or even murdered?

In line, with more modern novels and despite being written by two men, it is filled with strong, memorable female characters. The kind of women who get things done. The male characters are more of a mixed bag. For instance, The First lady comes across as strong. A woman who stands by her moral code and ethics. She works tirelessly for disadvantaged kids and had an intrinsic sense of what was right and wrong. The President, on the other hand, comes across as quite weak and pathetic. Not at all like how The President is usually portrayed.

Agent Sally Grissom becomes the main person tasked with finding her. She is my favorite character; strong willed and never prepared to give up no matter the obstacles are put in her way. And there are many. The irascible Chief of Staff concludes that it would be better for The President’s upcoming elections if the First Lady was to have an unfortunate “accident”. The sympathy bounce could propel him to be re-elected and that was what really mattered. He places his faith in a female assassin who enjoys her work.

Some other reviewers have stated that it was far fetched but no for me. In this crazy world we live in, it seems more than plausible. A must read.

It probably doesn’t come as much of a surprise that I give it a score of five stars out of five.