Altered Carbon

Altered Carbon (2002) is the first installment of the Takeshi Kovacs trilogy. It introduces Takeshi Kovacs, an ex-Envoy—a member of an elite military unit—who lives in a future world where the United Nations (UN) has become the dominant governing body and humanity has colonized multiple planets. Central to the plot is the technology of “stacks” and “sleeving,” which allows for consciousness to be transferred between bodies. This destabilizes traditional ideas of ethics, mortality, and identity, and it shapes Kovacs’s personal journey as well as the social structures of this imagined world.

Morgan has noted that his inspiration for this premise originated from a conversation about religion. At a party, he got into a debate about karma and reincarnation with a Buddhist. Morgan says: “We got talking about karma and the idea that if you’re suffering in this life it’s because in a previous life you did something” (Flood, Alison. “Altered Carbon Author Richard Morgan: ‘There’s No Limit to My Capacity for Violence.’” The Guardian, 13 Feb. 2018). Morgan converted these ideas into a secular, technological framework that presents the possibility of life continuing across multiple bodies, potentially indefinitely. For Kovacs, who begins the first novel as a criminal whose body is destroyed and whose consciousness is imprisoned, this notion of ongoing existence has profound psychological and moral consequences.

Altered Carbon combines noir detective conventions with cyberpunk, a subgenre of science fiction characterized by high-tech innovation and social decay. Novels in the cyberpunk tradition are often set in landscapes dominated by corporate power. Classic works such as William Gibson’s Neuromancer (1984) and Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash (1992) depict futures where advanced technologies exist alongside stark social inequality and moral ambiguity. Altered Carbon inhabits a similar universe. Set in Bay City, which is a futuristic San Francisco, its gritty noir aesthetic, corporate corruption, and questions of identity among technological advancements exemplify cyberpunk. Kovacs stumbles upon a conspiracy that reveals the moral compromises of a society where wealth can purchase immortality. He, and many others, live multiple lifetimes and at times struggle to comprehend how this shapes them.  

Broken Angels (2003), the second book in the trilogy, shifts its tone toward military science fiction. Kovacs joined a corporate-backed expedition on a distant colony world, where the discovery of alien technology seems extraordinarily promising but also carries grave danger. This novel expands the scope of the series and situates Kovacs in conflicts shaped by interstellar politics as it explores the scars of war. The trilogy’s conclusion, Woken Furies (2005), is a planetary adventure that returns Kovacs to his home planet, Harlan’s World, where he confronts ghosts from his own past as well as from his society’s violent history. The novel examines themes of loyalty, rebellion, and the consequences of identity recycling.

Taken together, the trilogy uses Kovacs’s episodic journeys—each of which is set in a different location, genre mode, and moral landscape—to explore themes of identity, power, and morality. Though Kovacs is a participant in a civilization that is struggling with the consequences of its technological ambitions, he also retains his ability to recognize and criticize these excesses and moral lapses.