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.