Altered Carbon

Altered Carbon (2002) is a science fiction novel by Richard K. Morgan. Set in the 25th century in a futuristic version of San Francisco, it follows investigator Takeshi Kovacs as he tries to solve the apparent suicide of wealthy magnate Laurens Bancroft and stumbles into a violent conspiracy. At the novel’s core is the speculative technology of “stacks” and “sleeving.” Stacks are cortical implants embedded at the base of the skull that store a person’s consciousness. When a body dies, this digital identity can be transferred into a new body or “sleeve.” Thus, in the world of the novel, immortality is a possibility for the rich and powerful.

Altered Carbon is the first book in the Takeshi Kovacs trilogy, followed by Broken Angels (2003) and Woken Furies (2005). The novel won the Philip K. Dick Award in 2004 and was adapted into a Netflix series that premiered in 2018.

This guide references the 2017 Del Ray paperback edition.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of graphic violence, sexual content, sexual violence and harassment, rape, death, addiction, substance use, death by suicide, suicidal ideation, physical abuse, emotional abuse, gender discrimination, animal cruelty and death, pregnancy loss, child death, child abuse, and cursing.

Plot Summary

On Harlan’s World, ex-Envoy and investigator Takeshi Kovacs and his partner, Sarah, are ambushed by soldiers and killed. More than a century later, Kovacs is resleeved—downloaded into a new body—on Earth, in Bay City. Death is no longer permanent, as long as the stack—the device embedded into the neck and contains consciousness—is not damaged. A man named Laurens Bancroft, who is one of the wealthiest men in the world, has hired Kovacs as an investigator. Laurens supposedly died by suicide, and after being resleeved, he believes he was actually murdered.

When Kovacs walks out of the resleeving facility, he meets Kristin Ortega, the police officer originally in charge of the investigation over Laurens’s death. She tells Kovacs that it was ruled a suicide, and there is no evidence to suggest murder. They pass a demonstration on the street, and Ortega explains that Catholics are protesting Resolution 653, which would allow for dead Catholics to be resleeved to be witnesses in criminal trials. Catholics believe that resleeving damages the soul.

Ortega drives Kovacs to Suntouch House, where he meets Laurens and his wife, Miriam. Laurens explains that there is footage of him coming home and proceeding to shoot himself in the head. He says he downloads his memories for safekeeping every 48 hours, but because of the timing of his death, he has no recollection of it. Laurens is hundreds of years old and resleeves often into clones of himself.

Kovacs decides to stay at the Hendrix, a hotel run completely by an artificial intelligence (AI), but when he checks in, a man and woman ambush him. Though Kovacs does not know who the man is, the man recognizes him. The Hendrix kills the man and woman. Ortega comes to investigate and discovers that both bodies were sleeves of Dimitri Kadmin, a mercenary. Kovacs believes Kadmin was there to kill him.

Kovacs meets with Laurens’s lawyer and learns that Laurens had an affair 50 years prior. Miriam physically assaulted his pregnant mistress, and she lost the baby. When Kovacs examines records of threats made to Laurens, he discovers one that matches the mode of Laurens’s death. He follows the threat to Victor Elliott, who claims his daughter, Elizabeth, was a sex worker murdered by Laurens. He explains that his wife, Irene, was uploaded as punishment for dipping, or stealing information from broadcasts. Irene’s body was then bought by someone else, and Elizabeth turned to sex work to try and earn enough money to buy back Irene’s body. After meeting and speaking to him, Kovacs does not believe Elliott killed Laurens.

Kovacs then goes to the brothel where Elizabeth worked. He meets a sex worker named Anemone, who promises to gather information about Elizabeth and asks him to come back the next night. Later that night, Kovacs returns to the Hendrix and finds Miriam in his room. They make love, and she asks him to stop investigating Laurens’s death. Kovacs tells her he will consider.

When Kovacs returns to the brothel, he finds Anemone dead and is ambushed. The perpetrators capture him and upload him into a virtual reality, calling him Ryker, where they torture him. He tells them he is not Ryker, and they finally believe him. One woman, Trepp, says she will take him to meet someone who can clarify everything, but Kovacs kills her and escapes. He goes back to the clinic they tortured him in and kills everyone there, too.

Then, Kovacs discovers that people call him Ryker because he was resleeved into Ortega’s ex-lover’s body. Ryker is a police officer who is currently doing time for supposedly murdering people while investigating the death of a girl who washed up from the sea. Kovacs convinces Ortega to let him interrogate Kadmin virtually. They do, but Kadmin will not admit to anything. Then, they decide to visit Kadmin’s lawyer and bug his office. After they leave, the lawyer makes a call to the Panama Rose, which is a fight dome. When they visit, they meet the proprietor, Carnage, but find no evidence of crime.

Later, Ortega facilitates a meeting between Kovacs and the woman Laurens had an affair with. The woman believes that Miriam is capable of killing Laurens, but she does not believe Miriam would ever face consequences, being too rich. Afterward, as Ortega and Kovacs leave the meeting, Kadmin attacks them. Ortega cannot believe that Kadmin could escape, but Kovacs proves it by meeting with the doctor who woke him up. She admits they placed a tracking device in Kovacs’s neck, though she cannot tell him who directed them to do so. He neutralizes the device and begins searching for who is pulling the strings.

Kovacs encounters Trepp again. She is in a new body and has no recollection of him killing her. She holds no ill will and takes him to her boss, Reileen Kawahara. Kawahara and Kovacs have a history, with Kawahara being wealthy, influential, and manipulative of Kovacs in his previous military days. She demands that he convince Laurens that he died by suicide; otherwise, she will upload Sarah’s consciousness to test new torture methods.

Kovacs devises a plan to convince Laurens of his suicide. He tells Kawahara to give him a virus that destroys stacks. He also asks her to resleeve Irene, as she has the skills to accomplish his plans. He meets Irene and promises her revenge, and together, they simulate Laurens’s visit to a virtual brothel, claiming a virus there destroyed the AI running it and infected Laurens. Once they are done, Kovacs goes to Laurens and presents this evidence, convincing Laurens that he died by suicide to save himself from the virus before it spread to his back up stacks. Laurens believes this.

With Ortega, Kovacs comes to realize that Kawahara manipulated Laurens into killing himself, and he deduces that it must have something to do with her floating brothel called Head in the Clouds. He suspects she lets wealthy clients kill sex workers there. However, Kadmin kidnaps Ortega, and Kovacs trades himself for her. Kadmin takes him to the Panama Rose, where Carnage makes them fight. Before Kadmin can kill Kovacs, Trepp and the police rush in and stop the fight.

Kovacs once again recruits Irene and forms a team with Ortega to take down Kawahara. He splits himself into two bodies, sending the one in Ryker’s sleeve to meet Miriam while he goes in a new sleeve to Head in the Clouds. Once there, he confronts Kawahara, who admits that she allows her clients to kill the women they sleep with. However, she only hires Catholic girls who cannot be resleeved to testify, unless Resolution 653 is passed. She and Miriam manipulated Laurens into coming to Head in the Clouds, and with some chemical assistance, he killed a sex worker.

After this, Kawahara tried to blackmail Laurens into stopping Resolution 653 from passing, but he instead went home and died by suicide to erase the memory. A physical struggle between Kovacs and Kawahara ensues, and Kovacs succeeds in pitching them out of the ship. As they fall, he destroys her stack, killing her permanently. When Kovacs wakes up, Laurens pays him what he owes him, and he resleeves into Ryker’s body. His alternate self’s memories are erased. He helps Irene free her daughter and says goodbye to Ortega. Then, he is uploaded and leaves Earth.