Richard Morgan: Broken Angels (2003)

Edition: Gollancz, 2003
Review number: 1202

Richard Morgan's first novel, Altered Carbon, immediately established him as someone to watch in the science fiction genre. A year later, his second novel will have been eagerly awaited by those who enjoyed his first. In it, he picks up the story of former UN envoy Takeshi Kovacs again, some decades later; he is now involved in a brutal civil war on the planet Sanction IV.

Recovering in hospital from a wound, he is approached to take part in an illegal expedition, to form a group of mercenaries to make a raid on an archaeological site now on the front line. For Sanction IV is a rich source for the relics of a mysterious alien race, now disappeared, named Martians after the first planet where their artefacts were discovered. And the site, unknown to the major players in the war, contains an incredible prize, a still working hyperspace gateway decades ahead of human technology.

In the last decade or so, archaeology and technological relics have become frequently recurring themes in the trendiest science fiction. Dan Simmons, Iain Banks, David Brin and Alastair Reynolds are just some of the writers who have written this kind of story recently. It is an interesting development in mainstream science fiction, if hardly one without precedent (Arthur C. Clark's 2001 being an obviously closely related story, for example). Most earlier spacefarers are either humans blazing their way into a galaxy where they are technologically supreme (or morally superior), or part of a co-operative confederation of alien races. The political ideas behind these scenarios are quite clear even if they had been for many writers unconscious (the first in particular is connected to racist justifications of white American supremacy), but what the vanished aliens are trying to say is less obvious, at least to me. Certainly, one motivation for the increased popularity of the idea is some kind of nostalgia for the past, for a more cultured time; another is to deflate ideas of human superiority. It also makes creation of thriller style plots easier, artefacts providing concrete goals which are easy for the reader to grasp so that the author can put more effort into embellishing the background and emphasising the things that they want to say.

I'm not sure, however, that Morgan had much to actually say here. Altered Carbon had some new ideas in it, but Broken Angels doesn't; it could have been written by any of half a dozen current authors. That doesn't mean it's not a good science fiction novel; it's exciting and interesting, and well worth reading. It's just rather more in the tradition of Iain M. Banks than I expected as a follow up to such an original debut.

Richard Morgan: Altered Carbon (2002)

Edition: Gollancz, 2002
Review number: 1139

For many years, there has been science fiction about how death might be defeated (going back at least as far as Robert Heinlein's Howard Families stories). The closest match to the ideas explored here is probably found in the Gateway series by Frederik Pohl, in which the rich can make copies of their personalities to live in a virtual world. This idea is not the main one in Pohl's novel, and Morgan is able to develop a similar scenario more thorougly because he makes it central to Altered Carbon. This is a future in which people can not only copy themselves into computers, but where the copies can be downloaded into other bodies, which have in consequence become known as "sleeves". Morgan has created an entire culture based around this, where (for example) criminals spend sentences having their minds stored on stacks, where people keep backup copies, and where organic damage is a more serious crime than mere murder. An important part of Altered Carbon is the reaction of established religions to the idea; not surprisingly, Christian groups tend to view resleeving as a denial of the possibility of a final resurrection.

A new breed of special forces came into being - the UN Envoys, transmitted at supra-light speed (Morgan assumes technology to transmit information but not mass faster than light) to troublesome planets, downloaded into a strange sleeve, trained to overcome the disorientation which follows from waking in a new body. Kovacs, the central character, was one of these soldiers, now (in common with a fair proportion of his comrades) into a criminal, an assassin. Sentenced to a couple of centuries on the stack for his latest killing, Kovacs is unexpectedly revived on Earth by a rich man in need of a private investigator. The police have decide that a few days ago he committed suicide, blowing his own head off. This contradicts his own opinion of hinself, once he is revived - if he had wanted to commit suicide, he would have prevented a new sleeve (he keeps clones for the purpose) being ready to take his stored backup personality. The police, on the other hand, were convinced that his security arrangements would prevent an intruder gaining access - in other words, this is basically a locked room mystery.

In style, Altered Carbon is clearly strongly influenced by Raymond Chandler; Kovacs is one of the many Marlowe-like private detectives in crime fiction. Elements in the scenario also recall more specific Chandler moments - Kovacs' arrival at the mansion reminded me of the equivalent in The Big Sleep, for example.

There are also obvious science fictional influences, particularly from cyberpunk and post-cyberpunk writers, though it would be safe to say that cyberpunk has become the dominant voice in the genre today. Altered Carbon is at the grittier end of the genre, with some grimly humorous details (I liked the idea of a crime of "excessively armed robbery".) The most immediate cross-reference which occurred to me is Jon Courtenay Grimwood's redRobe.

Altered Carbon is very enjoyable, so long as violence does not put you off too much (and it does not produce the sordid feeling that I get from some writers). Richard Morgan is certainly someone to look out for in future.