Broken Angels


Book Description

Welcome back to the brash, brutal new world of the twenty-fifth century: where global politics isn’t just for planet Earth anymore; and where death is just a break in the action, thanks to the techno-miracle that can preserve human consciousness and download it into one new body after another. Cynical, quick-on-the-trigger Takeshi Kovacs, the ex-U.N. envoy turned private eye, has changed careers, and bodies, once more . . . trading sleuthing for soldiering as a warrior-for-hire, and helping a far-flung planet’s government put down a bloody revolution. But when it comes to taking sides, the only one Kovacs is ever really on is his own. So when a rogue pilot and a sleazy corporate fat cat offer him a lucrative role in a treacherous treasure hunt, he’s only too happy to go AWOL with a band of resurrected soldiers of fortune. All that stands between them and the ancient alien spacecraft they mean to salvage are a massacred city bathed in deadly radiation, unleashed nanotechnolgy with a million ways to kill, and whatever surprises the highly advanced Martian race may have in store. But armed with his genetically engineered instincts, and his trusty twin Kalashnikovs, Takeshi is ready to take on anything—and let the devil take whoever’s left behind.




Altered Carbon


Book Description

MAJOR NEW NETFLIX SERIES FEB 2018 This must-read story is a confident, action-and-violence packed thriller, and future classic noir SF novel from a multi-award-winning author. Four hundred years from now mankind is strung out across a region of interstellar space inherited from an ancient civilization discovered on Mars. The colonies are linked together by the occasional sublight colony ship voyages and hyperspatial data-casting. Human consciousness is digitally freighted between the stars and downloaded into bodies as a matter of course. But some things never change. So when ex-envoy, now-convict Takeshi Kovacs has his consciousness and skills downloaded into the body of a nicotine-addicted ex-thug and presented with a catch-22 offer, he really shouldn¿t be surprised. Contracted by a billionaire to discover who murdered his last body, Kovacs is drawn into a terrifying conspiracy that stretches across known space and to the very top of society. For a first-time SF writer to be so surely in command of narrative and technology, so brilliant at world-building, so able to write such readable and enjoyable SF adventure, is simply extraordinary.




Altered Carbon: Download Blues


Book Description

In the distant future, the human body is atemporary and interchangeable commodity - if you can pay. For the interstellar elite, bodies are swappedout and reused without a second thought. You never grow old; you neverdie. However, some bodies are more temporary thanothers ... Takeshi Kovacs was once a member of the EnvoyCorps, stormtroopers for the Interstellar Earth Protectorate, ultra-lethaladepts in switching bodies across the stars. While he served, he was known by avariety of names--Mamba Lev, One Hand Rending, the Icepick--all testament to hiscapacity for rapid response and extreme violence in whatever flesh he wore. Nowhe's out of the service and trying to live a different life. But theProtectorate hasn't changed its spots, no matter what world Kovacs drifts to,and with that old combat rage still burning deep inside him, will he ever reallybe able to walk away? Created by Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbonwas previously adapted as a Netflix television series. This original graphicnovel, written by Rik Hoskin (Brandon Sanderson's White Sand/Pierce Brown's RedRising, expands upon the Altered Carbon universe.




Woken Furies


Book Description

Mixing classic noir sensibilities with a searing futuristic vision of an age when death is nearly meaningless, Richard K. Morgan returns to his saga of betrayal, mystery, and revenge, as Takeshi Kovacs, in one fatal moment, joins forces with a mysterious woman who may have the power to shatter Harlan’s World forever. Once a gang member, then a marine, then a galaxy-hopping Envoy trained to wreak slaughter and suppression across the stars, a bleeding, wounded Kovacs was chilling out in a New Hokkaido bar when some so-called holy men descended on a slim beauty with tangled, hyperwired hair. An act of quixotic chivalry later and Kovacs was in deep: mixed up with a woman with two names, many powers, and one explosive history. In a world where the real and virtual are one and the same and the dead can come back to life, the damsel in distress may be none other than the infamous Quellcrist Falconer, the vaporized symbol of a freedom now gone from Harlan’s World. Kovacs can deal with the madness of AI. He can do his part in a battle against biomachines gone wild, search for a three-centuries-old missing weapons system, and live with a blood feud with the yakuza, and even with the betrayal of people he once trusted. But when his relationship with “the” Falconer brings him an enemy specially designed to destroy him, he knows it’s time to be afraid. After all, the guy sent to kill him is himself: but younger, stronger, and straight out of hell. Wild, provocative, and riveting, Woken Furies is a full-bore science fiction spectacular of the highest order—from one of the most original and spellbinding storytellers at work today.




Altered Carbon : The Art and Making of the Series


Book Description

Go behind the scenes of Altered Carbon in this exclusive collection of art. Packed with concept art, final designs, and artist commentary plus previously unseen storyboards. Awaken into the cyberpunk world of Skydance's Altered Carbon. Stacks - implanted chips that store human consciousness - have made death obsolete. When Envoy Takeshi Kovacs finds himself sleeved in an unfamiliar body and assigned to investigate the murder of a wealthy businessman, he begins to uncover the seedy underbelly of a society where death is no longer permanent. This richly detailed and beautiful coffee table book takes readers from the glittering Aerium to the gritty streets of Bay City. Featuring development art, stills, set photos, storyboards, and VFX builds from the first two seasons, plus interviews with cast and crew. Altered Carbon: The Art and Making of the Series will bring readers into this visually stunning futuristic world where technology has transformed mortality.




Altered Carbon: One Life, One Death


Book Description

From the world of the best-selling trilogy of books and the hit Netflix show comes a new chapter in the ALTERED CARBON universe! In the future, bodies can be changed like clothes, giving life an entirely new meaning--or lack of meaning. Takeshi Kovacs--once a member of the Envoy Corps, the elite, deadly troops of the Interstellar Earth Protectorate--now finds himself imprisoned . . . both in a jail and in an extremely weak body. When he learns that Envoys he served with in a battle he somehow can't remember have been stolen and sold to one of the richest people in the universe, Kovacs vows to rescue them and get revenge. Leaving behind a staggering body count as he blazes across the galaxy, he wonders why he has a hole in his memory . . . and what secrets that gap holds for understanding his future and himself. ALTERED CARBON writer/creator RICHARD K. MORGAN is joined by writer SCOTT BRYAN WILSON (Batman Annual, Batman: Gotham Nights) and artist MAX FUCHS (Halcyon Days) to deliver the original graphic novel ALTERED CARBON: ONE LIFE, ONE DEATH, a violent, galaxy-spanning adventure of prison breaks, political intrigue, and sinister machinations.




Takeshi Kovacs Collection


Book Description




Sex, Death and Resurrection in Altered Carbon


Book Description

The 2018 Netflix series Altered Carbon is a vital contribution to the cyberpunk renaissance, among such titles as Snowpiercer or Blade Runner 2049. This collection of new essays answers the question: is this increasing popularity of cyberpunk a sign of recognition of the genre's transgressive aspects, such as a stark critique of capitalism, or is it the opposite--a sign of the genre's failure to successfully criticize modernity? The contributors consider the series as taking on current issues, from a critique of neoliberalism, through the ethical aspects of biotechnology, up to thanatology. They provoke questions about what it means to be human in a world in which death does not exist. Essays evaluate the surging popularity of the series and cyberpunk at large from a variety of critical perspectives, shedding new light on a challenging and inventive series.




Thin Air


Book Description

An atmospheric tale of corruption and abduction set on Mars, from the author of the award-winning science fiction novel Altered Carbon, now an exciting new series from Netflix. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE GUARDIAN Hakan Veil is an ex–corporate enforcer equipped with military-grade body tech that’s made him a human killing machine. His former employers have abandoned him on a turbulent Mars where Earth-based overlords battle for profits and power amid a homegrown independence movement. But he’s had enough of the red planet, and all he wants is a ticket back home—which is just what he’s offered by the Earth Oversight organization, in exchange for being the bodyguard for an EO investigator. It’s a beyond-easy gig for a heavy hitter like Veil . . . until it isn’t. When Veil’s charge starts looking into the mysterious disappearance of a lottery winner, it stirs up a hornet’s nest of intrigue and murder. And the deeper Veil is drawn into the game, the more long-buried secrets claw their way to the Martian surface. Now it’s the expert assassin poised against powerful enemies hellbent on taking him down—by any means necessary. Praise for Thin Air “Kick-ass . . . Mixed in with the thriller-esque action and cyberpunk backdrop is a hard-boiled noir story complete with a twisting and turning plot that keeps readers on their toes.”—Los Angeles Times “Richard K. Morgan wants to destroy your Mars fantasies. . . . It’s a grim vision, but one that Morgan finds far more plausible than the cheerful visions of plucky Mars colonists common in sci-fi.”—Wired “A robotically enhanced Jack Reacher [in a] dazzlingly intricate game of political double- and triple-cross, spiced with tastily kinetic battle sequences.”—The Guardian “If you ever imagined that the core esthetics and themes of cyberpunk—lowlifes and high tech; corporate dominance; future noir; post-human evolution and cyborg adaptations; hardscrabble urban environments—were played out, Thin Air will set you straight, and kick your butt in the process. . . . Both kinematic and cinematic, [Thin Air is] limned by Morgan with balletic precision and smashmouth grace.”—Paul Di Filippo, Locus




The Steel Remains


Book Description

A dark lord will rise. Such is the prophecy that dogs Ringil Eskiath—Gil, for short—a washed-up mercenary and onetime war hero whose cynicism is surpassed only by the speed of his sword. Gil is estranged from his aristocratic family, but when his mother enlists his help in freeing a cousin sold into slavery, Gil sets out to track her down. But it soon becomes apparent that more is at stake than the fate of one young woman. Grim sorceries are awakening in the land. Some speak in whispers of the return of the Aldrain, a race of widely feared, cruel yet beautiful demons. Now Gil and two old comrades are all that stand in the way of a prophecy whose fulfillment will drown an entire world in blood. But with heroes like these, the cure is likely to be worse than the disease.