Altered Carbon
by Richard K. Morgan · first published 2002
62% recommend35% neutral3% critical
Why HN recommends it
Gritty, noir-flavored cyberpunk built on swappable bodies and digital minds, with sharp world-building and ideas about immortality and the ultra-rich; suits fans of Neuromancer-style sci-fi who can handle violence.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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You should try the Takeshi Covacs books by Richard Morgan. There is a TV show coming out in two days (good timing here) based on the first book (Altered Carbon). It'll probably be a mess since the book has quite some violence. But the thoughts above are played out in a interesting and entertaining way. All three books play in the same universe with the "same"…
on “Can We Copy the Brain?” ↗…(Side note: you can buy original 80s copies of Omni magazine with the first publication for pretty cheap off eBay) Other authors I've enjoyed, coming off Neuromancer-type Gibson: Richard K. Morgan (Altered Carbon, Broken Angels, Woken Furies). Closest in tone. For god's sake don't watch the Amazon series for plot. Effinger comes up on a lot of lists, although I haven't read it myself yet. Vernor Vinge (A Fire…
on “William Gibson is a literary genius” ↗IMHO, relevant reading would include The Singularity Is Near by Ray Kurzweil and Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan. I bet everyone here knows the former book. Kurzweil's exploration of the ramifications of thinking machines is fascinating, but his response to the question of ethics can best be…
on “Human Brain Project: $1.61 billion to achieve human brain emulation by 2024” ↗Ever read 'Altered Carbon' by Richard Morgan? This SF novel (quite a page-turner, btw) is set exactly in the world like that: changing bodies extends life, and the powerful understandably have more access to that, accumulating…
on “If cryonics suddenly worked, we'd need to face the fallout” ↗…Markets - Benoit Mandelbrot The Black Swan - Nicholas Nassem Taleb Fiction Gates Of Fire - Stephen Pressfield Neuromancer - William Gibson Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson Hardwired - Walter Jon Williams Altered Carbon - Richard Morgan Red Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson Space - Stephen Baxter Enders Game - Orson Scott Card Skeleton Crew - Stephen King I've given away a lot of books. I'm old.
on “Ask HN: What book have you given as a gift?” ↗An interesting fictional book that has this idea as part of the story is Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan. Imagine if Elon musk and the other ultra-wealthy could live forever and they become even more out-of-touch with reality as the centuries roll on... In the book almost anyone that…
on “The Rich and Powerful Want to Live Forever. What If They Could?” ↗…Crash - Neal Stephenson Gridlinked - Neal Asher Neuromancer - William Gibson The Reality Dysfunction - Peter F. Hamilton The Dreaming Void - Peter F. Hamilton Fallen Dragon - Peter F. Hamilton Altered Carbon - Richard Morgan Market Forces - Richard Morgan Blindsight - Peter Watts The Electric Church - Jeff Somers Tunnel in the Sky - Robert A. Heinlein The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - Robert A. Heinlein…
on “Ask HN: Interesting (Non software) books?” ↗It's also his most tautly plotted novel because of the detective noir framework. Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan and the earlier Vlad Taltos books by Steven Brust also used detective noir conventions to great effect. It's a writer's crutch, but so many fantasy and science fiction writers suck at…
on “The Best Science Fiction Books (According to Reddit)” ↗Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan - highly. highly. Recommend. Ready Player One... meh. Much preferred MetaGame (only $2!). Otherwise - The Quantum Thief was a great mind blower. Haven't heard of Daemon, loved Snow…
on “Ask HN: I loved Snow Crash and Daemon. What should I read next?” ↗Read Altered Carbon [1] - this book addresses this question. [1] http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40445.Altered_Carbon
on “Star Trek, tech companies, and the death of futurism in cinema” ↗…and put it to use for your own purposes. After going without reading any novels for an entire semester (college life without humanities classes ugh) and then voraciously consuming Richard K. Morgan's Altered Carbon I tangibly felt my vocabulary and capacity for articulated thought come easier.
on “The Older Mind May Just Be a Fuller Mind” ↗…part of a wider series but this one has particular identity aspects to it. Can be a bit long and cumbersome - try Diamond Dogs for shorter Reynolds, though that's further detached from present reality) Altered Carbon (and sequels) by Richard Morgan (novels (the first one in particular has a whodunnit aspect), near-future, about memory and identity, written from a fairly leftist perspective about a capitalist dystopia)…
on “Ghost in the Shell remains our most challenging film about technology” ↗One of the better societal aspects of Richard Morgan's Altered Carbon was the concept of "Meths" - super rich people who could effectively afford to live forever by inserting their consciousness into new bodies (or "sleeves" to use Morgan's terminology). One of the downsides…
on “If you're alive in 30 years you might be in 1000 years too” ↗…resist digital torture. "Get to the next screen." Edit: The novels are much better than the Netflix videos. They are, in my opinion, crude hacks. Randomized and simplified. The virtual torture sequence in Altered Carbon is vastly more horrible than the one in the video. Even if I didn't care about spoilers, I'd hesitate to describe it here. And if you like Kovach, check out Stover's Caine novels. He also wrote the Star…
on “A startup is pitching a mind-uploading service that is “100 percent fatal”” ↗I started reading "Altered Carbon" after watching the netflix adaptation ( which was good ). Turns out the book is far better, more immersive and lets you wander off with subtle gaps that your imagination fills in and makes it an "interactive"…
on “Ask HN: What are your favorite books/courses of 2022? Why?” ↗