Book 32 - Cy-ber-punk! Cy-ber-punk!

Title: Altered Carbon Author: Richard Morgan Genre: CYBERPUUUUNK

So, I am totally enamoured with cyberpunk and always will be. And this novel fed RIGHT into my deep, deep love of all things futuristic and neon and depraved.

Morgan's writing is DA BOMB. The narrative style absolutely fits the character - but besides that, the author is able to blend a rough n tough casual voice with psychedelic knife-edge descriptions of a scathing cyberpunk backdrop and all the peoples, places, and things within it. The drugs, the sex, the violence - OH MY. I don't know if I've ever read anything that so closely resembled an action movie before. Every scene is meticulously rendered in edgy, immersive writing that at times shouldn't make any sense but does because the writer has done such an excellent job of building the world and its vocabulary.

The component of this book that stood out the most for me is the strong 👏 female 👏 characters 👏 Oh my god, they're everywhere! They're good guys, they're bad guys - EVERYWHERE, I SAY! And not only do the women have significant roles, but the characters themselves are multi-dimensional beings molded out of motives and desires and flaws and contradiction. Almost like...real people...imagine that... I'm just so impressed by the effortless presence of females in a genre where that can sorely be lacking. See, sci-fi?? It can be done - and WELL! 

Thank you, Richard. THANK YOU.

Rating: 💿💿💿💿💿 /5

Extra Extra...

Here's an interesting article about cyberpunk and Altered Carbon, the TV show. It pretty much rips the show a new one, but the points are quite interesting and I do think a lot of them are addressed in the novel.