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3.81 AVERAGE
3.81 AVERAGE
Sci-Fi noir from Richard K Morgan is like drinking a wine: the quality may vary but you know what you're getting. Having said that my own opinion is that each of his Sci-Fi novels have been fantastically enjoyable. Thin air takes place in what feel like a new Universe from Morgan's other Sci-fi. As usual the elements of noir detective trope come through strongly alongside future concepts, of space travel, terraforming Mars and bionic implants make a lot of what Morgan writes feel strongly aligned to Ridley Scott's Blade Runner. Morgan establishhes his own world however with concepts of overridder, ship pilot, space borne navy, commercial ownership and control of space exploitation.
I enjoyed the usual to and fro of Morgan's plotting and the several twists. Delighted to see him return to the genre
I enjoyed the usual to and fro of Morgan's plotting and the several twists. Delighted to see him return to the genre
Thin Air is Richard Morgan’s first SciFi novel in eight years. I have to admit that I was unaware of Morgan until the Netflix adaption of his first, Altered Carbon, but, inspired by that, I then picked up the three books in that series. The latest, although set in a different ‘universe’ shares much with the earlier trilogy.
Thin Air is a hard-boiled noir. It may be set on Mars but is as influenced by Chandler, Hammett and MacDonald as it is by Ray Bradbury. The protagonist, Hakan Veil, bio-engineered from childhood to be an enhanced corporate soldier, is much more Mike Hammer than Philip Marlowe. Veil is essentially a thug who solves problems with his fists, always aided by a built-in AI. Having been arrested after one such ‘solution’, Veil is blackmailed into acting as bodyguard for a representative of Earth auditors, sent to interrogate the finances of ‘frontier’ businesses.
The labyrinthian plot involves political and corporate corruption, organised crime, femme fatales, a missing lottery winner and a lot of violence. I admit I got a little lost at times but The Big Sleep is one of my favourites so not being entirely sure of what is going on is not necessarily a problem. Thin Air is no The Big Sleep but it is a good read. Mars is realistically realised and the mixture of science fiction with frontier town lawlessness is fascinating.
On the evidence of Thin Air and the Altered Carbon-series, Richard Morgan is a master of the futuristic, hard-boiled hybrid and I would not be surprised to see Hakan Veil join Takeshi Kovacs on screen.
Thin Air is a hard-boiled noir. It may be set on Mars but is as influenced by Chandler, Hammett and MacDonald as it is by Ray Bradbury. The protagonist, Hakan Veil, bio-engineered from childhood to be an enhanced corporate soldier, is much more Mike Hammer than Philip Marlowe. Veil is essentially a thug who solves problems with his fists, always aided by a built-in AI. Having been arrested after one such ‘solution’, Veil is blackmailed into acting as bodyguard for a representative of Earth auditors, sent to interrogate the finances of ‘frontier’ businesses.
The labyrinthian plot involves political and corporate corruption, organised crime, femme fatales, a missing lottery winner and a lot of violence. I admit I got a little lost at times but The Big Sleep is one of my favourites so not being entirely sure of what is going on is not necessarily a problem. Thin Air is no The Big Sleep but it is a good read. Mars is realistically realised and the mixture of science fiction with frontier town lawlessness is fascinating.
On the evidence of Thin Air and the Altered Carbon-series, Richard Morgan is a master of the futuristic, hard-boiled hybrid and I would not be surprised to see Hakan Veil join Takeshi Kovacs on screen.
I'm a big fan of Richard K. Morgan's science fiction. I reread his Takeshi Kovacs trilogy every handful of years, and 'Market Forces' is a dark, nasty thrill ride that I only appreciated more once I took a job in corporate America. So when I learned that he was working on another sci-fi novel after a long break, I was eager to get my hands on a copy. Unfortunately, I'm not sure this is one I'm likely to revisit.
Part of the problem is the main character. Hakan Veil is both a "hibernoid" and an "overrider:" in the early phase of the book, these terms are used frequently without being defined, but it is eventually explained the Veil was genetically modified as a young age to be capable of spending extended periods in cryogenic hibernation ("hibernoid") with the purpose of placing him on long-haul spaceships where he can be awoken to retake a ship on which the crew mutinies ("overrider"). As a result of his genetic alternations, Veil spends four months out of every year in hibernation, and when he wakes up, he's amped for extreme aggression and superhuman physical activity.
But, if you want someone who can hibernate indefinitely but wake up immediately ready for action, does it necessarily follow that he'd have long periods of required hibernation? The two concepts don't entirely align, and moreover, there doesn't seem to be a really good reason for this aspect of character identity. We never seen Veil being anything other than brutal, so it's not like his condition alters his behavior or personality appreciably. Nor does the need for prolonged sleep meaningfully change his motivations. It's mentioned early on that he needs to earn enough money during his active periods to sustain him during his annual hibernation, but on the time scale of the novel this never feels like a truly motivating factor: there's no sense of a ticking clock, or that Veil is coming up against a hard limit of his own biology. It would have made for an interesting plot device, but as it stands, it doesn't add much except for the opportunity for some confusing terminology.
On the topic of unnecessary elements, the secondary characters in this novel all felt half-developed. Veil seems to have a love-hate relationship with all of the women around him, from the angry lady cop to the hooker with a heart of gold to the bitter failed revolutionary to the icy lady gangster. None of them are fully realized, and although they all serve a plot purpose, it feels very repetitive. Morgan HAS written well-defined, interested female characters before, so I don't know what happened here.
The rot eats into the plotting, as well. Morgan tends to throw the reader into the story immediately without a lot of handholding or orientation. This makes for a challenging few early chapters, but it's a valid stylistic decision. In this novel, however, major plot evolutions come out of nowhere. On two different occasions Veil double-crosses someone without warning to the reader. In both cases it's more or less justified retrospectively, but the feeling is less that Veil is making decisions motivated by his values and more that he's bouncing around like a ping pong ball. Additionally, Veil's biotechnological enhancements serve as a recurrent deus ex machina--they allow him to bust out of restraints to escape torture, to shrug off shotgun blasts to the spine, and to generally do whatever the plot needs him to do at any given moment. It short circuits the tension of story, and it feels like a really amateurish mistake for the author to make.
I didn't hate it--it was interesting enough, and presented some neat concepts, but it wasn't as good as I'd hoped for from the guy who wrote 'Altered Carbon.' Hopefully now that he's knocked the dust off he'll be back in form.
Part of the problem is the main character. Hakan Veil is both a "hibernoid" and an "overrider:" in the early phase of the book, these terms are used frequently without being defined, but it is eventually explained the Veil was genetically modified as a young age to be capable of spending extended periods in cryogenic hibernation ("hibernoid") with the purpose of placing him on long-haul spaceships where he can be awoken to retake a ship on which the crew mutinies ("overrider"). As a result of his genetic alternations, Veil spends four months out of every year in hibernation, and when he wakes up, he's amped for extreme aggression and superhuman physical activity.
But, if you want someone who can hibernate indefinitely but wake up immediately ready for action, does it necessarily follow that he'd have long periods of required hibernation? The two concepts don't entirely align, and moreover, there doesn't seem to be a really good reason for this aspect of character identity. We never seen Veil being anything other than brutal, so it's not like his condition alters his behavior or personality appreciably. Nor does the need for prolonged sleep meaningfully change his motivations. It's mentioned early on that he needs to earn enough money during his active periods to sustain him during his annual hibernation, but on the time scale of the novel this never feels like a truly motivating factor: there's no sense of a ticking clock, or that Veil is coming up against a hard limit of his own biology. It would have made for an interesting plot device, but as it stands, it doesn't add much except for the opportunity for some confusing terminology.
On the topic of unnecessary elements, the secondary characters in this novel all felt half-developed. Veil seems to have a love-hate relationship with all of the women around him, from the angry lady cop to the hooker with a heart of gold to the bitter failed revolutionary to the icy lady gangster. None of them are fully realized, and although they all serve a plot purpose, it feels very repetitive. Morgan HAS written well-defined, interested female characters before, so I don't know what happened here.
The rot eats into the plotting, as well. Morgan tends to throw the reader into the story immediately without a lot of handholding or orientation. This makes for a challenging few early chapters, but it's a valid stylistic decision. In this novel, however, major plot evolutions come out of nowhere. On two different occasions Veil double-crosses someone without warning to the reader. In both cases it's more or less justified retrospectively, but the feeling is less that Veil is making decisions motivated by his values and more that he's bouncing around like a ping pong ball. Additionally, Veil's biotechnological enhancements serve as a recurrent deus ex machina--they allow him to bust out of restraints to escape torture, to shrug off shotgun blasts to the spine, and to generally do whatever the plot needs him to do at any given moment. It short circuits the tension of story, and it feels like a really amateurish mistake for the author to make.
I didn't hate it--it was interesting enough, and presented some neat concepts, but it wasn't as good as I'd hoped for from the guy who wrote 'Altered Carbon.' Hopefully now that he's knocked the dust off he'll be back in form.
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Very uninteresting. Takes too long to get to the point
Richard Morgan is, shall we say, a specialist.
His area of focus is: lovable male antiheroes and analysis of corporate and political power. It’s what he does. You can argue that you’re not interested in those things, but you can’t argue he does them poorly.
His gift for writing a page-turning novel in the hard-boiled style has only sharpened with time and experience. Thin Air manages to be action packed despite substantial world building on a far-future Mars. Fans of Morgan’s Thirteen will appreciate continuity with the world and organizations set forth in that novel, though aside from an Asia Badawi cameo, there aren’t any shared characters between the books.
It’s Richard Morgan. It’s gonna be violent, it’s gonna be clever, it’s gonna be action packed with a thoughtful, critical premise. If you’re into that sort of thing, you’ll have a blast.
His area of focus is: lovable male antiheroes and analysis of corporate and political power. It’s what he does. You can argue that you’re not interested in those things, but you can’t argue he does them poorly.
His gift for writing a page-turning novel in the hard-boiled style has only sharpened with time and experience. Thin Air manages to be action packed despite substantial world building on a far-future Mars. Fans of Morgan’s Thirteen will appreciate continuity with the world and organizations set forth in that novel, though aside from an Asia Badawi cameo, there aren’t any shared characters between the books.
It’s Richard Morgan. It’s gonna be violent, it’s gonna be clever, it’s gonna be action packed with a thoughtful, critical premise. If you’re into that sort of thing, you’ll have a blast.
This doesn't really break any new ground for Morgan, but what he does he does well.
This is a violent hard boiled detective story, a Chandleresque noir, full of femme fatales, hidden agendas, and convenient bangs on the head when the plot needs a quick push along. The only difference is that here the detective is a genetically modified, borderline psychopath, warrior, and 1940s LA has been swapped out for a colonised Mars.
It's mostly exciting stuff, with some occasional drags, but in the end, it was all just a little bit too macho for me. Richard Morgan has never exactly been a shrinking violet, and I've enjoyed his previous work, but here the sex and violence are so overblown they teeter on the edge of ridiculousness, and unfortunately the whole thing ends up feeling like a suburban office worker's power fantasy. It's good at what it does, but what it does isn't for me this time round.
It's mostly exciting stuff, with some occasional drags, but in the end, it was all just a little bit too macho for me. Richard Morgan has never exactly been a shrinking violet, and I've enjoyed his previous work, but here the sex and violence are so overblown they teeter on the edge of ridiculousness, and unfortunately the whole thing ends up feeling like a suburban office worker's power fantasy. It's good at what it does, but what it does isn't for me this time round.
This felt a lot like how playing cyberpunk 2077 felt. It really was a cyberpunk world in all the best ways and it took itself serious.
The last cyberpunk book I read was snowcrash which I rated like a 3/5 or 4/5. This book was better than snowcrash. I'll go ahead and say it's a 4/5. I will read more Richard K Morgan now.
The combat was really good, gunplay was written well and people get fucking shot. Even important people.
The story was really really good, it was clean, entertaining, no ass-pulls at any time. Just a ton of people trying to fuck each other over for reasons you have to keep reading to find out. Reminded me of how vernor vinge has stories go in some ways. Always another layer at play you have to wait for it to be revealed.
There are a total of 3 sex scenes, they are pretty good. It's not cringe or weird like Ringworlds sex scene and they were more detailed than the first Witcher book.
If you like cyberpunk as a genre, read this.
Spoiler reviews
I am pissed they fucking shot Gradual, I really was rooting for the Chinese in this story. They should have made out alright like everyone else did. The ending of this book felt like if the cyberpunk 2077 story had a good ending where everyone is happy. Sooo it fucking ruled.
The last cyberpunk book I read was snowcrash which I rated like a 3/5 or 4/5. This book was better than snowcrash. I'll go ahead and say it's a 4/5. I will read more Richard K Morgan now.
The combat was really good, gunplay was written well and people get fucking shot. Even important people.
The story was really really good, it was clean, entertaining, no ass-pulls at any time. Just a ton of people trying to fuck each other over for reasons you have to keep reading to find out. Reminded me of how vernor vinge has stories go in some ways. Always another layer at play you have to wait for it to be revealed.
There are a total of 3 sex scenes, they are pretty good. It's not cringe or weird like Ringworlds sex scene and they were more detailed than the first Witcher book.
If you like cyberpunk as a genre, read this.
Spoiler reviews
I am pissed they fucking shot Gradual, I really was rooting for the Chinese in this story. They should have made out alright like everyone else did. The ending of this book felt like if the cyberpunk 2077 story had a good ending where everyone is happy. Sooo it fucking ruled.
3.5 stars. I love Morgan's writing style, it's so gritty and dark and there's so much detail you can't help but feel that he's been spying on alternate dimensions or timelines and just copying down events as they happen. This was probably my least favorite of his books so far (and I've read most of them) but still worth a read. I got lost a bit with all the characters and double-dealing going on and felt like the sex scenes got a little gratuitous after a while, but still great sci-fi/noir.