thelivingcontra 's review for:

Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan

2.5

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There were many things that could have gone right with this story: electronically stored consciousness enabling body-swapping, cyberpunk San Francisco setting, rich immortal people getting what they deserve (death), and thought-provoking commentary on the American prison industrial complex becoming even more predatory once bodies can be separated from minds. I did watch the Netflix show when it came out and really enjoyed it. All of the topics explored here sound really interesting, but the book was ruined by frequent unnecessary mentions of certain anatomical parts on both men and women that made the whole thing feel more like bad erotica with a detective mystery subplot. At first, I wondered if the author was using the excess of sexual content as a commentary of how this world has separated emotion from physical sensation, but there wasn't any character growth, commentary, or consequences surrounding these events. I can't give the author the benefit of the doubt after completing the novel. There was a scene near the end of book, leading up the "final boss", with animal abuse that didn't need to be there. Often, scenes were explicit as if to make the story seem gritty, but just took me out of the story. Close to the end of the story, I discovered the author had been banned from Twitter a few years ago for defending J.K. Rowling and sharing transphobic opinions. After reading posts related to this conflict that he posted on his own website, I decided that I would not be continuing the series because I don't want to monetarily support Morgan. It's a bummer, because I think the world-building was interesting and the characters amused me. On the bright side, I loved annotating this book out of spite. Hopefully, I can look back years from now and laugh at how messed up this book was.