Reddit reviews Altered Carbon: A Takeshi Kovacs Novel (Takeshi Kovacs Novels)
We found 22 Reddit comments about Altered Carbon: A Takeshi Kovacs Novel (Takeshi Kovacs Novels). Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
We found 22 Reddit comments about Altered Carbon: A Takeshi Kovacs Novel (Takeshi Kovacs Novels). Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Use of Weapons and, everything else by Iain M. Banks. Amazing stuff. Trust me.
The Blade Itself and the rest of that series by Joe Abercrombie.
Altered Carbon and the rest of that series as well as Thirteen and The Steel Remains, and it's sequel (still waiting on book 3) by Richard K. Morgan. He's pretty amazing.
That would keep you busy for a long time and are all pretty amazing. Seconding Dune, which is amazing, and the Name of the Wind which is great but very popcorn.
But really, if you were to read everything by Iain M. Banks you would be a better person.
Edit: The Sparrow
>Anyone read this book?
Dude, it's practically the Citizen Kane of cyberpunk. Dated, hard to grasp and totally genre changing. I loved it when I discovered it in the early 90's but truth be told it's been surpassed several times.
Read it, and if you find the themes interesting try Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan.
This may be a weird recommendation, but Altered Carbon. It's also cyberpunk, but a bit more violent. Looks at concepts of identity in a world where backing your brain up is easy, but bodies are expensive.
The series beginning with Altered Carbon is next on my to-read list. It might be worth a look for you.
The Takeshi Kovacs trilogy by Richard K Morgan was pretty great. Last good scifi I read.
http://www.amazon.com/Altered-Carbon-Takeshi-Kovacs-Novels/dp/0345457692/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1240608120&sr=8-2
Altered Carbon - Richard K. Morgan
It's a sci-fi detective mystery, very good, and there are two other books in the series as well.
Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan
http://www.amazon.com/Altered-Carbon-Takeshi-Kovacs-Novels/dp/0345457692
You might like this. A lot.
In this same vein, though grittier than Banks and Hamilton, is the Takeshi Kovacs series by Richard K. Morgan, starting with Altered Carbon. The main character is a former UN envoy (think baddest of the badass special forces). People's minds are backed up continually in a cortical stack, which is almost indestructible. Instead of interstellar travel, people like Kovacs have the contents of their stacks transmitted across the galaxy and "re-sleeved", loaded into a new body on the other end.
The series raises some interesting questions about identity and morality when death and attachment to a specific body are taken out of the equation. His first book also deals specifically with the topic of very, very long-lived people.
Try Richard Morgan's Altered Carbon or Walter John William's Hrdwired for some good cyberpunk. For a good post-apocalypse novel you might like Earth Abides by George R. Stewart.
These are my suggestions:
Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey.
Legend by David Gemmell.
Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan.
Death's Head by David Gunn.
These are all proper manly men's books, with lots of violence, casual sex, hot dames, and actually very well written stories with well-rounded and interesting characters.
EDIT I've had another couple ideas.
Sharpe's Tiger by Bernard Cornwell.
Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett.
Gary Gibson does some credible space adventures. The Shaol sequence was pretty enjoyable.
A bit harder edged but brilliant is the Takeshi Kovacs trilogy from Richard Morgan. Start with Altered Carbon.
Also Neal Asher's Polity Agent series has a lot of good action tinged with horror.
Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan. It blends genres (mystery + noir + SF) and I think does a great job of introducing a novice to SF .
[Edit] FWIW, I purposely avoided the "classics" as I think many of them would be quite dated to today's audience and would not be a good intro into the genre. But I would hope that as their taste in SF evolves that they would find the classics on their own and would be better able to appreciate them.
Yeah, you say you've hit the classics, but did you read all of them?
Neuromancer is my favourite book. Not just in the cyberpunk genre. So I'll more-than-second that recommendation. I agree that Burning Chrome is very good.
Mirrorshades (a short story collection) is also pretty good.
http://www.amazon.com/Mirrorshades-Cyberpunk-Anthology-Bruce-Sterling/dp/0877958688
Altered Carbon is excellent noir/cyberpunk.
http://www.amazon.com/Altered-Carbon-Takeshi-Kovacs-Novels/dp/0345457692/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372885278&sr=1-1&keywords=altered+carbon
Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan
Description from Amazon:
>In the twenty-fifth century, humankind has spread throughout the galaxy, monitored by the watchful eye of the U.N. While divisions in race, religion, and class still exist, advances in technology have redefined life itself. Now, assuming one can afford the expensive procedure, a person’s consciousness can be stored in a cortical stack at the base of the brain and easily downloaded into a new body (or “sleeve”) making death nothing more than a minor blip on a screen.
Ex-U.N. envoy Takeshi Kovacs has been killed before, but his last death was particularly painful. Dispatched one hundred eighty light-years from home, re-sleeved into a body in Bay City (formerly San Francisco, now with a rusted, dilapidated Golden Gate Bridge), Kovacs is thrown into the dark heart of a shady, far-reaching conspiracy that is vicious even by the standards of a society that treats “existence” as something that can be bought and sold. For Kovacs, the shell that blew a hole in his chest was only the beginning. . . .
Again, a book I haven't read in a few years, so my impressions are hazy. However, it's Richard K. Morgan, so there's plenty to be drawn in by. Violence, sex, technology, it's all beautiful.
Altered Carbon
guh, here is the Amazon link for all the other lazy SOBs out there.
Altered Carbon
These are favorites of mine that I don't expect will make it on other lists:
The Great Book of Amber by Roger Zelazny
Blindsight by Peter Watts
The 1st Chronicles of Thomas Covenant The Unbeliever by Stephen R. Donaldson
The 2nd Chronicles of Thomas Covenant The Unbeliever by Stephen R. Donaldson
The Culture Saga by Iain M. Banks
The Takeshi Kovacs series by Richard K. Morgan
Most of what's on here is fairly classic straightforward detective stuff, which is great, but I've always been a sucker for mysteries that merge with other genres or do unusual things. A good handful if that's your bag:
Those are all more or less "detective fiction" style mystery, if you're looking at the broader genre I cannot recommend The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon any more highly. I haven't been sucked into writing like that in a long long time.
They all seem to be for 8-14yr olds...
Edit: Oh. Maybe that's what the OP meant. I got excited because I thought it would be a bunch of great books for guys, not for kids.
In case that's what you came looking for too, here's a couple of greats:
Beat the Reaper It's like House meets the Sopranos, except better.
Altered Carbon The most bad ass futuristic sci-fi book, ever.
I'm a bit late to the party but Altered Carbon and the rest of the trilogy is really good too.