Altered CarbonBroken AngelsThe third and final installment in the Takeshi Kovacs trilogy Woken Furies was a bittersweet read for me. On the one hand, Takeshi is probably the best protagonist I've come across in years. I sincerely want to be him when I grow up, and I feel a special kinship to him. Richard Morgan is a fantastic storyteller with an incredible command of the language, making his books a joy to read. Unfortunately, this is the last planned book featuring Takeshi. I tried to draw it out and savor every moment - but I got so involved in the story I finished it in just a couple of days. I'm looking forward to rereading the series again to revisit these characters and worlds that have become part of my mental landscape.And that's a major theme of this book - when people live long enough to see history repeat itself, does it mean they have new choices about how they'll take part or does it mean they are just that much more prepared to do it all over again? How much freewill does someone have, when the same machinations of politics and capital force the same crucibles every few generations? In Woken Furies, the Trotskyist dogma gets marched out front and center, and Takeshi is constantly forced to evaluate how personal he wants to make the political. When we meet Takeshi at the beginning of the story, he's back on his homeworld, exacting revenge against a politically powerful cult of misogynistic theists (think Sharia law). While he's still an incredibly potent warrior and force to be reckoned with on any number of planets, his life has dwindled to a molten ember of hate fueled by revenge. We see Takeshi's personality stripped down to his essence, a tightly coiled spring that only comes to life in violent spurts. His cynicism has ceased to be just a glib way of brushing people off and has taken a life of it's own, and his capacity to care for anyone or anything else seems to have been replaced with a self-destructive urge that is more than slightly remniscent of Case at the beginning of William Gibson's "Neuromancer".However, the similiarities to other stories end there. I do not intend in any way to imply that Woken Furies is derivative. It's as fresh and innovative as the rest of the series, and while the tone is dark and the protagonist is in the angriest and loneliest mental space of his long life, it is constantly fresh and surprising - no mean feat for the third book in a series. The story follows Takeshi as he's forced to evaluate how much he's willing to sacrifice to maintain his cold aloofness. Several times in the book, he's given the opportunity to join a cause larger than himself, and each time he involves himself just enough to get what he wants out of it - always with the argument that it doesn't matter what he does now, the march of history will trample all their dreams just like it has before. What he really means is that his dreams have been trampled, and he's too hurt and bitter to move on. His former Envoy commander calls him out on it, telling him point blank it doesn't matter how many people he kills, the woman he loved is going to stay dead. Takeshi's response is to tell her that at least killing the people who created the situation that led to his love's death gives him a momentary sense of relief. Unfortunately, like any drug, it takes more and more to get any reaction and through the latter half of the book Takeshi is floundering in his resentment, searching for something to lash out at.His former Envoy commander isn't the only ghost from his past. The woman he was with in the first chapter of Altered Carbon is a driving force in the plot, as are his former Envoy comrades, gangsters he ran with as a young thug, and even a younger copy of his personality. This latter complication could easily fall into farcical nonsense, but Richard treats it with dilegence and care, and eventually the Takeshi of the timeline we know has to face the younger Takeshi who hasn't experienced the last century. As I've often said, "If I met my younger self, I'd kick his mouthy ass", and Takeshi(1) feels much the same. The scene where they finally meet may be one of the most powerful scenes in the entire series. Without giving away any spoilers, I'll just say that Takeshi(1) drives home one of the most important themes of the series: "Live my life for a hundred years and see how well you handle it, if you can make any better choices than I have".Despite all this, the book ultimately ends on a hopeful note that I won't give away here. Like the other two books, Takeshi's efforts to make himself rich and forget his past lead him and his companions to some technology that's a "game changer" and may yet provide a way for "the little guys" to take on the powers that be. Takeshi's last thoughts as the last chapter close show he's begun living for something, hope, rather than spending his life fighting against everything.This is another absolutely brilliant book by Richard K. Morgan, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone vaguely interested in scifi. Unfortunately, it may be hard to get into for people not accustomed to the genre thanks to Richard's liberal use of new terms and technologies that he never specifically defines for the benefit of the reader. I am looking forward to rereading the whole series many times during the rest of my life.
From the abbreviated experience I've had reading Mr. Morgan's books, I've come to the conclusion that he's a better scenarist than he is at building a thorough plot. Books like Thirteen and Altered Carbon are all over the place, tossing in characters, set-pieces and, if there's room, the kitchen sink that tend to distract from the overall story. What Mr. Morgan excels at is creating a believable and enticing future world. Thirteen featured an America divided into a few liberal outlying states surrounding an ultraconservative separatist middle. Altered Carbon created an earth that had become something of a backwater in a world where many other planets had been colonized. Woken Furies is the third book in the series that began with Altered Carbon and, unfortunately, Morgan seems to be running out of gas. Series protagonist Takeshi Kovacs returns to his home world for a rather muddled adventure. Morgan often seems to leave some facts and plot points for the reader to fill in for themselves which, while laudable in not underestimating the reader's intelligence, can be a bit frustrating when it serves to undermine the actual story. To be honest, if I had read this book, I probably would have given in at least two stars. Unfortunately, I chose what is, without a doubt, the worst audiobook I have ever listened to. The production company decided to shoehorn in irritating gimmicks like recording anything that takes place in the past in an almost indecipherable echo chamber. As if to add insult to injury, the narrator seems to have confused "tough guy" with "smarmy car salesman" and constantly mispronounces Kovacs' name. Kovacs begins Altered Carbon stating that his name is pronounced KOH-vach, and it irritates him to no end when it's pronounced KOH-vaks. Were he a real person, Mr. Kovacs would despise this audiobook as much as I do.
What do You think about Woken Furies (2005)?
Much better than the second book in the series, Broken Angels, and almost as good as the first.In the first book, Takeshi Kovacs is a disillusioned ex-military killing machine, practically forced into a life of crime because no other avenues of employment exist once he's left the military. He's given a chance to redeem himself in a largely legitimate job as a private investigator, and it seems he might be able to find himself a niche. In the second book, he's back to the military as a mercenary - whatever happened to the disillusionment? What happened to him after the end of the previous story? We never find the answer to either question (though there's a small hint in this book), and it's frustrating that the reader is introduced to one Takeshi Kovacs in the first story, and then a seemingly different one in the second.In this last book in the series, Kovacs hits rock-bottom, but at least this time we're told the source of his anger ((view spoiler)[the Real death of his former lover and her daughter (hide spoiler)]
—Derek (Guilty of thoughtcrime)
Who would've thought that Quellcrist Falconer could get so tedious? I liked this book, but I'm pretty happy to be done with the Takeshi Kovacs saga. What happened to the badass I could get behind from the first book? Now all he does is yell at people & be pissed off & get laid inexplicably. He redeemed himself a bit at the end of this one (before Jad sort of blew all that burgeoning humanity to pieces), so I guess I can feel a little better about him than I did, but I'm still relieved th
—Melissa
Reading Morgan's work is an exercise in annoyance. I like Kovacs as a character although the discrepancy in his abilities versus the mythology of the Envoys is really annoying. He is supposed to be this hot-shot one man death squad and he keeps getting the crap beaten out of him at every turn. In this novel especially he is reactionary rather than in command, always seeming a step or two behind and following other people's direction with little independent thought. Kovacs goes up against his younger self and it ends up being a non-event; no real conflict, suspense, and an anticlimactic resolution. This was disappointing since the book opens up with this an intriguing teaser. A lot less is made of Kovacs envoy conditioning in this book, it does not seem to be much of a factor. And after reading three of these novels, I am able to avoid and/or skim the stupid porn but those sections still annoy the hell outta me. Maybe the author feels the need to write a how-to have sex procedural or he is a failed letters to Penthouse writer but those passages do not tell me anything and do not do anything for me other than to make me cringe and say YUCK. And I do not buy the idea that a deep personal commitment to another is based merely on a physical/chemical reaction upon which the author continues to hammer and yammer. That sounds like a facile excuse to justify infidelity in real life. And another thing, when communicating with computers, instructions would be given in an unequivocal manner, like responding to Yes/No questions with a yes/no answers. Computers operate for all intents and purposes instantaneously & simultaneously so as soon as a computer gets a positive response, it will initiate the appropriate action rather than wait and parse the glacially slow delivery of the rest of a comment for snide sarcasm. Yet another pet peeve is the need to do the James Bond style of style - in fact, that what these books kinda remind of, a thinly veiled ripoff of 007 in disposable bodies. I get really tired of everything being couched in quippy banter even when it's clearly inappropriate and people rationalizing their actions and twirl their proverbial mustaches. Ultimately, I like Morgan's writing snappy writing style and the future worlds he has postulated are fascinating, but too many sloppy quirks keep getting in the way of me enjoying his books.
—Sandi
