Sunday 6 May 2018

Read "Altered Carbon" (2002) by Richard K Morgan, which is now a TV Series and apparently won the Phillip K Dick award in 2003. Its premise is a near future society where human consciousness can be digitalized.

Initially reading it feels very much like a book version of Blade Runner, unsurprising given its science fiction Noir setting that continues a lineage that could be traced to Phillip K Dick. Could listen to a Vangelis sound track while reading it, perhaps M83 is the more contemporary version of this. It also has femme fatal characters, that kind of give credence to the New Yorker article "How Women See Male Authors See Them" (2018), but I know 13 to 35 year old me would have liked it. A decade and a half later and different times.  The protagonist channels the type written by Raymond Chandler or perhaps Micky Spillane and has some interesting ideas on human psychology that probably in real life would result in a Phineas Gage level of functionality, but it is science fiction.

Will probably watch the TV series.