[Review] Broken Angels

[digitaldiscipline]

Richard K. Morgan's second Takeshi Kovacs novel, Broken Angels, of necessity, does not pick up where the previous one left off. The convenient world element of being able to store and transmit one's entire memory/personality/consciousness, which is kept in a doodad that I figure is maybe the size of a Sir Marks-A-Lot cap, across space instantaneously, means that our protagonist can always begin the book somewhere new and exciting; in this case, a planet torn by civil war, aided and abetted by corporate interests and various egos.

For as political as that last sentence sounds, especially in the context of my recent blatherations, the narrative itself is fairly apolitical, albeit cynically so. Morgan does an excellent job of worldbuilding (since the previous book took place in San Francisco, though several hundred years in the future), recognizing that conflict is a mess of overlaid greys, and that there are no shortage of machinations, even when there are only three people on stage.

There were a few nagging missteps - radiation poisoning was conveniently erratic; a never-adequately-explained spiritual element that was both evocative (in a less charitable mood, I would say "rip off") of, and annoying in the same way as, the Loa of Gibson's Neuromancer sequels. I don't do the ghost in the machine motif without any kind of explanation, especially when the protagonist is as unrelentingly skeptical as I am.

On the whole, I found it to be pretty good, but not as "dude, this fucking rocks" as Altered Carbon. Maybe it's the so-called sophomore swoon, but I picked this up purely on the strength of the previous novel, and feel just a little snake-bitten for when the third installment comes out.

Comments

[lil-m-moses.livejournal.com]

I caught up on his stuff the last few months. Market Forces is good, though it took me a bit to get into. The Steel Remains...some like it, but I found it painful (gratuitous everything, but especially the sex) and won't be reading the rest of that series.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

After how utterly terrible Pattern Recognition was, I was very hesitant to pick up SC.

[vatine]

I've quite liked the Tak Kovacs books (the third one, Woken Furies, is different again). If you liked those and would like some other "broken protagonists", it MAY be worth picking up David Devereux's Hunter's Moon and Eagle Rising (they're "urban fantasy" rather than "SF", so that is a factor).