Title: Altered Carbon
Author: Richard K. Morgan
First published Feb. 2002
2006 Del Rey Mass Market Edition
Pages: 375
Goodreads Summary
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. . . .
Title: Spin
Author: Robert Charles Wilson
Released 2005
Published by Tor Science Fictin
Pages: 458
Goodreads Summary
One night in October when he was ten years old, Tyler Dupree stood in his back yard and watched the stars go out. They all flared into brilliance at once, then disappeared, replaced by a flat, empty black barrier. He and his best friends, Jason and Diane Lawton, had seen what became known as the Big Blackout. It would shape their lives.
Life on Earth is about to get much, much stranger.
I already posted about The Quantum Thief, but I'll just add it with this group since it just arrived.
Title: The Quantum Thief (The Jean le Flambeur Series, #1)
Author: Hannu Rajaniemi
Published, Mass Market Paperback Edition, Tor Science Fiction Jan 2012
first published 2010 by Gollancz
Pages: 336
Goodreads Summary
Jean le Flambeur gets up in the morning and has to kill himself before his other self can kill him first. Just another day in the Dilemma Prison. Rescued by the mysterious Mieli and her flirtatious spacecraft, Jean is taken to the Oubliette, the Moving City of Mars, where time is a currency, memories are treasures, and a moon-turned-singularity lights the night. Meanwhile, investigator Isidore Beautrelet, called in to investigate the murder of a chocolatier, finds himself on the trail of an arch-criminal, a man named le Flambeur...
Indeed, in his many lives, the entity called Jean le Flambeur has been a thief, a confidence artist, a posthuman mind-burgler, and more. His origins are shrouded in mystery, but his deeds are known throughout the Heterarchy, from breaking into the vast Zeusbrains of the Inner System to stealing rare Earth antiques from the aristocrats of Mars. In his last exploit, he managed the supreme feat of hiding the truth about himself from the one person in the solar system hardest to hide from: himself. Now he has the chance to regain himself in all his power—in exchange for finishing the one heist he never quite managed.
The Quantum Thief is a breathtaking joyride through the solar system several centuries hence, a world of marching cities, ubiquitous public-key encryption, people who communicate via shared memory, and a race of hyper-advanced humans who originated as an MMORPG guild. But for all its wonders, The Quantum Thief is also a story powered by very human motives of betrayal, jealousy, and revenge. It is a stunning debut.
I received the first volume of The Manhattan Projects as a birthday present! I am so excited. I have been wanting to read this series FOREVER. *breaks down to do happy jig*
Title: The Manhattan Projects: Science. Bad.
Written by Johnathan Hickman
Artist: Nick Pitarra
Image Comics, September 2012
Pages: 144
Goodreads Summary
Ohhhh I am so excited! Can you tell I'm excited???What if the research and development department created to produce the first atomic bomb was a front for a series of other, more unusual, programs?
Okay, that's it for today. Hope you find something to add to your to read list.
Your preview of The Manhattan Projects is the greatest ever.
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