Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan

Altered Carbon

I really dig the hardboiled sf/mystery style (Lethem also does this really well). After Halting State, all the violence and action that Morgan packs into his work was especially welcome. It's not great literature, but it's a fun ride.

I have this massive fear of being trapped. Trapped underground in a tight cave. Trapped under the ice (not that I have ever seen a really frozen lake or pond - I'm a Florida boy). Trapped in my own body, mind alive but unable to move (China Miéville's books tap into some of that, especially some of the punishments in the Bas-Lag novels). So Morgan's vision of mind being kept "on the stacks", frozen in time or manipulated by anyone who can afford the technology, really gave me the heebie jeebies.

Not to mention all the brutality in Altered Carbon. Now, this isn't packed full of detailed violence like Chung Kuo, by David Wingrove, but he does linger on some pretty fucked up torture a time or two. I don't have a problem with that. It fuels the rage behind the story, and who among us isn't a little fascinated by blood and gore?

All in all, a dark, flowing cyberpunk adventure. I thought I knew the answer to the whodunit early on but turned out to be wrong - a good thing, indeed. I look forward to reading more in the series.

Level 7 by Mordecai Roshwald

Level 7

First off, let me say that this copy, which I got for under a dollar from The Paperback Rack, is the proud winner of Worst Cover Yet. Click on that thing and really check it out. It's like they summarized the plot for a seven year old, gave her glue and round-end scissors, and said, "do it up, kid."

Just had to say that, because it's sort of been bugging me.

With that out of the way, I did enjoy the book. It's a quick read, fairly slim, but nice and creepy in that nuclear-war-leading-to-the-complete-loss-of-human-life 1950s way. It's interesting in that the enemy isn't the Soviets (or even us, from their point of view), but the nuclear arms themselves. A 2 hour war is set off by a glitch in the system, and it wipes us out from top to bottom.

The whole thing is done diary-style, by a military man living 7 levels below the earth, where he should be among the safest people on the planet. His daily life, food, air, and social needs are met without worry. He has only to do his duty and stand the fact that he'll never be above ground again. It's the loss of sunshine, more than anything, that preys on him. You know, I suffer from a fear of being trapped underground, and I could feel the weight of all that rock and soil the whole time I was reading.

The style was a little dated, but what do you expect? It was written 50 years ago. My main complaint has to be the sexism that permeated the narrative. The main female character, although a psychiatrist and one of the chosen few living in the deepest, safest level, giggles and flirts and generally acts like a manipulative female stereotype. Frankly, even Heinlein does a better job writing women, and that ain't saying much.

final thought: Worth reading, but more as a blast from the past than a warning for now.

some would applaud

"What this country needs is Discipline! Peace is a great dream, but maybe sometimes it's only a pipe dream! I'm not so sure--now this will shock you, but I want you to listen to one woman who will tell you the unadulterated hard truth instead of a lot of sentimental taffy, and I'm not sure but that we need to be in a real war again, in order to learn Discipline! We don't want all this highbrow intellectuality, all this book-learning. That's good enough in its way, but isn't it, after all, just a nice toy for grownups? No, what we all of us must have, if this great land is going to go on maintaining its high position among the Congress of Nations, is Discipline--Will Power--Character!"

(It Can't Happen Here, Sinclair Lewis)