You'll love this one...!! A book club & more discussion

Travis and Sarah are planning to read Altered Carbon sometime in April. All are welcome to join us. It's apparently being made into a Netflix series.

I've had this on my wishlist since 2016. I might join you.

this one has been in my TBR for a while. I will join you

I read this last October and gave it five stars. Enjoy.

I gave it 4 stars but remember little about it. I know I kept confusing it with Snow Crash. I think there should definitely be some things for discussion if I remember correctly. I wanna say when I read it the first time I was thinking it would have been better read with someone else. But it's been a while.

Thanks Travis. Apparently I lunched out on creating this thread. I'm glad someone is on the ball :-)

It's ok. I was gonna start it the other day but I couldn't remember the name of the book. Lol. Was too lazy to go check the whatcha doing thread.

I might join too. I just added it to my TBR.

I might join you - or else watch with interest!!

We haven't narrowed down a date for this book, other than April. Could we read this in the beginning of the month, say pre-toppler?

April 1st is Easter and I'll be away that weekend and will be home on April 3rd. So any time after that will work for me.

Completely forgot about this. Sounds good to me Janice.

We have a pre-toppler buddy read and a post-toppler buddy read in April. Now we just need to know when the toppler is.

anytime is fine with me. I kind of forgot about this as well to be honest

I might need to start on 1st as I plan to join The Daylight War on 7th, but I'm sure you will all pass me out! April is looking like a great reading month 😊

I might be able to start on the 2nd. My grandson is coming with me, and he may enjoy the audiobook, but it's 17 hours long and the trip home is 6. I could always buy him the book so he can finish it on his own afterwards.

I gave him no option but to listen to Swan Song the last time he came to my dad's with me. I had all ready started it so he joined in part way. When he got home, he ordered the paperback and read it from the beginning and loved it.

It's a good thing we have similar tastes in books.

Janice wrote: "I might be able to start on the 2nd. My grandson is coming with me, and he may enjoy the audiobook, but it's 17 hours long and the trip home is 6. I could always buy him the book so he can finish i..."

That sounds like a good deal to me!

I decided to dump The Shape of Water last night as I wasn't getting with it at all so I started Altered Carbon a bit early. I will give my thoughts so far when the read officially starts 😉

I'll be starting it tomorrow. My grandson have a couple of hours left on the audiobook we're reading and a 6-1/2 hour drive.

Just starting this. I'm excited. I've downloaded the tv series reafy too to watch it afterwards. I think there is going to be lots to discuss with this one.

I think I'll finish up my current book first. Not sure if I'll finish it all today or if it will be tomorrow

Chapters 1 to 5: (view spoiler)[ I would have liked a bit of backgroud into this universe. I am not clear where the new "shell" come from. The one our MC is in has a nicotine habit. What happened to its previous occupant? I know that the very rich have clones produced. Maybe prisons have a pool of shells that they use? I like to be clear on the nitty gritty or else I cannot concentrate on the story.

I am also wondering why catholics are the only religion that protests the download of the soul? Surely that would be against the ethos of most religions? Is it that catholicism is the only religion to survive the millenia?

I am not sure I like the noir style of the story. The locked room mystery is always intreging but I keep hearing shade of Mickey Hammer. I'm not sure I will last the course on this one but it's too early to quit yet!

(hide spoiler)]

I have read the prologue and chapter 1. I think this is going to be good. So pleased that it's written in an easy and accessible way. I had visions of ploughing through another Snow Crash style book with no idea what was going on. Lol. All good so far. I'll come back and comment more when i'm on a bigger device.

I'm sorry, but I will not be joining you for this buddy read. My request is still on hold. I think I have too many books to juggle this month.

I finished to the end of Chapter 10. I'm enjoying the story so far. It's quite fast paced and has a lot of action.

(view spoiler)[ I'm wondering about Ortega more than anyone else at this stage. When they arrived at Lauren Bancroft's place, she handed him a couple of packages of cigarettes and said, "You're going to need these." It wasn't until a few chapters later, that it was revealed that his new sleeve was a smoker. Takeshi is not. So, was she involved in the selection of the sleeve?

Plus, she says that the case is closed, but she's front and center whenever Takashi is involved in some trouble. It was funny because I made that comment to my grandson, and then Takeshi himself asked her the very same thing.

It's interesting how the author has mashed up his name - Japanese first name and Polish surname. Perhaps we'll find out more of his backstory to find out why.

My grandson & I listened until we got to the scene where Kovach and Miranda engage in very detailed sex. While my grandson is 19, I didn't feel comfortable listening to a graphic sexual encounter, so switched it to the radio. Once I got home and was alone, I finished the chapter.

Kovach seems to have forgotten Sarah awfully quickly, and he's hot to trot over Miranda. I doubt that he'll be that driven by lust that he would stop investigating Lauren's death. She has to be involved somehow, and for some reason. (hide spoiler)]

I hope it gets better for you, Margo. It did win the Phillip K. Dick award, and it does have that "Dick Tracey" feel to it. (view spoiler)[At this point, I'm willing to focus more on the mystery and hope that there'll be more information about the sleeves (or shells) as we go along.

I was rather intrigued by the discussion about the Roman Catholics as well and wondered if the author has a personal aversion to the religion.

Something that caught my attention was that the Roman Catholics had sent their mission out to other planets by space ship and it wasn't expected to arrive at the destination for another 15 years. So how did Kovach's personality get downloaded so quickly into his new sleeve on earth? Is the personality/soul digitally saved and downloaded? (hide spoiler)]

I finished my other book so I'll be glad to start this one tomorrow

Wow you are speeding through it Janice!

I can see why they made it in to a TV series.

Here are my thoughts so far:

prologue - chapter 3(view spoiler)[I like the whole coming back aspect of the book. That nobody really dies, at least consciousness wise. There are lot of things ethics wise that surround this issue. Some things have been touched upon but do make for some interesting thinking.

Interesting that whatever you are like as you are stored is how you will be when you come out. You can see why Kovacs was a little like he was when he woke up on Earth after seeing his girlfriend killed, fleeing for his own life, and then being shot. I am curious about what was going on in the prologue. Was he on another sleeve rental job/mission? He is being let out on parole so he's clearly done something illegal at some point and when he woke up he was called a recidivist so he's reoffended potentially multiple times. I'm curious what he has done in the past. There is a lot going on in the book to think about.

I like the idea that the sleeves have history. Where do the organic bodies come from? Clearly they have had consciousnesses in them before. They cannot belong to those people who do not want to be resurrected like the Catholics as it would go against their wishes. Perhaps those who state in wills or suicide notes that they do not want to come back? Or criminals. Seems like a lot of swapping is going on. I'm guessing that there are more consciousnesses than there are actual bodies now too and that there are a lot in storage. Obviously synthetic hosts have been made and there has been mentioned that some people have their body cloned so they return to their own self each time they resurrect.

In chapter 1, Kovacs comments that he is a Caucasian body which is a change for him. I'm guessing he is of Japanese/Slavic descent. I'm guessing there is no racism in this world then. If you shift bodies and you have the potential of being put in any body from any race, you would need to flexible with how you felt about yourself, your body image, your identity etc. Also, it sorts out the problems that transgender people have - they can just shift their consciousness to the correctly aligned sex body. Simples.

I reckon that first resurrection would be hard. Adjustment wise. I wonder if there are groups of people who have just gone through this who have flipped out and struggle to adjust?

The whole Bancroft case is interesting. I'm desperate to know who killed him. The police have totally given up on the case. Or so it seems. It does seem unlikely that Bancroft or his wife did it knowing he has everything in place to just keep coming back. They are basically immortal. I wouldn't want to live forever if my body decayed like it does in our world but in this world, coming back, in to a cloned version of you that is fully functional, that could be good. And they could choose at any point to stop. The fact that there is 48 hours that Bancroft doesn't remember due to being about due to backup when he was shot is a cool one for the mystery of the story. What happened during that time?

I thought it interesting that security was tight in the resurrection facility. CCTV, witnesses etc. I guess there is the chance of errors being made, saying they are resurrecting person A but actually resurrecting person B who then assumes identity of person A. I guess fraudulent things and identity theft might go on in some places. (hide spoiler)]

Further thoughts (I broke it down in to two posts as I was worried I'd loose it all) (view spoiler)[
It must be hard for those left behind, having their loved ones resurrected. A different body. Whilst people love who the person is inside, there is still love of the person's physicality and a whole new body must be quite confusing. I bet it's messed up a few relationships.

I'm curious if the police are going to be more involved in the story or not. Will we see Kristin Ortega again?

I keep reading D.H.F in various places. Any idea what it means?

I hope Kovacs solves the case so he can be free of his sentence.

I liked the sound of the songspire, the singing trees.

(hide spoiler)]

I'm really liking the story.

I read your spoiler Margo even though I hadn't quite got there yet but it didn't give anything away. I had to read it as Janice mentioned you weren't enjoying the book that much. (view spoiler)[I actually really like that we don't have all the facts at this early stage. It allows us to speculate and think about the possibilities ourselves. I'm not too worried if the information doesn't come out later in the book either oddly but then I'm quite used to sparse background information and being dumped in to a book with absolutely no idea what is going on. But this book doesn't give me that feel at all. It is a little similar to Old Man's War in that we had some information but not a lot and it came out over the course of the book. Otherwise if they just dump a load of information right at the beginning of the book, it would bog things down. That's just my thoughts anyway.

As for the Catholics, I think they might be the only religion that made it and even they are short on the ground. Being able to resurrect takes away the whole heaven, hell, after life aspects of religion. That may mean that people don't stick to their doctrine/laws/commandments because they didn't need to worry about Gods judgement. They stopped attending church etc, perhaps the priests lost their way too, and churches and whole religions broke down. I reckon this is what probably happened. No idea though. It makes sense though. Also when humans start colonising other planets, I'm guessing things don't translate all that well when cultures and worlds are so very different. I know in some parts of the world religion is still as prominent as it has ever been, perhaps even more so, but in other pockets of the world, like here in the UK for example, religion is on the decline. The author of this book is from the UK so I wonder if that has anything to do with it. The policewoman mentioned that the church was responsible for many atrocities over the millennia (not sure if they were just talking about Catholics or about religion generally) so in their eyes, they are probably best shot of it. (hide spoiler)]

I hope you can start to get in to it Margo.

I have no recollection of this book so far. Granted I just started it but so far not ringing any bells for me so it's like a first read which is cool

Travis sivarT wrote: "I have no recollection of this book so far. Granted I just started it but so far not ringing any bells for me so it's like a first read which is cool"

Yes that is cool :-)

I'm up to chapter 11 now and I will probable finish the book but I'm still not griped. I think it is me rather than the story. I'm sleeping very badly at the moment and it is affecting my concentration. I need very, very simple books lol

I am enjoying all the comments here more than the book!

@janice (view spoiler)[ I'm not surprised that sex scene made you uncomfortable when your grandson was with you! It was extremely graphic. Those kind of scenes leave me cold anyway - in my teens I might have enjoyed them but now I just want to carry on with the plot!

Re Ortaga - I completely missed that she handed him cigarettes without having been told that he smoked. It could be that she was involved in the selection of the sleeve or is it that she worked with the previous occupant?

(hide spoiler)]

Re Catholics (view spoiler)[ All that Sarah says in mess 29 is pretty much what I was thinking. It is quite recent that the catholic church has allowed cremation. The thinking used to be that if you didn't have a body (skeleton?) you couldn't rise up again. I never really really understood the thinking on that one as we are supposed to heaven anyway! Theology is confusing. Religion in Ireland has declined drastically over recent times aswell. You would be hard pressed to find a church goer these d?ays w ereas when I was growing up it was hard to find a person who didn't attend mass. That is the reason the pope is visiting - to bring us all back into the fold lol

(hide spoiler)]

I managed to scoot ahead so quickly because I was on a 6 hour road trip yesterday. The first 2 hours finished off The Spirit Thief, and then the remainder of the trip took me almost 4 hours into this book. I will likely slow down now that I'm home. I have an appointment at 5:00 this afternoon, so likely won't get much read today.

Sarah, something you said about sleeves twigged a thought I had. (view spoiler)[ If people can continue to live by downloading their consciousness into a new sleeve, where do the sleeves come from? What is their histories? This new sleeve of Kovach's has scars. So what happened to the consciousness of the man who previous "owned" it. (hide spoiler)]

Cigarettes - (view spoiler)[ At some point, Kovacs mentioned that his new sleeve smoked and that he did not. There seems to be a memory attached to the sleeve that has him unconsciously reaching for a cigarette. That opens up more questions about the sleeves and how they function.

I was thinking about adding the first sentence to the "first sentence thread", so checked out the sample on Amazon. The prologue has Kovach smoking one of Sarah's cigarettes. I thought he said he didn't smoke. Perhaps occasionally smoking someone else's cigarette is considered to be an one time thing and not a habitual habit. Or, did the author screw up? (hide spoiler)]

Exactly Janice. (view spoiler)[ were they suicides or people who didn't want to come back? But then the sleeve is young, not an end of lifer if that makes sense. They did say the Catholic's bodies were sold off or used for transplants so could be those. Or criminals perhaps. Perhaps when someone's consciousness is stored, the next person leaving storage gets their body. A never ending cycle of bodies shedding, then getting a new consciousness. Just an idea. As for the smoking, with that I guess he still had nicotine in his bloodstream so was experiencing some withdrawal but perhaps also the body has muscle memory of expressions, movements and behaviours it used to do with previous consciousness?! No idea. (hide spoiler)]

Chapter 11 (view spoiler)[ I'd like to think he's right about shopping never dying out but I have my doubts. We can already do so much without leaving home I really can't see shops excisting in the far future. I had to laugh when at the reference to "foraging" - I say to Pete every time he comes home from a shopping trip "Good foraging?"

(hide spoiler)]

Chapter 14 (view spoiler)[ I hate torture scenes 😨 I am a wimp! Torture is given an extra dimemtion of horror in this world where when you die from your injuries they just pop you into a new shell and start again. It doesn't seem to Have Had Any longterm Psycological Impart On Our Tough-guy MC Though!

Anyway, I was under the impression that shells were costly/hard to come by. That Kind Of Turture Must Be An Expensive Buisiness! Even If The Girl Was Someone They Killed Previously, her Body surely Would have Been Worth Money - Or Is It Only Synthetic Shells That Cost? Can a consciencessness be but into an organic body or only a synthetic shell? There is so much we don't know.

(hide spoiler)]

And another thing about Cpt 14 (view spoiler)[ someone already mentioned the possibility that you could be in a shell of different sex, colour or creed but I was amazed Takashi thought he felt his period coming on! It didn't sound like it was the first he'd been a woman.

(hide spoiler)]

I'm just starting chapter 10. I'll comment tomorrow as I have more time tomorrow.

Term used in chpt 16 that I can't quite catch (view spoiler)[ I think it refers to people like Takashi you have been returned. Sounds like unborn or nonbe. Can anyone help me? It is used when he is introduced to the chief justice and the human rights person, just after he watched Miriam play tennis. Thats something that bugs me about audio!

(hide spoiler)]

Chapter 15 (view spoiler)[ bored m. It was all shoot-em-up. I switched off for most of it so fingers crossed nothing crucial happened.

There are so many issues that could be explored in this universe, Sarah has already mentioned many of them. As a techy I want to understand the nuts'n bolts of the thing. I'm frustrated that the story is not going in the direction that would I would choose - but thats the thing about stories - we can't control them! We just go along for the ride 😵

I just wish we weren't such a trial of bodies as we go...
(hide spoiler)]

Oh boy, that sex scene in chapter 10 (view spoiler)[was pretty steamy. I had to laugh Janice that you were listening to it with your grandson. Awkward. What must he think about your book taste? Lol. When I find a new TV series to watch my partner always takes the mick out of me when there is a sex scene saying he knew there would be one as I'm always downloading that kind of thing. It's not intentional and in my defence, most of the good tv shows have pretty full on sex scenes now. Game of Thrones. Peaky Blinders. True Blood. The list goes on. Sex sells. (hide spoiler)] Just had to come on and comment about that. I'll be back with more comments about the other events.

I'm around chapter 7 and now I need to know what is with this sex scene coming up! I am a bit confused though (view spoiler)[does dying happen to everyone but the rich. Not sure I understand what decides who dies. kovach gets threatened to be killed for real what would be different about that time I wonder . Or if it's a money thing then are all the shells the world's poor to be used by the rich? (hide spoiler)]

I've read to the end of chapter 17.

Re: chapter 14. (view spoiler)[The torture was beyond bad. How horrifying that they torture until your body is dead and then download you into a new sleeve and start all over again. I never really thought about the cost involved. (hide spoiler)]

Re: chapter 10 and sex scene: (view spoiler)[It was pretty awkward. He didn't react at all to the bits that he heard. I kept trying to fast forward it, but it went on and on, until I gave up and turned it off.

Tyler and I have similar tastes in books and we spend quite a bit of time discussing them. He has my copy of The Death of Dulgath and I have his copy of The Dwarves. He thought Altered Carbon was boring and tuned out. He even fell asleep. (hide spoiler)]

(Note - maybe hold off to after chapter 18 to read spoiler below.)

Chapter 17 - (view spoiler)[ So now we know why Ortega was so invested in Kovach. His sleeve was her lover's body. That's why she knew about the cigarettes and why she was up front and center. She even had a homing device on him until he got rid of the clothes. Ryker, the man behind the sleeve Kovach is wearing, appears to be "in the stacks". I'm not clear as to why his consciousness is stored away while his body is being used by Kovach. I have to admit that some of this technology is a bit confusing to me. We've got sleeves that were real people, synthetics, and clones. (hide spoiler)]

@Travis(view spoiler)[money is a definite factor. As you get further more details are revealed about the services available. I'm guesding personal preference comed in to it too. The Bancrofts have been around for yonks. Sure they have money but they want to stay alive. Others probable manage a lot less cycles. I don't think our mind is meant for immortality. Sure they probable have enhancements to help. If you die, you can come back unless the technology inside you that is used to store consciousness is destroyed. Then there's no coming back. Money or not. (hide spoiler)]

@Janice re. Distance between planrts (view spoiler)[conscuousness is stored digitally so i guess they have a good data transfer service. Nothing goes anywhere. Data is transmittef via satellites. People however have to travel by space craft so it takes longer. (hide spoiler)]

Travis sivarT wrote: "I'm around chapter 7 "

Agreed Travis. I have many questions about that world too.

Janice wrote: "I've read to the end of chapter 17.

Damn, I read Janices spoiler on chapter 17 too soon! Audible calls the prelude chapter 1 and it pushes all the following chapters up one! I am very careful in my spoilers but less so when it comes to reading other peoples :-/

Haven't made it to the sex scene but if it has a woman in a white tennis outfit it's still in my brain. If not then I'm thinking of s different book

Well as much as I hate to bow out of a buddy read, this book is not for me!

(view spoiler)[ I was keen to read this one because I was intreged by how things work in this universe where death is not necessarily the end of a life. I wanted to know how it was done, why it was done and to explore the ethics of this kind of excistance. Instead I found a noir mystery. I really don't care for noir!

I listened about 40% of the story and now I realize that I'm not concentrating at all - I'm just not interested. I'm not saying it's a bad story or badly narrated. It's just something I think I'd rather watch on TV with the hubby. He actually wanted us to start watching on netflix a couple of weeks back and I said not til I'd read the book! He will have a good laugh at me now lol

I'm finding at the moment that I seem to be DNFing a lot of books which is not like me. Usually my rate would be maybe 1 in 50, this year it's a lot more. I don't think it is a reading slump as I'm enjoying lots too. Maybe I'm not being so careful in my choices. More research is required lol

Anyway, sorry guys. I will look in on the thread to see how you all enjoy it.

(hide spoiler)]

Sorry i've not commented as planned. I took my notebook to work planning to comment during a massive gap between clients but forgot to take my charger and it had no battery left. So no GR stuff or work stuff. Grr. Tomorrow.

A shame to see you abandon Margo. I won't read your spoiler yet. What point did you abandon so I know when to look?

Its not really a spoiler - I am a bit paranoid these says about what can and cannot by said freely so, If in doubt, I use a spoiler. There are so !any things that think are not spoilers but others don't agree. I would hate to ruin anyones enjoyment 😀 There is nothing in it that you and I haven't discussed 😉