The Richard Morgan Thread

[Stego]

He's working on the fantasy, but Black Man has taken longer than anticipated.

[Relic]

interesting news william.

what do YOU think about it? Can you see him writing a fantasy trilogy?

I liked Altered carbon and Market Forces, but Fallen Angles and Woken Furies left me...cold.

[Werthead]

Finally read Altered Carbon (yeah, I'm behind the times) and mainly enjoyed it. I didn't find it quite the masterpiece some others have, but in general the book was very good. It's most notable asset was its attitude. Kovacs is a badass MFer, even though he does make some elementary James Bond mistakes towards the end fo the book. Some of the worldbuilding was also clunky (the diner discussion in which Kovacs and Ortega suddenly deviate into a discussion of the Martians and their ancient civilisation, plus the sentient whales, came out of nowhere). However, I'll forgive it that for the scene in the hotel lobby where Kovacs is being threatened by a pair of gun-wielding maniacs, so by spitting on the DNA scanner at the check-in desk he becomes a guest in the hotel, thus becomes entitled to the hotel's protection, thus the two massive autocannons blasting his attackers out of the front door. The scene where he single-handedly takes on the entire clinic where he was tortured is also excellent.

Full review on the blog, for those interested.

I checked Morgan's website and Black Man has now been delivered and he is starting work in earnest on the fantasy trilogy, starting with A Land Fit for Heroes (although that may be the trilogy name). I have some catching up to do.

[Waset the Warped]

I heard about this guy a lot and I heard that he was supposed to be quite good. So the other day I picked up Market Forces and was instantly put off by the dedication (the bit where he denounces the globalisation and suchlike). It’s not that I disagree with his views (although I do, to an extent), but such an explicit declaration of intent to push a message, any message, in a work of fiction instantly gives me Goodkind flashbacks.

Is Morgan a writer or a man on a mission? I like reading novels, not propaganda vehicles.

[Rubies & Jade]

Is Morgan a writer or a man on a mission? I like reading novels, not propaganda vehicles.

Hi there--I haven't read Market Forces (its in my "to do" pile) but I loved the Takeshi Kovachs novels (Altered Carbon, Broken Angels and Woken Furies). They are kind of gritty, noir style sci-fi. I thought they were just great, and were very fun to read. And, weirdly, I think I liked Woken Furies best of all.

Perhaps he's got some agenda, but if he does I missed it. I've recommended these books a lot to people and think. (they kind of remind me of a futuristic Andrew Vachss/Burke novel, if that means anything to you)

My only problem with him is that he has said he doesn't like writing books about the same character and won't be writing anymore about Takeshi. bummer!

[williamjm]

I heard about this guy a lot and I heard that he was supposed to be quite good. So the other day I picked up Market Forces and was instantly put off by the dedication (the bit where he denounces the globalisation and suchlike). It’s not that I disagree with his views (although I do, to an extent), but such an explicit declaration of intent to push a message, any message, in a work of fiction instantly gives me Goodkind flashbacks.

Is Morgan a writer or a man on a mission? I like reading novels, not propaganda vehicles.

I wouldn't say Market Forces is a simple propaganda piece, although it is fairly clear what Morgan's opinions are, it isn't preachy and his protagonist (and indeed almost all the other characters in it) would probably regard Morgan's dedication at the start with contempt if they read it. Morgan is certainly idealistic himself but he's written a novel that extremely cynical about idealism and idealists.

That said, although it is a reasonably entertaining novel, it is far from being Morgan's best - some of the more satirical aspects of the premise are just a bit too silly for me to take the book seriously. Altered Carbon is a much better novel in my opinion.

[RedEyedGhost]

quick hijack: what's the order of the Takeshi Kovachs novels? Is it Altered Carbon, Broken Angels, Woken Furies? Thanks.

[williamjm]

I think it's Altered Carbon, Woken Furies and then Broken Angels. Isn't that the order they were released? I screwed the order up, I think, but it didn't seem to matter much.

No, RedEyedGhost was correct, Broken Angels is book 2, Woken Furies is book 3.

[RedEyedGhost]

Thanks

and I just copied and pasted from BJT; so s/he was correct.

@ Lady of Waset: sorry for the hijack.

[aergern]

They were released and I read them in this order.

Altered Carbon (2002)

Broken Angels (2003)

Woken Furies (2005)

Morgan is a bit of a lefty, but over all he's not preachy. At least not with the Kovacs novels.

[Waset the Warped]

Market Forces, Richard Morgan

Well, with the encouragement of the fellow boarders ( ) I did persevere with this book and in the end I did not regret reading it.

The future that Morgan builds in this novel is decidedly unpleasant (although not quite reaching the dystopian proportions): the gulf between the ‘Haves’ and the ‘Have-nots’ is vast, violent, irreparable, and, most significantly, profit-yielding. Naturally, the ‘Haves’ (in this case the super-rich and super-influential global corporations) intend to keep the status quo. Enter Chris Faulkner, a rising star of the corporate scene, a social climber, who was raised on the estate in the Zones and still haven’t lost the remnants of his conscience.

There are two main problems with the novel (and no, the author’s ideology is not one of them): the setup of this world and the ending.

Firstly, the world: there isn’t even a remotest possibility that anything like Morgan is describing in the novel can happen in the real life. People and societies just don’t work like that. The whole setup is very artificial and, once you start to scrutinise it, it just falls apart. At the same time, this future scenario is not sufficiently conceptualised to be a proper dystopia. What saves Morgan, is his good ear for the suitspeak and the evident knowledge of the contemporary corporate culture. Whatever the characters are discussing (from financing little victorious wars on the other side of the globe to the corporate roadraging challenges), it sounds and feels true.

As for the ending, I thought it was a copout. Morgan takes his bloody time to set up all those potentially interesting moral dilemmas for his main character, and then they are never resolved. He just stops and ends the book. ‘Anticlimax’ doesn’t even begin to describe it.

Lastly, a word on his politics: it did not bother me too much during the reading. I have to say though, that judging on this book, Morgan’s views on the globalisation and the related problems are very … one-sided if not downright naïve. It would be cool to be able to discuss it with him personally one day.

[williamjm]

Firstly, the world: there isn’t even a remotest possibility that anything like Morgan is describing in the novel can happen in the real life. People and societies just don’t work like that. The whole setup is very artificial and, once you start to scrutinise it, it just falls apart. At the same time, this future scenario is not sufficiently conceptualised to be a proper dystopia. What saves Morgan, is his good ear for the suitspeak and the evident knowledge of the contemporary corporate culture. Whatever the characters are descussing (from financing little victorious wars on the other side of the globe to the corporate roadraging challenges), it sounds and feels true.

Yes, I didn't think the worldbuilding was particularly convincing, it did seem like Morgan was going more for satirical effect than plausibility at times. I wonder if the story originally being written as a screenplay may have had an effect as well, Morgan might have done more work on the background if it had been originally conceived as a novel.

The world of the Kovacs trilogy is more plausible, although there a few unlikely elements in the background - I've always thought having the technological basis for his interstellar society being based on artifacts left behind by an ancient Martian civilisation seemed slightly incongruous in a gritty, noirish SF setting.

[The Iceman of the North]

I thought the 'Martian' civilization was called that because Mars were the first place the artifact was found by humans, not because it was based on Mars.

[Werthead]

Merged threads, since the original question had been answered.

[williamjm]

I thought the 'Martian' civilization was called that because Mars were the first place the artifact was found by humans, not because it was based on Mars.

IIRC they didn't know whether the Martians originated on Mars or if was just a colony.

[Kalbear]

They knew the Martians didn't originate on Mars by the second book. They didn't (and don't) know where they originated, but they knew it wasn't Mars.

[Waset the Warped]

I wonder if the story originally being written as a screenplay may have had an effect as well, Morgan might have done more work on the background if it had been originally conceived as a novel.

I didn't know that bit about the screenplay. It does explain certain things.

I think I'll be reading more of Morgan, but not just now.

[Waset the Warped]

Merged threads, since the original question had been answered.

You are sooooo efficient.

[Max the Mostly Mediocre]

This summer Black Man (UK title)/Thirteen (US title) will be released.

At least, I think it's the summer.

[williamjm]

I didn't know that bit about the screenplay. It does explain certain things.

IIRC Morgan wrote Market Forces as a screenplay back when he was an unpublished writer. He didn't have any luck getting a film of it made so eventually made it into a novel after the success of Altered Carbon.

This summer Black Man (UK title)/Thirteen (US title) will be released.

At least, I think it's the summer.

Amazon says 17th May (in the UK).

Their description of the book is very eloquent:

Book Description

?

Admittedly the synopsis is a bit more detailed:

One hundred years from now, and against all the odds, Earth has found a new stability; the political order has reached some sort of balance, and the new colony on Mars is growing. But the fraught years of the 21st century have left an uneasy legacy ... Genetically engineered alpha males, designed to fight the century's wars have no wars to fight and are surplus to requirements. And a man bred and designed to fight is a dangerous man to have around in peacetime. Many of them have left for Mars but now one has come back and killed everyone else on the shuttle he returned in. Only one man, a genengineered ex-soldier himself, can hunt him down and so begins a frenetic man-hunt and a battle survival. And a search for the truth about what was really done with the world's last soldiers. BLACK MAN is an unstoppable SF thriller but it is also a novel about predjudice, about the ramifications of playing with our genetic blue-print. It is about our capacity for violence but more worrying, our capacity for deceit and corruption. This is another landmark of modern SF from one of its most exciting and commercial authors.

I remember a GRRM short story with a similar-sounding premise - called Hero I think.

Morgan is also meant to be working on a sword-and-sorcery series, although I don't know of any release date for that.