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Broken Angels (Gollancz S.F.) (Paperback)

by Richard Morgan (Author)
4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Paperback: 400 pages
  • Publisher: Gollancz; 1st thus edition (20 Mar 2003)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0575073241
  • ISBN-13: 978-0575073241
  • Product Dimensions: 23 x 15.4 x 3.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 463,041 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review

Broken Angels is a standalone sequel, to Richard Morgan's debut novel Altered Carbon--a high-tech, ultra-violent, noir SF thriller which attracted much attention, including a movie deal.

Thirty years later, our super-soldier hero Takeshi Kovacs is wearing yet another body (swapping is easy in this future), already wounded in a messy war against revolutionary forces on the planet Sanction IV. Very soon he's lured from his duties into a hunt for a fantastic treasure discovered by archaeologists and carefully hushed up. The long-vanished Martians who once colonised the galaxy have left a buried hyperspace gateway leading to a working starship in distant orbit.

Kovacs uses frightening violence to get the attention of corporate sponsors even more ruthless than himself. His hastily assembled exploration team must work in a lethal fallout zone, racing to open the gate before they're stopped by radiation sickness, treacherous sabotage, or the threat of fast-evolving nanoweaponry. And there are repeated hints that if they ever make it through that gateway, worse things are waiting on the far side...

It's all desperately tense and crafted with appalling inventiveness. Life is cheap and death is no release, because the "cortical stack" implanted in everyone's spine constantly records the total personality, ready for "re-sleeving" in a new clone body or storage in virtual reality. So Kovacs goes recruiting at the macabre Soul Market, where thanks to the war there are literal skiploads of hacked-out sections of human spine containing stacks--for sale by the kilogram.

Other ingredients include sex, voodoo, torture, multiple betrayal, cool military technology, incomprehensible alien constructions, age-old cycles of catastrophe, and--above all--extreme violence. The screw is turned further and further, beyond what seems possible. Readers may find themselves forgetting to breathe. This is a rattling good yarn, for the strong of stomach. --David Langford



Review

'Morgan unfurls the twisting plot and counter plot of corporate greed and corrupt politics brilliantly.' The Times
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Customer Reviews

32 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.1 out of 5 stars (32 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars can't wait for another one, 12 April 2003
I hate to admit to being shallow but I did only by Richard Morgan's first book because of the shinny cover and here the old cliché turns out to be completely wrong.

I loved Altered Carbon and when I found out that a sequel was on the shelves I ran to the computer and got it. Like the last book this one gets you right from the off and refuses to let go. Set in a future where body swapping is an every day occurrence and you can only truly die if your cortical backup (called a stack, located just under the skull) is destroyed.

Takeshi Kovacs thirty years older since we last saw him, has a new body an is working as a mercenary in a political war on sanction IV. Wounded and in hospital he is offered the chance to get away from the fighting and go on a archaeological dig in the fallout radius of nuclear explosion and for personal reasons he accepts.

From here Morgan goes in to great detail about the lost civilisation found on Mars and how humans spread out in to the universe (something that was glossed over in the first book). It is a different style than Altered Carbon but still written in the first person, less a detective noir and more a political/corporate/military thriller it is never the less intriguing to read about how human civilisation has changed very little in 500 years.

The technology is described extremely proficiently and at no point does anything seem implausible and besides the book is more about the characters than the gadgets. The interactions between the various characters are expertly written (Morgan has a great ear for dialogue), its unsettlingly fascinating to read about them all slowly dying of terminal radiation exposure as they unearth secrets of an alien technology.

The only let down is towards the end of the book the story seems to descend in to extreme violence for little reason but this is salvaged by the excellent final chapter which puts a twist on all of Kovacs’ motivations.

With chapter as gripping as the last, Morgan doesn’t let you stop for breath and its true to say that is I didn’t have to go to work I would have sat there and read the whole thing from cover to cover in one go. I can't wait for a third instalment I need to know what will happen to Takeshi and you will too.

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23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Delightfully Dark, 15 Sep 2003
By J. Neal "jneal" (Sussex) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)      
The sequel to Altered Carbon is actually a better book in my opinion, but that may have something to do with the genre. Okay, so it's based on the same central character, Takeshi Kovacs, and it's set in the same universe [as such] but, unlike the first novel, which is a detective story set in space, this is just out and out sci-fi, and all the better for it. The usual tenets apply here, very well written, with a good tight style, complex enough to be challenging and strong characterisation, with a nice and dark overtone that suits my preference. This novel concentrates mostly on the artefacts left behind by the Martian civilisation alluded to in Altered Carbon and explores man's place in the universe in relation to the other races that went before. The effect is eerie and mysterious, but Richard Morgan hasn't neglected the shocking capacity for violence that made his central character so appealing and repulsive at once in the previous book. Once again, very highly recommended, but read Altered Carbon first.
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Sci-fi Thriller, 14 Jan 2004
By Tom Douglas "Tom" (Oxford, United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   
This review is from: Broken Angels (Gollancz S.F.) (Paperback)
Altered Carbon was an exceptional debut novel, and Broken Angels, which is a stand alone sequel, shows no reduction in quality.

Once again Takeshi Kovacs is the central character. A former 'Envoy' and all round hardcase. This time he is a mercenary on Sanction IV, and the story line is the classic quest for buried treasure.

While Kovacs was on something of a lone crusade in the last book, this time he is part of a group of mercenaries - as another reviewer astutely put it, this is Aliens compared to Alien.

Comparisons to Altered Carbon are unavoidable, and if you have not yet read the earlier book then you should.

Broken Angels does inevitably lack the wow element of its predecessor - set in the same universe and with the same central character, the only real novelty is the martian artifacts that are the subject of the quest.

The rest of the comparison is straight forward - Morgan has written another cracking page-turner, and its a fairly safe bet that if you liked the first book, you will like this one.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Sex, violence, aliens, war and betrayal... all good fun
Altered Carbon was just stunning, truly stunning; this one, Broken Angels, was merely very good. However, although I couldn't put it down, there are some holes in the plot -... Read more
Published 2 months ago by julian earl

4.0 out of 5 stars A total Revelation
wow Richard Morgan was a real discovery for me, I was mooching around my local Borders and one of the guys working there recommended him to me and I'm really glad he did. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Icemaiden

5.0 out of 5 stars A more satisfying Kovacs novel
This is Richard Morgan's second offering in the Takeshi Kovacs series, this time finding our ex-UN Envoy hero as a mercenary on the war-torn world of Sanction IV. Read more
Published 5 months ago by D. O'Brien

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent continuation of Takeshi Kovacs' adventures
Thirty years after his trip to Earth in Altered Carbon, ex-Envoy Takeshi Kovacs is fighting for the mercenary unit known as the Wedge in a dirty little war on the planet Sanction... Read more
Published 15 months ago by A. Whitehead

5.0 out of 5 stars combat sleeves/neurochem/martian artifacts/ oh my....
I was intrigued by altered carbon but was poleaxed by broken angels. Combat sleeves,neurochem,martian artifacts, oh my. This novel had everything I was looking for in read. Read more
Published on 22 Oct 2007 by Turner

5.0 out of 5 stars I am hooked.
I bought Altered Carbon on a whim, in a 3 for the price of 2 deal in a bookshop in England. I have subsequently bought all of Richard Morgan's works. Read more
Published on 17 Oct 2007 by Roy Brookes

5.0 out of 5 stars A Stunning Sequel
'Broken Angels' is the second outing for Envoy-trained Takeshi Kovacs and is an absolutely rip-roaring continuation from the original 'Altered Carbon'. Read more
Published on 17 Aug 2007 by Dr. Robert Fisher

2.0 out of 5 stars A tiresome read
I loved Altered Carbon, so much so that I could not put it down, and found myself reading it at 3am! Read more
Published on 25 Feb 2007 by John Doe

2.0 out of 5 stars Second book syndrome
I enjoyed Altered Carbon, even thought the writing was a little uneven. The concept of sleeving was interesting and Kovacs was a great, flawed charachter. Read more
Published on 10 Mar 2006 by Avidreader

5.0 out of 5 stars My 100-word book review
Morgan's second novel featuring ex-Envoy Takeshi Kovacs is an excellent, thought-provoking story of future war and alien discovery. Read more
Published on 9 Mar 2006 by A. J. Cull

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