In the 25th 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 180 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.
I love this series and this book. It's a hard-boiled detective thriller with an awesome anti-hero protagonist. The tech of the future in this series is what I want from Sci-Fi: really advanced shit that shapes the entire story and the characters within it. The tech makes you think about the path from here to there, how humanity has changed and yet hasn't changed, as we've evolved ourselves and our world. There's also a massive "haves vs. have not's" undercurrent in this book that few other Sci-Fi novels address in what I consider a realistic way. That is, it's neither utopian nor dystopian.
It's worth noting that the book/series is straight-up NC-17 with both sex and violence, so be forewarned.
Finally, I thought the Netflix series was good, though not great. The main actor was absolutely brilliant, but other ranged from OK to hard-to-watch bad. The plot held mostly true to the book. Some of the plot changes were welcomed and well thought out, but naturally a few I disliked. I still prefer the book to the TV show.
publisher’s summary
