Black Man (aka Thirteen) by Richard Morgan

10er

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I'm reading it after devouring this author's (at this point pretty well known) Altered Carbon series within days, and...
I'm bored to death.
How did this happen?
The book has all the features I'd normally like, but it all feels like it's narrated in slow motion compared to Morgan's other works. And I'm normally not a guy who minds plowing through doorstopper sized overwritten books to filter out the good parts (if they exist).

A search on AW brought up the following:

Just finished 'Black Man', the new one from Richard Morgan. Action adventure scifi with a very twisty plotline. Well handled and paced - rating 7/10

Well handled and paced? Seriously? ;>_>
So yeah. Discuss?
 

nevada

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I haven't read Black Man yet, it's on my bedside table. I have however read Market Forces by him and his newest, a fantasy called The Steel Remains. They were both excellent. I too devoured the Altered Carbon series and have been hawking it to everyone i know. I do know that Black Man was meant to be more of a political book which may account for its change in pace from the Altered Carbon trilogy. You can put it down and read Market Forces instead, or better yet, The Steel Remains. Every author has an off-day. Maybe once you read the other ones you might like Black Man better.

(warning: I shouldn't have to say this but some people are sensitive, there's minor graphic homosexual content in The Steel Remains.)
 

Kurtz

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I felt more uncomfortable during Richard Morgan's sex scenes than I did hearing graphic accounts of my own conception when my dad was drunk. Altered Carbon was an alright noiry detective story, but Broken Angels just turned stupid, it started breaking the rules of feasibility he set up in the first one. Perhaps it was just me, but I didn't think it would be the sort of series that would include ghost aliens.

I've not read Black Man, but I read the blurb of Market Forces and thought it sounded hilarious. I ultimatley didn't buy it because I didn't think it could live up to the image in my head.
 

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I felt more uncomfortable during Richard Morgan's sex scenes than I did hearing graphic accounts of my own conception when my dad was drunk. Altered Carbon was an alright noiry detective story, but Broken Angels just turned stupid, it started breaking the rules of feasibility he set up in the first one. Perhaps it was just me, but I didn't think it would be the sort of series that would include ghost aliens.

I've not read Black Man, but I read the blurb of Market Forces and thought it sounded hilarious. I ultimatley didn't buy it because I didn't think it could live up to the image in my head.

I wasn't put off much by the ghost aliens because you know how it goes: "Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
If they have unexplained faster than light travel and "It just works, OK?!"-nanotechnology (both found in Altered Carbon), they can have alien werewolf vampire demons for all I care.
I guess I'm just not the type that needs his SF to be "hard". I'd understand if people felt the series lost its way after the first novel though.
The sex scenes... I found them pretty intriguing. But totally gratuitous too, so I wasn't too happy with some of them. (Sexual techniques for PTSD healing? Are you serious?)

Anyway, what did iff me were the beginnings of preachiness I saw in Woken Furies. That whole anti-islamist shtick was as subtle and as deep as a Phillip Pullman pro-atheist rant. Totally misplaced imo. Which brings us to:
I do know that Black Man was meant to be more of a political book which may account for its change in pace from the Altered Carbon trilogy.
Yes, I think that might be the issue with Black Man. It keeps whacking me over the head with a "RACISM IS BAD, OK?! FANATICAL FAITH IS BAD, OK?!" sledgehammer. Yes, I get it already, Mr. Morgan. Can we move on with the story?
If this is the way he delivers his agenda, I don't think I want to know what Market Forces has to offer. About Steel Remains... I read he wrote is as a "writing exercise" so I don't know what to make of that. Might check it out in a moment of great boredom. :p
 
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Miguelito

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Been a while since I read 13. I liked it, but not as much as his three Takeshi Kovacs novels (Altered Carbon, Broken Angels, and Woken Furies). I also thought that it started much slower than the Kovacs novels, like the Steel Remains started slower. I also very much liked the ending.

And I don't look for Morgan as being a leader in hard science fiction because it's not about the science fiction (saving a personality in a cortical implant is never explained nor is FTL needlecast technology, but we just assume that they work). His work is preachy, but Morgan is essentially showing that humanity hasn't changed at all despite the technological advances. His anti-islamic viewpoint in Woken Furies is written from the experiences that the main character had on the planet Sharia as an Envoy. Furthermore, some comes from Morgan's personal experience as an EFL teacher for Egyptian students. He quotes one of them as saying, "Ah Hitler - now there was a guy who knew how to handle the Jews".

http://www.richardkmorgan.com/2008/12/rage.html
 

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His anti-islamic viewpoint in Woken Furies is written from the experiences that the main character had on the planet Sharia as an Envoy.

Nah, it was actually more about the fact they killed off his one true love (?).
I know it "kind of fit in" with the character, but some parts were really preachy. The narrator just became the author's sock puppet. Let me quote. I can quote little bits of copyrighted work, right? Fair use, right? Here goes. ;>_>
My hands shot out and grasped her by the shoulders. “No, I’m calling you a gutless betrayer of your sex. I can see your husband’s angle, he’s a man, he’s got everything to gain from this crabshit. But you! You’ve thrown away centuries of political struggle and scientific advance so you can sit in the dark and mutter your superstitions of unworth to yourself. You’ll let your life, the most precious thing you have, be stolen from you hour by hour and day by day as long as you can eke out the existence your males will let you have. And then, when you finally die, and I hope it’s soon, sister, I really do, then at the last you’ll spite your own potential and shirk the final power we’ve won for ourselves to come back and try again. You’ll do all of this because of your fucking faith, and if that child in your belly is female, then you’ll condemn her to the same fucking thing.”

Come on. You can almost see Morgan standing on his pulpit.
 

Miguelito

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Nah, it was actually more about the fact they killed off his one true love (?).
I know it "kind of fit in" with the character, but some parts were really preachy. The narrator just became the author's sock puppet. Let me quote. I can quote little bits of copyrighted work, right? Fair use, right? Here goes. ;>_>


Come on. You can almost see Morgan standing on his pulpit.

Yes, that's why I said I said it's kind of preachy. Not every part of that book (and the other books) is him standing on his pulpit. Besides, Takeshi Kovacs is a murderous thug (charismatic, but still a thug). That he'd get into somebody's face for a rant isn't surprising. That he'd do it to somebody he was losing to a destructive segment of a religion (in this case fundamentalist islam) isn't surprising either. He's the big alpha male. He's a bully. I just bought most of it as Kovac's characterization and don't see it as such a red flag.
 

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Well he said that to a random woman, not someone he actually cared about. But yeah, you're right, it's not really out of character.
However, the whole scene as such was 100% filler, zero plot relevance. Morgan just wanted to make his point and move on. I can't approve of that.
But I guess I'm just sensitive about being preached to. Especially about "hot" topics like religious zealotry.
In Black Man he took it up a notch and added another hot topic: Anti Americanism. He's taking random, casual swipes right and left (e.g. "this country's media have ditched facts for sensationalism for over a hundred years now").
Now. I don't care about that emotionally, because I'm not American myself. But it just miffs me when this kind of stuff doesn't seem to add anything to the story.
 

Miguelito

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Well he said that to a random woman, not someone he actually cared about. But yeah, you're right, it's not really out of character.
However, the whole scene as such was 100% filler, zero plot relevance. Morgan just wanted to make his point and move on. I can't approve of that.
But I guess I'm just sensitive about being preached to. Especially about "hot" topics like religious zealotry.
In Black Man he took it up a notch and added another hot topic: Anti Americanism. He's taking random, casual swipes right and left (e.g. "this country's media have ditched facts for sensationalism for over a hundred years now").
Now. I don't care about that emotionally, because I'm not American myself. But it just miffs me when this kind of stuff doesn't seem to add anything to the story.
Random woman? Oops. Been a while since I read Woken Furies. Still, it doesn't change my opinion.

His anti-americanism in 13, I seem to remember reading somewhere, was because of the brewing culture wars in the US. I'm not American either, but US politics interests me because when the US gets gas, Canada is always downwind. :(

I like things to add to the story too. But, to me, the anti-Islam stuff made sense in the world of Woken Furies, especially with Kovac's history. In 13, the anti-Americanism (more anti US politics than anti-Americanism I seem to remember), stems from how the main character Carl, was created by one political side and ditched, while being reviled by the other just because he was black. He had an axe to grind with everybody.
 

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mazinger-rocket-punch.jpg


Don't your hands ever do this? :Huh:
I think you're the odd man out here.
 

nevada

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i sort of agree about the hands and stuff, however, "my hands shot out and grasped her" is a much more violent and sudden sentence than "I grasped her shoulders." sometimes we sacrifice technique for effect.

I think i need to read the Altered Carbon series again because at no time did I ever think "radical islamist". So did I miss a clue somewhere or are you extrapolating? What a great reason to reread.
 

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It's not extrapolation. Morgan just very very thinly veiled radical Islam behind the term "New Revelation Church", then proceeded to portray it as very bad and have his "more enlightened" characters take shots at it throughout the novel. As exemplified by my quote.

Oh and this preachy turn didn't happen before Woken Furies, which made it all the more jarring imo.
 

Miguelito

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It's not extrapolation. Morgan just very very thinly veiled radical Islam behind the term "New Revelation Church", then proceeded to portray it as very bad and have his "more enlightened" characters take shots at it throughout the novel. As exemplified by my quote.

Oh and this preachy turn didn't happen before Woken Furies, which made it all the more jarring imo.
Actually, in Altered Carbon, he was pretty preachy against the Roman Catholic Church, who opposed stack technology and the ability keep people alive by switching bodies, thus robbing heaven of souls. Not as forceful in Woken Furies, but the elements were there.
 

Kurtz

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wut?????

This fucking autonomous-body-parts trope must die.

A better way to handle that sentence:

A funnier reading is that since Kovacs is a bio-engineered killing machine, he actually can do that.