This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt. You may receive a partial or no refund on used, damaged or materially different returns.

Read full return policy

Payment

Secure transaction

Payment

Secure transaction

We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more

Details

Other sellers on Amazon

New & Used (49) from $2.04 + $3.99 shipping

Follow the author

Richard K. Morgan

+ Follow

More books from this author

Altered Carbon: Netflix Altered Carbon book 1 (Gollancz S.F.) [Jan 30, 2018] Morgan, Richard Paperback – February 1, 2018

by Richard K. Morgan (Author)

4.4 14,163 ratings

Book 1 of 3: Takeshi Kovacs Novels

See all formats and editions

{"desktop_buybox_group_1":[{"displayPrice":"$8.59","priceAmount":8.59,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"8","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"59","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"mr0xFK%2BGy4xJ6ZP6eNRqngqJWjMSh%2B5Jof34Gs8iHZtNV5kyQW6BMNJVqhdOwgLvmWfKXEx18I6gyJZShv1EoN9L%2FXIwJ9RrtMxRxaV%2FDKoyVLc2a7WJARgp%2Bypx8f%2B%2B3hNp95Es6akqt9Pgq9sY0M2wYAt2sumj%2FDAcV1PYa1GCAQoYwp8RIA%3D%3D","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":0}]}

Purchase options and add-ons

Please Read Notes: Brand New, International Softcover Edition, Printed in black and white pages, minor self wear on the cover or pages, Sale restriction may be printed on the book, but Book name, contents, and author are exactly same as Hardcover Edition. Fast delivery through DHL/FedEx express.

Frequently bought together

Altered Carbon: Netflix Altered Carbon book 1 (Gollancz S.F.) [Jan 30, 2018] Morgan, Richard

$15.17

Get it as soon as Thursday, May 16

Only 20 left in stock (more on the way).

Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.

+

$14.99

Get it as soon as Thursday, May 16

In Stock

Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.

+

$8.73

Get it May 22 - 29

In stock

Usually ships within 3 to 4 days.

Ships from and sold by SuperBookDeals-.

Total price:

To see our price, add these items to your cart.

Try again!

Details

Added to Cart

Some of these items ship sooner than the others.

Show details Hide details

Choose items to buy together.

Richard K. Morgan
6,680
Paperback
95 offers from $2.57
Neal Stephenson
18,441
Paperback
149 offers from $2.45
Philip K. Dick
21,958
Paperback
146 offers from $2.82
147
7 offers from $27.58
Dan Simmons
23,426
Mass Market Paperback
82 offers from $4.00
Richard K. Morgan
229
Hardcover
37 offers from $4.25

Popular Highlights in this book

What are popular highlights?

“The human eye is a wonderful device,” I quoted from Poems and Other Prevarications absently. “With a little effort, it can fail to see even the most glaring injustice.”
Highlighted by 638 Kindle readers
Just as a primitive sextant functions on the illusion that the sun and stars rotate around the planet we are standing on, our senses give us the illusion of stability in the universe, and we accept it, because without that acceptance, nothing can be done.
Highlighted by 625 Kindle readers
“There are some arenas so corrupt that the only clean acts possible are nihilistic.”
Highlighted by 364 Kindle readers

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Gollancz (February 1, 2018)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 471 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1473223679
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1473223677
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11.9 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.04 x 1.34 x 7.72 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #401,487 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,262 in Cyberpunk Science Fiction (Books)
- #21,857 in Crime Thrillers (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.4 14,163 ratings

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Videos

Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video!

Upload your video

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Richard K. Morgan

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Richard K. Morgan is the acclaimed author of The Dark Defiles, The Cold Commands, The Steel Remains, Black Man (published in the US as Thirteen), Woken Furies, Market Forces, Broken Angels, and Altered Carbon, a New York Times Notable Book that won the Philip K. Dick Award in 2003.

The movie rights to Altered Carbon were optioned by Joel Silver and Warner Bros on publication, and the book remained in feature film development until 2015. It is now being turned into a 10 episode Netflix series by Skydance Media. Market Forces, was also optioned to Warner Bros, before it was even published, and it won the John W. Campbell Award in 2005. Black Man won the Arthur C .Clarke Award in 2007 and is currently under movie option to Straight Up films. The Steel Remains won the Gaylactic Spectrum award in 2010, and its sequel, The Cold Commands, was listed in both Kirkus Reviews‘ and NPR’s best Science Fiction / Fantasy books of the Year. The concluding volume, The Dark Defiles, is out now!

Richard is a fluent Spanish speaker and has lived and worked in Madrid, Istanbul, Ankara, London and Glasgow, as well as travelling extensively in the Americas, Africa and Australia. He now lives back in Norfolk in the UK with his Spanish wife Virginia and son Daniel, about five miles away from where he grew up. A bit odd, that, but he’s dealing with it.

Photo by Roberta F. [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5

14,163 global ratings

How customer reviews and ratings work

Reviews with images

See all photos

Sort reviews by

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Er Jwee Chiek 余瑞傑

A supreme masterpiece. A thrilling and unforgetable hardboiled science fiction

Reviewed in the United States on May 24, 2020

Verified Purchase

Altered Carbon (AC) is a science fiction presented by author Richard Morgan in the hardboiled genre. With the protagonist narrating the story in the first voice, it was like reading a Raymond Chandler detective fiction with a science fiction spin to it.

It has familiar elements we would expect from hardboiled fictions, like gangsters, violence, torture, cops, whorehouses, low life, heroes, victims and selfless gallantry etc. Nevertheless, Morgan’s dystopian world has ageless core elements of humanity and virtues we are familiar with. Earth in the futuristic world of AC has also, the UN council and the rule of law governing it. People fear death and craved longevity beyond the normal lifespan and eternal youth. AC's humans, male and female, have insatiable lust for sex. A Christian religion forbidding the extension of life after the subject suffers permanent organic damage (death). A corrupted and class-divided society where the rich and powerful elites have more options at their disposals than the non-rich. In addition and not in the least is the basic human need to love and or loved by someone was played out by the major characters. Such familiarities helped me, a reader in the 21st century, connect with AC. Author Richard Morgan used uncanny intelligence, wittiness, humorous stereotypes, one-liner quips and sharp retorts in dialogues or narration by Takeshi, our hero, to convey AC's rich and the fascinating core theme of our intrepid hero would solve the whodunit mystery and unveiling the motives behind it. Exhibits of human vanity and the sad lives of the elites who have lived 300 centuries and beyond further enriched AC make the reader ponder about prospect of living forever may bring more pain than joy. Ultimately, the audience was not short-changed of a triumphant climax of the small people outsmarting and violently turning the tables on the rich and powerful immortal elites.
Language wise, there were neither long convoluted sentences nor heavy chapters with too many pages and certainly no redundancy. With the brevity of words and compactness of plot, the author conveyed his tale powerfully with colourful descriptions of the myriad of characters, which irresistibly tickled and amused me all the way.

Like most novels, especially sci-fi genre, the reader must learn new jargon for technology and acronyms. Thankfully, Kindle has the x-ray function, which is very useful for cross-checking unfamiliar terms, names and locations. The landscape of San Francisco Bay have evolved into a dystopian world of flying vehicles and blinding neon lights, holographic virtual reality of oversized humans, not unlike the world of Rick Deckard in Blade Runner. However, SF Bridge in red have survived and the frequent rain were helpful in linking readers to the beautiful wet and windy SF we know today.
Interestingly in AC, humans have already colonized many habitable planets light years away from mother earth. Interstellar travel light years apart was unimaginably easy and quick since it was possible to digitize the entire human psychic and soul for rapid transmission through space electronically. Very Star Trek like indeed. Back to reality, colonizing other habitable planets (if there are indeed others besides earth) cannot be more pressing today with the alarming deterioration of mother earth by the day. Even in the unlikely chance that we discover another habitable planet sometime in the future, and we have the technology to build a mother ship to take us there, the privileged rich and powerful, like in AC, will always be in front of the queue for a place in the mother ship.

9 people found this helpful

Helpful

GregReviewsSciFi

Good book. Must read if you plan to watch the show.

Reviewed in the United States on December 23, 2017

Verified Purchase

If you are a long time reader of my reviews, you will note I like to explain how I came to acquire and read the book. This review of Altered Carbon is no different.

I read many books, mostly fiction. Of the fiction 99% science fiction. A friend told me he was taking a break from non-fiction and reading Altered Carbon. Based on his interests I immediately assumed the book was about guns, spies, hunting, fishing or some other topic men more manly than I read. He said no this is a science fiction book transforming into a TV show by Netflix. After my initial shock of him knowing something Sci-Fi related I didn’t, I decided to order the book for my Kindle.

Altered Carbon is in the future. It is unclear when exactly, my best guess is 23 something. There are references in the book about dates and ages of people. However, I could not find any reference to the exact date. It bothers me a bit to be honest. When you read chapter one “Arrival” if I were Kovacs I would ask where am I and what is the date?

Who is Kovacs? Takeshi Kovacs is the protagonist of the story if such a thing exists in this book. He is a human born and raised in a colony world. Very simple character backstory of being poor having bad parents and joining a military-like organization to get his life together. The organization that he joins is interesting and adds to the story throughout the whole book.

Most good science fiction books have some future technology which is fun to read about and enhances the story (think light-saber or transporter). Altered Carbons “killer tech” is a device called the sleeve. The sleeve stores a person’s consciousness in a digital format. With the right equipment, consciousness can move from one sleeve to another. The sleeve offers everything from immortality to easy transportation in a digital format to other worlds. The only requirement is there is storage or another sleeve to be downloaded into on the other side.

This concept of a digital consciousness is not new. There are many books and movies which tackle the topic. I don’t recall any other book that used the concept of a sleeve. At least for me, the concept was unique and very cool.

Altered Carbon is probably best described as a futurist detective novel. Kovacs is brought to earth to solve a crime the police do not think happened. Without giving any spoilers pay close attention to the details. Almost every scene in the book is related to another scene, and the details are important. The book is not Hobbit or Game of Thrones complex however it does wear on you after awhile.

My one criticism is the book was a little complex and slow at times. I would bet Netflix will rewrite and reimage a few spots to avoid filler episodes. To underscore my point when I finished the book and reached back out to my friend he was about 50% complete and struggling to continue. My advice to him and you is to power through it. It will get better and worse and then finish strong.

Since Altered Carbon is becoming a show, I decided to look up the actors. What I found was a little shocking. There are a few characters not in the book mainly Poe, Captain Tanaka, and Okulov. These unknown characters seem to have starring roles with 6 or 7 episodes equal or exceeding Takeshi Kovacs. Very strange. Kristin Ortega is only granted four episodes. In my opinion, Ortega is the balance which makes the book good. I’ll reserve judgment on the actors chosen most of whom I have never heard of. I always struggle with books made into movies or shows because the actors never fit my visualization of the characters.

Do I recommend reading the book? Yes.

Altered carbon is not the best book I’ve read but it is very good. Plus, it will be fun when Netflix changes it all and we can all complain about it.

Oh, and according to the Netflix trailer, the year is 2384...

Greg @ Kafflab

51 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Translate all reviews to English

Juan Carlos Rito Manilla

Muy buena serie

Reviewed in Mexico on August 1, 2023

Verified Purchase

Obviamente nada que ver con la serie pasa igual que en el libro y película de guerra mundial sin embargo aunque esta en ingles si dice las palabras sin censura una historia muy aparte se centra en los sleeves es lo que pude entender no me parece fantasioso me parece más un novela de detectives en realidad no me parece Cyberpunk me parece genial por el precio de $18.00mxn de ese entonces y porque toca temas taboo

Translate review to English

P. E. Cuberos

Deep, Elegant, unexpected

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 22, 2024

Verified Purchase

I wish I could write like Richard Morgan. I've rarely seen such elegant metaphors, such deep reflections on what it means to be human within a Sci-Fi thriller. The plot is very complex and the number of names of chemicals and other unexplained futuristic elements made it at times hard to follow, but the quality of the writing and the very engaging personal narrative simply means, I'll read it again. I really enjoyed it.

Yash

What. A. Ride

Reviewed in India on November 9, 2021

Verified Purchase

I was going to spend some time and craft this review, hoping I could correctly represent the brilliance of my experience. And then I realised - I'm too excited and whatever I write will never live up to Altered Carbon.

I haven't watched the show. And I'm not a massive sci-fi buff. I belong to the 7th circle of hell that holds all the people who've never watched Blade Runner. But ever since the hype of Cyberpunk 2077, I've had an urge for neon lights and urban dissolution.

If (in your mind) you want to create a world of night city corruption and holographic lust - read Altered Carbon.
If you want to live through the eyes of a man whose will has been conditioned through centuries of war, yet whose heart is relentlessly romantic- read Altered Carbon.
If you want to live as:
Max Payne
The Darkness
Johnny Silverhand
live as complete old testament vengeance,
read Altered Carbon.

I can tell you the same things you’d probably read on the back of the book.
Based in a future where new bodies (or sleeves) can be worn as easily as clothing, a former UN military envoy (Takeshi Kovacs) is nonconsensually sleeved on 25th century Earth, hired to investigate the murder of the vampirically old Laurens Bancroft.

But beyond that,
it's a story about the little guy proving we deserve better than the contemptuous disdain of the upper class.
It's a story about a world where good people have to do bad things for good endings.
It's a story with incredible dialogue, characters, themes, and narration.

This is a story that will turn you into a page-eater. You'll keep going and you'll have to mentally remind yourself to slow down, flip back, and just taste every line, every word, again.

There's no good way to close such an emotive review. So I'm going to let the book do it for me. The following quotes are just a taste of the raw power, that was within those unassuming 400+ pages:

1)
‘The personal, as everyone’s so f*****G fond of saying, is political. So if some idiot politician, some power player, tries to execute policies that harm you or those you care about, TAKE IT PERSONALLY. Get angry. The Machinery of Justice will not serve you here - it is slow and cold, and it is theirs, hardware and soft-. Only the little people suffer at the hands of Justice; the creatures of power slide out from under with a wink and a grin. If you want justice, you will have to claw it from them. Make it PERSONAL. Do as much damage as you can. GET YOUR MESSAGE ACROSS. That way you stand a far better chance of being taken seriously next time. Of being considered dangerous. And make no mistake about this: being taken seriously, being considered dangerous marks the difference, the ONLY difference in their eyes, between players and little people. Players they will make deals with. Little people they liquidate. And time and again they cream your liquidation, your displacement, your torture and brutal execution with the ultimate insult that it’s just business, it’s politics, it’s the way of the world, it’s a tough life and that IT’S NOTHING PERSONAL. Well, f**k them. Make it personal.’ - Quellcrist Falconer

2)
‘When they ask how I died, tell them: still angry.’
- Takeshi Kovacs

3)
Irene: Why? Why are you doing this?
Takeshi: ‘Because I want there to be something clean at the end of all this. Something I can feel good about.’

For a moment she went on staring at me. Then she closed the small gap between us and flung her arms around me with a cry that sent the nearest gulls wheeling up off the sand in alarm. I felt a trickle of tears smeared onto the side of my face, but she was laughing at the same time. I folded my arms round her in return and held her. And for the moments that the embrace lasted, and a little while after, I felt as clean as the breeze coming in off the sea.

4)
Kristin: Go on thinking like that, nothing’ll ever change for you.
Takeshi: Kristin, nothing ever does change.

I jerked a thumb back at the crowd outside.

You’ll always have morons like that, swallowing belief patterns whole so they don’t have to think for themselves. You’ll always have people like Kawahara and the Bancrofts to push their buttons and cash in on the program. People like you to make sure the game runs smoothly and the rules don’t get broken too often. And when the Meths want to break the rules themselves, they’ll send people like Trepp and me to do it. That’s the truth, Kristin. It’s been the truth since I was born a hundred and fifty years ago and from what I read in the history books, it’s never been any different. Better get used to it.

One person found this helpful

Pooklet

Heavy science fiction that's not for the faint of heart

Reviewed in Canada on April 11, 2019

Verified Purchase

I love sci-fi, but this dystopian world takes speculative fiction to the next level; namely, with the notion of transferring consciousness into hardware and moving this hardware into other bodies--or, as they are called, "sleeves." If you can wrap your head around the philosophy of this idea (i.e. is it really "you" if you're being "uploaded" into a hard drive, or is the uploaded consciousness simply a "copy" of the original "you," whereas the original you is now dead?) then you're 75% of the way to enjoying this novel. If that concept is something you'd prefer not to grapple with in any form, then this novel might not be for you.

Other notable aspects of the fiction that should be taken into account before reading:

- Like I said, this is hardcore science fiction. While the narrative is very well written and extremely descriptive, it can be hard to visualise this gritty dystopian future if you haven't seen the Netflix show first.
- The novel--like the show--is very heavy with violence and sex. This is not a book for young teens; this is a novel for adults. If you're squeamish or do not like things to be especially graphic, then this aspect of the book might be a clincher for you.
- Kovacs may be considered less appealing in the book than in the show because, without giving the plot away, there is a major difference in the show and the book that changes Kovac's past.

All in all, this is a great read for fans of science fiction. If you're unsure, I recommend watching the first episode of the Netflix adaptation before giving this book a shot.

7 people found this helpful

Emyr

Better than the tv series

Reviewed in Brazil on February 25, 2018

Verified Purchase

Great book while it’s tv equivalent is entertaining,there were some alterations(unnecessary) on the characters and their motivations to make them more appealing to a tv audience and to some extent more in line with the producers political views, like the envoys being terrorists/ freedom fighters, witch is completely diferent on the book
The characters here and to some extent the world itself are more interesting and well rounded Kovach s investigation fells more like that of a detective and you don’t have the feeling he was being led by the nose

One person found this helpful

Translate review to English

See more reviews

Follow the author

Image Unavailable

Altered Carbon: Netflix Altered Carbon book 1 (Gollancz S.F.) [Jan 30, 2018] Morgan, Richard Paperback – February 1, 2018

Purchase options and add-ons

Frequently bought together

Similar items that may deliver to you quickly

Product details

Videos

About the author

Richard K. Morgan

Customer reviews

Reviews with images

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Top reviews from other countries