The Immortality Program (novel)
The Immortality Program (OT: Altered Carbon ) is a 2002 science fiction novel by Richard Morgan .
The novel won the Philip K. Dick Award for 2003. The German translation was done by Bernhard Kempen . The novel was filmed as a series for Netflix and published in February 2018 under the title Altered Carbon - The Immortality Program.
General
The story is told from the first person perspective of the protagonist Takeshi Kovacs. The action takes place in the 26th century.
Takeshi Kovacs is of half Japanese, half Eastern European (Slovak) descent. He spent his youth as a gang member on the planet "Harlan's World" in the ghettos of the city of Newpest. Harlan's World is a named after Konrad Harlan planet in the Astrogationskarten the Martians is recorded. Kovacs began his military career with the Marine Corps, later recruited by the Envoy Corps. His instructor there was Virginia Vidaura.
In the novel, so-called download technology is used extensively, a transfer of the entire personality onto technical hardware and back into other bodies, the 'sleeves', some of which are clones . Death thus has a less dramatic meaning. There are also virtual forums in which you can stay.
action
Takeshi Kovacs is a convicted criminal who is shot dead by a task force at the beginning of the novel along with his former girlfriend and teammate Sarah Sachilowska.
Kovacs was sentenced to storage after his shooting. When it is downloaded again from storage, to his surprise he finds himself back on earth.
Kovacs comes from a colony , but is forced to work to solve a possible murder on earth. By the murdered person himself. This is possible because the client - Laurens Bancroft - is one of the super-rich. He is more than 300 years old, has various replacement bodies that are used in the event of death, the backup of his consciousness is regularly updated and backed up by updates and, if necessary, transferred to the new body. Since it is very expensive, there are not many of these Methusalems.
Kovacs is supported in his investigation by Lieutenant Kristin Ortega. She is a policeman in the Organic Defects Division of the Bay City Police Department and the former partner of Elias Ryker. Ryker was convicted of a crime for storage, and Bancroft rented the now unneeded sleeve from Ryker and had Kovacs transferred to it. For this reason, Ortega is interested in the welfare of Rykers Sleeve.
Bancroft took Kovacs out of storage against his will, teleported it through space and made him an offer that he cannot refuse.
In the course of his investigation, Kovacs / Ryker uncovered a large-scale conspiracy to prevent the planned UN resolution 653. The head behind the conspiracy is Reileen Kawahara, a triad leader who knows no scruples and who literally walks over corpses to achieve her goals.
At the end of the novel, he outwits Kawahara and brings her real death by infecting her backup copies with a virus. As a result, it can no longer be retrieved from storage. On the other hand, he looks for her in the sleeve of a ninja and kills her by exploding a mini grenade in her neck, so that her stack is also destroyed.
Envoy Corps
The Envoy Corps is a special unit of the UN Protectorate for interplanetary disputes. Members of the corps undergo special training in the form of psycho-spiritual conditioning that works at the subconscious level. An Envoy has a total memory and is able to perceive the smallest connections between seemingly unrelated events. Envoys have an exact understanding of body language and the variations in the intonation of human speech - thus it is easy for them to recognize the intentions of other people and to manipulate them as well. Envoy can control or suppress their physical and psychological reflexes, such as pain, fear or anger.
Due to the skills acquired in the training, Envoys are masters of deception and manipulation, so they are forbidden to hold political or military offices, because the training would have made it much easier for them to gain advantages compared to normal people, e.g. B. for fast promotions. So many Envoys only had the option to act in a criminal environment.
Hendrix
During his investigation on Earth, Kovacs stayed in a hotel called "Hendrix", which was named after the rock guitarist Jimi Hendrix . This hotel is a so-called AI, an artificial intelligence that Takeshi supports over time.
genre
The novel contains the classic elements of literary cyberpunk and is assigned to it. The author refers to William Gibson , Morgan himself writes of Future Noir :
“Filled by every crime noir novel I'd ever read, plus swabs of French and Japanese cinema, the work of William Gibson and M John Harrison, early Poul Anderson and Bob Shaw, and last but not least the colossal impact of Bladerunner, this was my take on future noir. "
criticism
“Nevertheless, the first part of the Takeshi Kovacs trilogy is exciting up to the last page, which you turn at the first light of dawn. Hollywood has already secured the film rights, and who knows, it might become a cult film. "
"A brilliant book! (?) ... at least says sci-fi author Peter F. Hamilton , one of the greats of the genre, about" The Immortality Program ". The Guardian says: "More than extraordinary! Richard Morgan defines the science fiction of the new millennium." According to Fantastic, this is "a masterful example of a cyber crime thriller ... The last debut novel that was similarly exciting was probably William Gibson's 'Neuromancer'." And The Times : "Richard Morgan is one of the emerging stars of the international literary scene." [...] Hollywood couldn't resist - Joel Silver has acquired the film rights to Morgan's debut. In December 2003 the loose sequel "Broken Angels" was released, which will probably go one better in terms of splatter. "
Individual evidence
- ↑ PKD Award for 2003 ( Memento of the original from December 11, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Jiré Emine Gözen: Cyberpunk Science Fiction . Literary fictions and media theory. (= Culture and media theory . Without number). transcript Verlag , Bielefeld 2012, ISBN 978-3-8376-1701-6 , p. 334 ( table of contents and further information [accessed on March 18, 2020]).
- ^ Richard Morgan: Altered Carbon. Author's Notes. (No longer available online.) In: richardkmorgan.com . Archived from the original on March 4, 2013 ; accessed on March 18, 2020 (English).
