The Daily Sabbatical

After struggling through Henry James’ “Wings of the Dove,” with its tortured sentences that often sound like overly literal translations from German, I needed to read something with substantially more killin’.   Morgan’s debut novel, “Altered Carbon” certainly fit that bill–though not all the killin’ involves “real death.”

Let me explain.  AC is set in the twenty fifth century when bodies can be donned or disposed of like a spring wardrobe.  The key to this trick lies in the fact that in the future everyone has a little device–a “stack”–at the top of the spine that stores all of the memories and personality data for that individual.  As long as that little buddy doesn’t get destroyed, therefore, the data from the stack can be used to “resleeve” an individual in however many biological suits he or she pleases.  If the stack is destroyed, that is “real death” and tears flow.

There are, to be sure, some very interesting philosophical questions here regarding personal identity, and Morgan flirts with them without getting too heavy handed.  It is never really questioned whether or not stack-survival is real survival, and perhaps that’s ok.  In fact, it is as if everyone in this world–oh, except for the Catholics, who are still around and don’t allow stack “resuscitation”–accepts and has internalized a Parfitian concept of survival.  (If you’re not familiar with the excellent philosopher Derek Parfit, you should check him out.  He’s as smart as they come.)  I would consider having my students read Altered Carbon, actually, were it not for the rather hardcore sex and violence that at times led even me to wince.

Although he sometimes falls into formula, Morgan’s story is compelling stuff.  He’s really thought through the implications of his future, and he doesn’t outfit it with idle bells and whistles.  The issues about survival, for example, play a key role in the plot, figuring importantly into the motives and possible motives of the key characters.  Which brings me to the plot.  This is basically a hard-boiled detective story set in the future, and the key crime involves the “murder” of a very wealthy man who is several hundred years old.  The wealthy have an extra survival safety net: they periodically have their stack files beamed to a remote location, so if their stack is destroyed, they can always just replicate the data in a new one and resleeve into a new body.  The trick, of course, is that they won’t remember anything that happened between their last data-backup and the destruction of their stack.  So, you have the possibility of a guy who was murdered, but who is around to hire a private investigator to find his killer, whom he cannot identify since his backup self doesn’t have the data from the time of the murder.  Pretty cool device.  The plot gets a little confusing at times, and is perhaps more complex than it really needs to be, but it is a good read.  This is sci-fi noir firmly in the Philip K. Dick tradition, so if you like that guy, you’ll probably dig this.