Talk:Altered Carbon

'Universe' or 'World'?

Should it really be said that "Broken Angels" is in the same world as Altered Carbon? I think it would be more accurate to say the same universe, as they don't actually take place on the same world.

World is not necessarily synonymous with planet. Midgley (talk) 22:36, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

"Explanation of title"

Someone wrote that altered carbon is the material out of which cortical stacks are made. I have read this book several times and have absolutely no recall of this "fact", so I removed it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Rawling (talk • contribs) 18:19, 14 January 2007 (UTC).

The term altered carbon seems to be fairly loosely applied to modified humans, be it cybernetics or genetics doing the modifying. (70.254.3.15 03:41, 28 June 2007 (UTC))

James Cameron bought rights for film for $10,000,000 US.

IMDBPro says that the producers are Navid McIlhargey and Joel Silver, production company Silver Pictures. No mention of James Cameron. Warner will distribute. 118.9.66.69 (talk) 10:26, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

"An English language teacher has landed a Hollywood deal which promises to make him $1m (£656,000) in what is thought to be the biggest coup for a first novel since The Horse Whisperer. Richard Morgan, 35, said to his publisher: "You've got to be kidding" when told that Joel Silver, producer of The Matrix and Die Hard, had bought his sci-fi novel Altered Carbon." http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2002/jun/29/filmnews.schools 118.9.66.69 (talk) 10:36, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

To refute myself, I believe the copy of the double-sleeved assassin is kept in police storage on an altered carbon disc. I need to re-read these all again... quote for wikiquote, etc. etc. Rawling4851 20:02, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Just just a Kindle and search for "altered carbon." It's used 4 times in the novel. From context it appears to mean the disks or storage devices that people are kept on between sleeves. "Altered carbon exiles," "makers of altered carbon" recommending storage temperatures, emerging from flesh to "dwell" in altered carbon, and "altered carbon would free us form the cells of our flesh."

BTW Why aren't versioned backups saved in remote storage? The whole book doesn't make sense. You'd think they'd have version control. 118.9.66.69 (talk) 10:01, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Any ebook reader would do, even software, not "just just a Kindle". While I disagree that "the whole book doesn't make sense" I do agree that:

1. having a cortical stack is one level of redundancy more than we have today
2. having a cortical stack and remote backup is two levels of redundancy more than we have today
3. if you've got the money to own resleeving hypercorporations, you can probably afford revision control for your backup, along with all the extra logistical complexity of each D.H. file being stored on RAID 0 between two devices physically stored in different parts of the facility
4. a lawyer should be competent at their own legal defence against a five-minute Photoshop mockup by someone who last used software fifty years ago. 110.150.205.86 (talk) 12:39, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Oumou (the lawyer) was (a) competent and (b) not accused of anything. In the liveaction bungle, she shows no legal skills whatsoever and is, as you say, utterly incompetent to the point Laurens would never have hired her (possibly as a jester, but not as a lawyer). In fact, when Kovacs presents his case to Laurens, it is (a) during the day, (b) in private, (c) makes sense, and (d) Laurens explicitly points out that any twit could have fabricated the imagery. The opposite to the liveaction bungle where it's at night for no reason, in a group setting for humiliation, makes no sense (how does infecting an AI brothel an hour ago threaten a client six weeks ago?).

Further to the quotes above, there's this:

... we ourselves are composed of matter in constant flux. Colonies of cells in temporary alliance, replicating and decaying and housed within, an incandescent cloud of electrical impulse and precariously stacked carbon code memory.

The liveaction bungle also suggests this:

we had mounted manned missions to Mars and that those astronauts had found these archeological finds, which allowed us to develop stack technology.

Just something to think about. 58.168.36.55 (talk) 07:06, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

In the third book, a younger version of Kovacs is retrieved - illegally - by the ruling clique and set after his latest version. In the first book we are told that double-sleeving is an erasure offence. To maintain multiple versions would harm the illusion of continuation. Midgley (talk) 22:39, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

Year?

I believe in the book it states that it is the early 26th century, if anyone knows for sure. Does this require an edit?

Blurb says 26th, yep. I seem to remember a more exact date in the book, but can't remember where. Geoff B 17:37, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I think is was 2560s —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.150.94.70 (talk) 18:46, August 28, 2007 (UTC)

Having read all the books several times, I believe there may be discrepancies in the dates used by Morgan. I would love to have the time to do a close analysis of that, but he regularly uses the words "in the last five centuries" to describe the extra-solar era. Stroller (talk) 10:19, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

From 2560, "in the last five centuries" means anything from 2060 to 2159. --24.6.228.145 (talk) 01:42, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

It looks (highly infeasible though it would be, given that people don't know what year they wake up in when resleeved) as if people in the setting are fixed on old-style 2-digit years: "Yeah, well anyway. Back in the winter of '09, Ryker was chasing down some random insurance fraud" and "Ryker was set up by some high ranking arsehole who took a fall back in '09. And it’s true he upset a lot of people." Also "Winter of '28. They were up and down the cable trails, converting and, when that didn't work, burning villages." The Hendrix was established in 2087. Larkin & Green—Armourers since 2203 and their android since 2076. Kovacs's bluff was for "4th May 2207. Look it up. I had to go back a long way to dig this one up". It's complicated by the use of other measuring systems (after all, no world will orbit its star with the same period Earth orbits Sol, so Earth's "year" is arbitrary everywhere else) for example, "Bradbury, 2089 pre-colonial reckoning" and "Nadia Makita, born Millsport, April 18th 47 (Colonial Reckoning), died October 33rd 105." The the liveaction bungle "is set in the year 2384". Just something to think about. 58.168.36.55 (talk) 07:06, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

Plot versus synopsis

This article doesn't say much about the plot - instead it's a synopsis of the novel. Usually I can rely on wikipedia to fill me in on any parts of the book I missed, so I sometimes refer to it to jog my memory about the plot. But this article is useless for that! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.189.178.251 (talk) 19:28, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Location location location

The article currently states "Kovacs, killed in the novel's prologue and stored in digital form, is downloaded into a sleeve formerly inhabited by Bay City (formerly San Francisco) policeman" however this novel is written by an English author so I'm sceptical it is set in America. I'm only half way through reading it so far and the only geographical references I've found are "Oakwood" (which could be anywhere), Osaka where a deal was cinched, and San Diego where Miriam beat up Begin. But where the actual story is set (ie where Suntouched House would stand) seems to be left intentionally as a generic unspecified location (probably somewhere normal like England, given the author's origin). As I say, I haven't completed the book yet, so it might be explicitly stated somewhere, but if so, the sentence I quoted in the article needs a reference. 110.150.147.98 (talk) 10:37, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Ground Zero to The Continent is 3 hours by sub-orbital according to Trepp, though that's a deliberately vague and huge target encompassing ~50 countries. Ground Zero to Miriam's island is 5 hours by cruiser. Ground Zero to New York is 1 hour by sub-orbital according to Jerry Sedaka. Graft Nicholson can drive to Seattle from Ground Zero in a truck in less than two days, but no more specific than that. The article now says "Bay City (formerly San Francisco, as a shown population center is the Golden Gate Bridge[original research?]) policeman Elias Ryker". I have never heard of the "Golden Gate Bridge" before I read Altered Carbon, but it is mentioned once here: "You know the red bridge?" "The Golden Gate, it’s called," she said dryly. "Yes, I’m familiar with it." Now, I'm no civil engineer, but a bridge described explicitly as "rust" isn't going to be 500 years old. Especially because Reileen says, "I am one of the seven most powerful human beings in this solar system." In present times, there is only one Solar system, so for Reileen to say "this solar system" demonstrates that by 2500-ish, other stars have been named Sol too, resulting in their star systems becoming Solar systems, hence her need to distinguish this particular one. If the people of 2500 have multiple stars called Sol, there's every likelihood they have multiple bridges called "Golden Gate" by then too, just like the myriad towns in America named after the originals in England. Wherever this story's generic dystopia is set, it is as deliberately non-specific and non-committal as when it is set. 58.168.36.55 (talk) 07:06, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

The Golden Gate bridge is globally well known under this name, notwithstanding some people not having heard of it before. The book is quite specific about this place being the original earth as well and this would have been easy to verify by its inhabitants, space flight not being that old and having a continuous culture and history. Claiming it is not the earth, or some other golden gate bridge, based on theories not backed up by the book, would constitute original research. I therefore was bold and removed the original research remark.78.42.246.21 (talk) 08:41, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

@58.168.36.55: The book explicitly takes place on earth "You're in Bay City, pal. Bay City, Earth." The grimace of a smile came back. "Home of the Human Race. Please enjoy your stay on this most ancient of civilized worlds". That's unambiguously our Earth, not some other planet named Earth. While standing on the bridge (which is described as rust-colored, not just rust), the book describes Narrowing my eyes, I could make out detail on the island of Alcatraz, the gray-walled and orange-windowed bunker of PsychaSec S.A. Beyond lay Oakland. The book also menions Russian Hill, and the bank that Bacroft uses is "First Colony Bank of California". --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 17:04, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

Regarding Reileen's statements, this is only indicative of the author's (areas of / lack of) expertise, not a statement about the nomenclature of the fictional future universe. If you read The Expanse series, you will find the author(s) tie themselves in all sorts of knots calling various extra-solar star-systems "Solar systems" even though clearly they are not in orbit around Sol at all. This is because the authors' expertise lies in storytelling and (to a lesser extent) language, not physics, astronomy, etc. If they were writing non-fiction (and it mattered) you could submit an erratum for the next reprint to address that misconception. As a work of fiction, it doesn't make any difference.

Regarding world awareness, there is a tendency for things within America to be perceived as relevant to the whole world (consider how widely broadcast the American elections are vs any other nation; consider how many countries of the world participate in the so-called "World" Series) and things outside America to be perceived as irrelevant to the whole world (I've met entire groups of Americans who have no idea what Ayers Rock or a budgie/budgerigar is... not just one or two individuals. Have you ever heard American tourists loudly insisting to the sceptical locals "We're Irish!" while touring actual Ireland?) so by setting the story at a location inside the American border, the author ensures that it's recognisable to the American readership (on their home turf) and recognisable to everybody else (we all know a little about most foreign countries, even if we've never been there). That's just good business sense. (Spoiler alert) the next two books are set on foreign planets so picking a location which actually exists somewhere (rather than this vague non-committal abstraction you propose) is an intentional, tactical storytelling device to ground the reader / narrative / series in the familiar ("This is the real world, just in the future. Most things are the same, but a few things are very different..."). Sure, the author could have chosen Johannesburg like District 9 did, or Mumbai, or any other major world landmark but there'd be a minority of the readership who'd scratch their heads in puzzlement before triumphantly declaring, "Cairo? That's in Egypt!". It doesn't cost anything to just make it easier for them. You'll also discover that low-tech religious factions exist within the setting for whom cortical stack implantation is very much faux pas and therefore it makes sense to start the whole story in a culture exhibiting high-tech anti-religion (flying cars, humans becoming gods, every manner of indulgence available, organised religion depicted as a weapon against justice and human rights) to calibrate normalcy. This theme (science is the cure for religion) is embellished in all three books. 121.44.118.124 (talk) 00:37, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

If you need any more proof, the official blurb for the book at the publisher's website says Dispatched one hundred eighty 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. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 17:43, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

Homage

"Chalk Girl" by Carol O'Connell (2012) features a pair of characters named "Ortega" and "Riker". 121.44.118.124 (talk) 23:07, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

Envoys

Article text currently states Kovacs' partner Sarah was an ex-envoy. I'd not got that from the books, did I miss anything there? He was an ex-Envoy, of course, but I seem to recall she had not left Harlan's World. Midgley (talk) 22:42, 26 June 2022 (UTC)