SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

Here's the bookend to the initial impressions thread.

I haven't rated or reviewed this book yet (I wanted to wait until the discussion was over) So that's what I'm going to try and do today. I'm wavering between 3 and 4 stars, and I think what's going to push it either way is if I want to read the next book in the series, Broken Angels

Did Altered Carbon leave you wanting more Kovacs, or are you content to stop with this book?

(and I want to thank everyone for such an interesting discussion - it made my first time as a discussion leader a lot of fun.)

I have this OCD-like response to most books. If I read the first book in the series, the rest is sure to follow. Or I used to. Amazon.com's frequent offer of first books in a series as a free kindle download has gotten me reading a lot of first books that I might not have otherwise, and I've realized that the compulsion isn't as much of a compulsion as I once thought. I've walked away from at least a half-dozen or so series without a second thought. (and this from someone who has a LONG history of scouring second-hand bookstores to find everything an author ever wrote!)

I never really engaged with Kovacs character. It wasn't just that he was a tough guy who just may have left his heart of gold in his other sleeve ... I never cared enough to worry about him, or about whether he'd complete his contract.

Maybe a year or two down the line I might find the second book in a thrift store and consider it for under a buck, but I'm not rushing out to look right now.

I was engaged enough by Morgan's style and the breathlessness of the action to put Broken Angels on my TBR stack. . . of course, I'm totally anal about books matching and I wanted to wait until I could find a mass market edition of Broken Angels to match my mass market of Altered Carbon. . . but it's been over a year and I have yet to find one, so I'll likely just borrow it from the library. If I love it I'll have to get both books in trade paper. . . but the short answer is yes, I will be reading more Morgan.

(I'll likely also check out his fantasy novel, even though it looks darker than I usually like, just because I like to support fantasy with gay characters.)

Eh, too exploitative for me. The second half zipped along a lot easier than the first half, but it's one of those reads I like less and less the more I think about it.

I think I'd read more Morgan, just not his sci-fi stuff. His story really seemed more appropriate for a different era/setting and in the end the sci-fi elements came off as gimmicky and fun gadgets to look at with no depth behind them. I also agree with Stormhawk, Kovacs and his fate never really concerned me.

I enjoyed it. It's gotten me interested in reading more science fiction.

I liked the Sci-fi elements in the story. The central idea of re-sleeving a personality in a new body is an interesting one. It provokes questions of identity, and the separation of the physical and the perceptual, or put it another way, the body and the soul. For most characters re-sleeving is a rare and disturbing event, and it's interesting to compare Kovacs and the Meths, for whom re-sleeving is a commonplace occurrence, and how it might affect their view of the world.

I have Broken Angels on my shelf waiting to be read, and as soon as other reading commitments allow I'll be diving back into the fray with Kovacs.

I found it enjoyable enough that I'll most likely read the remainder of the series within the next few months.

The setting, tech and especially the ability to re-sleeve oneself(and it's moral/spiritual ramifications) were intriguing enough to warrant further reading.

If I could, I'd give it 3 1/2 stars.

I ended up DNFing at 91%. I was horribly distressed by the scene with the dog at the whorehouse. I'm sensitive to animals in pain already, and this was beyond anything that I can tolerate. It will take me weeks to get it out of my head.

I also disliked the sex scenes but I understood what the author was trying to do. There were things I liked and things I really liked. It was headed towards a firm three stars.

I ended up giving it 3 stars. It was a bit more graphic than I was expecting but I thought there was some good stuff in there. I'm glad Sarah warned me about the dog scene I pretty much skimmed over that. I will probably give the second one a try. I liked enough about this one to see where he goes with the next one. I am curious why the earth settings were in American cities and not London. I didn't look but I'm assuming the author is British. There were a lot of expressions that were not American. I guess it doesn't really matter I just found that interesting.

Amanda wrote: "I ended up giving it 3 stars. It was a bit more graphic than I was expecting..."

Yes, this is where I ended up as well. There is certainly a lot to like in here. But the violence and brutality, although clearly designed to fit the tone and theme of the book, often felt unnecessarily over the top, more designed to shock than to support or tell a message.

Every now and then you find a book where the author is a 14 year old boy at heart. :) This could have easily been a four star book for me if three scenes had been removed.

Took me a while to finish and process this one, but it seems to have a lot worth discussing and I've been composing my thoughts...

I, too, was surprised at the level of violence, and also the sex. "Two" sex scenes is not necessarily a lot, but the first one went on for like 10 pages(!) and described some things I normally only see in the saucier romance novels, which seemed a bit distracting from the main plot.

I did see how Morgan was trying to explore the idea of physiology as it relates to attraction, both with Miriam and her hormone augmentations, and Ryker's sleeve's "memory" of Ortega which went away when Kovacs resleeved later. It's an interesting idea* but I didn't feel it warranted the marathon humping to prove it to me. Also, Ortega was introduced as a particularly strong character, and I didn't like that she was displayed as showing such forgetfulness and unchecked emotion relating to the sleeve Kovac was wearing, to the point of sleeping with him and regretting it. It just seemed like the ideas were interesting, but that the author ended up making the women weak or manipulative in order to explore the points.

[*I once read a study that concluded that when a woman and a man are more genetically compatible (for reproduction), women find that the men smell better to them. I find that concept fascinating, and it might be one step toward believing a person could have a physiological response to a particular body regardless of "who" was actually in the body.]

The violence I understood less. Or maybe it is better to say I didn't feel it was handled as responsibly. I can see that in a world that offers you unlimited resleeving, it would lead to a lot of debauchery and ironically a lessening of the value of human lives. But I felt like Kovacs was being portrayed as one of the good guys, someone who had escaped the envoy puppetmasters, and wanted to pursue justice for people. So when he seemed to react so mildly to his torture and his own gratuitous murders, it just didn't read right to me emotionally. I realize envoy conditioning got him through the torture, but it felt weird that he didn't reflect on it at all and it didn't affect his abilities or emotional state after that at all. That kind of thing just seemed to downplay the violence, which contradicted the fact that there was an exceptionally large amount of violence in the book.

The other piece for me was the contradictory treatment of women. It seemed like he held Ortega in high esteem, and yet she was ultimately just another person he slept with. He was trying to get compensation for the victim of Laurens' and her family, but at the same time struggled to keep from getting aroused when a naked woman is thrown up against the glass at Jerry's. The talk about his penis was not my cup of tea, but it was forgivable; what I didn't like was how he blamed resleeving for his sexual appetite/poor decision-making, while at the same time made a conscientious effort to quit smoking against his sleeve's addiction. It made his priorities fairly clear, but not in a good way.

The book had a lot of fascinating things going on in the sci-fi realm. I actually disagreed with the reviews that said the sci-fi was just window dressing: those were the parts that interested me the most. For example, the history of colonization and the use of military was fascinating, even though it was brought in as simple world background. Additionally, I loved the question of identity that was raised with resleeving, multiple sleeving, and the Patchwork Man. The multiple sleeving in particular reminded me of a philosophy book that blew me away when I was younger - The Mind's I: Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul - check it out if this topic interests you.

Having finally read Neuromancer recently, I can see how much debt books like these owe to that pioneering work. So much of what is happening in Altered Carbon is assumed to be understood by the reader because of the cultural vocabulary we now have in place for virtual spaces, and mind-body separation. Even A.I. identities had a basis in William Gibson's book. Altered Carbon was a fascinating book for me on a lot of levels; I just wish there had been less (gratuitous) sex, violence, and objectification/sexism.

I've been very curious to see what you would think, Michael. The sexism was a very predominant part of it and that tends to bother you.

The story itself, and the ideas, had potential. I wonder if there has been any effect with sales. I would think that some of these issues would have narrowed the market. I know that I'm not reading the next and I was fascinated by the sleeving and the world.

Also, on your comment "I once read a study that concluded that when a woman and a man are more genetically compatible (for reproduction), women find that the men smell better to them" I've actually heard that this is what is behind the phenomenon of a 'good' or 'bad' kiss.

I do like that he was exploring different reasons for attraction... I just got sidetracked, were there any non-straight characters in this? I'm not remembering any but it's been a bit.

I would be curious about sales, too. I'm not sure it is what your typical sci-fi fan would expect, so maybe the appeal (and the movie option) is partly crossover with the crime genre? The Jack Reacher Series is fairly popular and has a similar schtick without the sci-fi - though it does try to exploit a physics/physiology viewpoint. For some reason I found that series more palatable but it is probably just a reaction to the main character and nothing rational.

As for non-straight characters, well... he seemed to imply that both Miriam and Trepp might have slept with Kawahara, but that felt more straight male fantasy-based and not actual diversity. The cross-sex-sleeving idea was mentioned here and there which would potentially throw all kinds of wrinkles into attraction and identity, but it certainly wasn't explored to any substantial degree. From time to time I think about how much of my attraction to others is conditioned by my upbringing, but thinking about being in another person's body - whoa, I don't think we can really imagine what that would be like. Even just another body of the same "sex" would turn your sense of what is real upside down.

For some reason I put more thought into cross-sex-sleeving than same-sex. I'm not sure why but I have a hard time imagining being another woman. I would love to see how much that messes with attraction. In real life. It's hard to imagine tastes changing just by switching bodies, even knowing that DNA may be a factor. I would be resleeving all over the place just to test it.

:)

The question is how much of our "tastes" are based on our mind, and how much are based on our body, and how much a combination. I mean, your whole physiological reaction would be different in a differently sexed body. And if your physical reaction to people you have always known is suddenly different, then it would have to change your interest in people in some way, I would think. Of course, I might be overstating male/female differences. And it might not "flip" who you are attracted to, it might just be a qualitative change. But your body is your experience of reality, it would be hard to predict how your experiences would change, and therefore your assessments, in a different one. Did Morgan say in the story background how many centuries we have to wait for this technology? (ha, ha)

(As an anecdote, the Hollywood "body switch" movies that I've seen have the people exactly as they used to be - to comedic effect - trying to convince everyone they are the same person - or trying poorly to pretend to be someone else. I'm not sure that's really how it would work, and of course most of those movies are metaphors anyway and not trying to prove anything about science...)

That's such a fascinating idea. It would make it very important to clone yourselves if you want to stay with your romantic partner. But it could also shade things a bit. There are people I look at now that I think are very attractive, but really more from an objective standpoint rather than actually feeling attracted to them. But with even a slight change things could be very different.

Oh, this is bringing out my inner mad scientist. Does the brain or the body matter? I mean, what it we started swapping brains? If I take the mind of a lesbian and put it in a man and then I sleeve into it, what then? And yes, I know I sound like a lunatic. It's just so fascinating!!!

It's been a while since I read the books so I can't remember all the details, but in general I liked the series very much. I wasn't bothered by the sex or the violence, all of which seemed appropriate to the setting. The sleeving concept was interesting and woven into the overall plot well.

I like that there was a minimum of angst and soul searching. Trained killers and experienced soldiers can often be unsympathetic while still wanting to do the right thing if possible. As for not dwelling on or being affected by the torture he experiences, it makes sense that his conditioning and his inclination would be to suppress it in favour of getting on with the job.

Sarah wrote: "...And yes, I know I sound like a lunatic. It's just so fascinating!!! "

I am pretty sure you are a lunatic but sign me up for the first swap, you can have my brain, it isn't doing what I want it to, today.

Back to the book....I think, as both Michael and Sarah pointed out, the warring conflict between the mind and the body *could* explain all of the contradictions in behavior for both Ortega and Ryker. The brain and the body both matter.

Maybe Morgan is expressing his own difficulties with the treatment of women and at the risk of alienating the people whose opinions I respect, I can relate.
I am not a teenager anymore but sometimes the chemicals running through my body can take over my brain and make me do and say really dumb things. Of course, just like blaming it on a sleeve, perhaps that is just a cop out :)

Hank wrote: "Sarah wrote: "...And yes, I know I sound like a lunatic. It's just so fascinating!!! "

I am pretty sure you are a lunatic but sign me up for the first swap, you can have my brain, it isn't doing w..."

Unless the sleeve isn't perfectly neutral and he is affected by the different hormonal balances of the sleeve itself.

Now there would be a fascinating place to take the book, instead of just exploring its potential for tolerating violence.

Wait, brain? - help me out here - does anyone understand this cortical stack business. I guess these bodies all have brains, but they don't have memories, right? Is it just the memories that are stored in the stack? (Not sure about my brain science, but I thought memories were stored as relationships in the brain structure, so it would be hard to have a brain without memories. Although they would have figured a way to wipe those, I guess.)

And that brings up two things: 1) does that mean your intellectual abilities are affected by the body you are in? Speech and mathematics, etc., or is that supposedly in the stack, too. What would the brain be for?

2) Wouldn't an EMP cause real death, too? Since it would wipe out the stack. Or is data storage not affected by EMPs? Seems like you could come up with a device that would destroy the stacks that didn't affect the biological sleeve.

Michael wrote: "Wait, brain? - help me out here - does anyone understand this cortical stack business. I guess these bodies all have brains, but they don't have memories, right? Is it just the memories that are ..."

I assumed that the stack and related technology basically suppressed/crushed all higher brain function in the sleeve and acted as a replacement non-biological upper brain. But involuntary body functions would be left to the sleeve, which would include hormonal functions, thus my speculation that it could affect emotions.

EMP would only damage the stack if it was electro-magnetic in nature. Even then, it could be shielded just like present day military electronics are. The stack itself could be semi-biological, a non-carbon based "life form", crystal lattices, or something we haven't even considered as yet.

Hank wrote: " Of course, just like blaming it on a sleeve, perhaps that is just a cop out :) "

That's why I was so fascinated by the smoking addiction sideplot. Kovacs was clearly affected by the biological influences of the sleeve he was in. But he overcame the smoking thing with the application of a little willpower. Everyone who knew Ryker was impressed. It was a great speculation along the lines of mind/body, nature/nurture, cause/effect. And we saw it a bit with the arena fight - he had this clunky old fighting enhancement in Ryker's sleeve that he had to mentally account for and adapt to. Sleeving would be a constant mind/body struggle, it seems. That's why it seemed lazy that he was just letting his hormones take him wherever they wanted with Ortega; you could argue he didn't mind and maybe even wanted a sexual relationship with Ortega, but I felt that contradicted his mission-oriented mentality - she was a central asset to many of his mission objectives, and much of what he did with her seemed to jeopardize that. As (I think) you are saying, it could be that the author wanted it more than Kovacs did...

V.W. wrote: "I assumed that the stack and related technology basically suppressed/crushed all higher brain function in the sleeve and acted as a replacement non-biological upper brain. But involuntary body functions would be left to the sleeve, which would include hormonal functions, thus my speculation that it could affect emotions."

So then the question becomes, are you killing someone when you resleeve? Seems like that would be a line of inquiry for the Catholic "abstainers" in the book. Even if the body is left unconscious, is there someone in there that is being replaced when the stack is inserted/activated? (I'm reading Leckie's Ancillary Series at the moment which speculates on this a bit.

Michael wrote: "V.W. wrote: "I assumed that the stack and related technology basically suppressed/crushed all higher brain function in the sleeve and acted as a replacement non-biological upper brain. But involunt..."

Thinking about it, it is possible that the installation of the stack technology actually replaces the organic upper brain. So when first done there is no "murder" because the original occupant is immediately re-installed via the stack. Pull out the stack, and the body is left without a thinking mind, just the autonomic functions and perhaps muscle memory.

Michael wrote:"But he overcame the smoking thing with the application of a little willpower"

I love it! Or just continuing the devil's advocate part and cracking myself up in the process....

Quitting smoking is supposedly harder than quitting heroin but suppressing your sex drive is harder than both?

And yes... *most* of the time I do realise what an idiot I am :)

I actually thought that the stack would contain all of the thoughts and neural processes that happen, but I would think that the actual structure of the brain itself would alter things slightly. For example, if you sleeve someone into the brain of a body that was born with autism, I would think that would have an effect on brain function in any person who sleeved into the body. Or if someone sleeved into a body that had the autoimmune disorder that attacks the brain. I think that the stack could contain the results of neural processing but we would still need the brain to... be the hardware?

I agree with V.W. that there would be no murder involved but I do wonder where this surplus of bodies is coming from. Are they really all people who have committed crimes? And what if you serve your sentence and come back into a body that's contracted syphilis or something like that? I hate the thought that someone could use my body. I don't know that there's a more horrible violation.

I do like your question, Michael, about if the person is still in there but unconscious. Would anything actually be stored in the brain? I don't think it was the way this was intended but I can't help but think you couldn't keep the brain as a blank slate.

Yes, a lot of this is just speculation since Morgan (wisely) left out most of the details. Maybe someone knows if any of this is fleshed out in later stories? (No spoilers, of course.)

But he did talk about cloning, and I think the bodies would come from clone farms or even new genetic mixes - surely they'd have the technology if they can create clones in vats.

As for autism, etc., I'm not sure - he did say something about destroying bodies that had flaws somewhere in the story didn't he?

Hank wrote: "And yes... *most* of the time I do realise what an idiot I am :) "

You're ahead of most of us humans, then! :p

Fleshed out a little more (so to speak) in the next book Broken Angels. Which I liked far more than this one.

Michael wrote: "Hank wrote: "And yes... *most* of the time I do realise what an idiot I am :) "

You're ahead of most of us humans, then! :p"

:)

This was a very rich work for me. There was plenty to think about and an interesting solution that connected the political conflicts of the story and did not involve an orangutan.

I don't think it will ever be credible to convey a person, especially their personality through merely a transfer of their memories and sense of self to another body, because the human brain is not a broadly compatible data receptacle. Even if we assume an individual can be completely reducible to a data store, such as a cortical stack, there are problems with an upload to another flesh body. The structure and neurochemistry of the brain are the individual. Unlike in an android, where such an upload assumes a data conversion and that the vehicle is neutral to the data, a human host is different: Trying to map one person into another brain is, to put it mildly, likely to have architectural problems. There may be some interoperability, some data might be matched appropriately, some arguments might pass correctly, and some neurons might link properly, but a 100 billion of them all arranged as required, why in that case wasn't the sleeve already the person being uploaded. When I addressed this issue, I thought the only way to upload a person effectively into another flesh body was to reprint, or recreate, their brain in exactitude within the new sleeve. I'd be very interested to hear other views on a wet-wet upload.

I feel however my objection to the feasibleness of the technology, as Kovacs understands it, is quite irrelevant. Plutarch's ship of Theseus paradox is intriguing when applied to human beings and this is another vehicle for that to happen. The paradox is such an interesting issue that it's featured since the first science fiction story written (I disagree with this consensus, Noah's Ark predates Frankenstein!) and continues to occur with frequency across multiple genres ever after.

Certainly some components of a person will have significantly more impact than others: the adrenal cortex compared to the big toe, or the soul compared to facial hair for examples. Probably arising from our desire to overcome mortality, there is a pressure in science fiction to want the cloning (not merely the genes), the conversion, and recreation of human beings to be feasible. To what extent are the original and the copy the same and how do they differ? Such issues can be fascinating causes for speculation and I felt Richard Morgan was interesting on this. Kovacs is special, he is an envoy and trained to overcome the impact of the sleeve on HIS mentation and personality, but even so we see him struggle.

Others struggle too. When I thought about Kristan Ortega and her desire for the detective sleeve Kovacs was wearing, I could emphasise with how difficult it would be to spend time with someone you love and know that it is them except for the driver; your body keeps telling you that it is them, whilst your mind struggles with the fact it is not. This must be aggravated when contact and physical proximity were a significant part of the rapport. If you miss them strongly and long enough it's a feasible, though certainly not the only outcome, to try a fix, to just let go and let the body slake its need. Perhaps the body will realise that the package is not the same, and/or it will suppress the need. How much of physically intimate relationships are dependent on physical contact? Human beings are diverse, technology is increasingly expansive of experience, I would expect the range of emphasis in the future to be at minimal the same as it is today and that is vast.

There's the origins and conditions responsible for behaviour. How much is free will and how much is determined? Richard Morgan tackles this at several points. Kovacs and the cigarettes, and Ortega's rapport with him are examples. We have a control in Kovacs and Reileen Kawahara. Neither state exists in dichotomy (mutually exclusivity); the sleeve has an influence on the sleeved even as the sleeved drives. With others (i.e. other than the sleeved person in that sleeve at the time!) both the sleeve and the sleeved have an effect on the other even as the others responses feed back into both the sleeve and the sleeved.

Kovacs is an acceptable protagonist, but as Altered Carbon is homodiegetic I found there was something missing from him; I would have liked to know more about how he felt and thought. It's quite difficult for an outsider to an environment, that specially develops thinking and perspectives, to appreciate the thought processes of that environment. For examples, consider a veteran, a person from a different culture, or a significantly autistic person. Each of these will have differences in the way they relate and connect things. Kovacs is an envoy he is different for non-envoys. He is probably fine not dwelling on the events that occurred at the book's start, but surely the training and discipline that permit that are also the lens for the rest of his thought processes. There was an opportunity here to present the envoy mind. (Consider, for examples the Speed of Dark and the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time. The stories are comparably straight forward, but what makes these books excellent and interesting is the successful capture of the protagonist's perspective.) I'm not asking for a focus on perspective in Altered Carbon, but although Kovacs had plenty of cool moments, bits of humour, nothing about his personality is memorable.

Kristan Ortega is more memorable. I see her wanting to hate Kovacs for both his intrusion into a case that is in her opinion a waste of resources and a challenge to her competence, and his exploitation of her lover's flesh. She agonises over the risks Kovacs takes with Ryker's sleeve, as she does over the future of her relationship with Ryker. She is unhappy, determined, and frustrated by the politics on multiple fronts. Yet she also develops respect for Kovacs's competence and struggles against the pull of the Ryker sleeve. There is a little to and fro in her rapport with Kovacs that shifts from outright hostile to accepting through the course of the book as she has to deal with the aforementioned issues. I found there is development in her character, which felt real without effort, and whilst she is not fascinating she is a rich companion and plot device for Kovacs.

Adam wrote: "This was a very rich work for me. There was plenty to think about and an interesting solution that connected the political conflicts of the story and did not involve an orangutan."

This is a great post. Love the orangutan reference. (I won't spoil the story for anyone who doesn't know it...)

You've highlighted three points about the book that I was having trouble putting into words, and you did it very well (and taught me a word (homodiegetic) I didn't know, but should):

1) The wetware is the issue. Your description reminds me of issues raised in the movie Brainstorm: what happens when you take someone's memories and feed them into someone else? It could be argued that it is addressing a different process, but the diverse side effects in the movie highlight (to some extent) that there won't be one reaction, that, as you say, architecture comes into play.

2) Your explanation of Ortega's struggle was so much better than the book's. Partly that was a limitation of Kovacs as narrator, but I also needed more than Ortega's teary confessions. This should have been a powerful peek at how people navigate their perceptions of people (bodies) known to them but now resleeved. It didn't quite come across.

3) You describe well some of what was missing from Kovacs' narration - the whole picture of how his conditioning has changed his interaction with the world - and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a great example. I did appreciate the two or three sections where Kovacs was stringing bits of data memory together to form a gestalt conclusion, but it seemed like this would have permeated his entire world view. (Maybe like Cumberbatch in the new Sherlock.) He has in some sense been constructed to be a weaponized computer, but with his ogling of Miriam every time she walked away I couldn't help but wonder what that kind of data would have even meant to him. Certainly his conditioned mind would have countered his sleeve's reactions more often, if the sleeve's blame was implied.

Michael wrote: "This is a great post. L.."

Far too kind. My typo inflicted keyboard battering feels barren and verbose alongside your post.

Ha! Now you're too kind!

I finished this BR, but surprisingly enough, there is no one discussing this novel since 2015

Oleksandr wrote: "I finished this BR, but surprisingly enough, there is no one discussing this novel since 2015"

I don't think the group has read it again since 2015! So start us off, Oleksandr, what'd you think? How did it compare to the show for you, if you watched it?

Allison wrote: "So start us off, Oleksandr, what'd you think? How did it compare to the show for you, if you watched it? ."

I haven't watched the TV series and have no plans to - I usually find movie adaptations inferior to novels [there are exceptions of course]

I liked the book, but I'd prefer it to be shorter and with a smaller number of characters - I read in small chunks and sometimes wonder 'who is this?'

Surprisingly enough I liked the way sex scenes were made [I cannot say that I'm a fan of sex in books], because they were actually linked to the story and gave more information about the world - this is rare in fiction...

What I disliked was a number of questions which remained regarding sleeves and DHS:
- can people sleeve non-humans? [supposedly yes, but it was unclear: “You had her slated for the snuff deck? Some sick fuck wanted to pull on the tiger sleeve and play kitty?”] Why wasn't it used for surveillance - who cares about a stray cat?
- are there 'swing clubs' which change bodies for new experiences?
- what is a criminal's body was destroyed while worn as a sleeve - will they get another?
- why not a lot of sex changes - it was mentioned but all slevves we met, driver and sleeve are of the same sex

and another group of questions: what is the deal with Martians?

Great questions, Oleksandr! Does anyone know if later books or the online series explores these topics?

Oh, an another question - do some people choose to live in a virtual environment only - it is not only faster, but it allows a 'cure' for many disabilities from chronic pain to blindness to paralysis

The show addresses some things you've asked, Oleksandr, and I've been told they had this information from later books so it's very likely some of the questions at least are answered in other books!

I think for your last question, the resleeving process handles all of that--you just find a body that isn't paralyzed etc. I think they also have other tech/surgery that allows the person in the body to decide if they want to cure blindness or paralysis.

Allison wrote: "I think for your last question, the resleeving process handles all of that--you just find a body that isn't paralyzed etc."

Thanks for the info. According to the book sleeves are criminals doing their term - I guess their % is quite small, much smaller than say a share of people over 80 years old [at least it is so in the current advanced economies], where I guess 90% would like to use a younger healthier body. This also leads to another question: is it preferable to be an old and sick criminal? - your body won't be actively used and will 'survive' to the end of term, when medicine can improve

I think the criminals are some of the sleeves, but not all. We know there are also clones and "upgrades" so it feels to me like there's an industry for creating sleeves that consumers can buy.

Between people who believe resleeving is a sin, those who can't afford new bodies, people whose stacks are destroyed when they die due to damage, the huge spread of humanity and technology, it felt to me like there was a ready supply of new sleeves if you were willing to pay for it. I thought that was one of the more interesting things--how skewed the systems got when generational wealth could be accumulated by almost anyone as long as you didn't die brutally.

I got the impression that sleeves were mostly Android or clones but sometimes bodies that wouldn't be used because of brain death or incarceration.

It seems like a really cool idea that would be fun in a TV show more than a book series. I'm not really interested into reading more but I might give the series a look.

The story itself was a bit confusing to me as I sometimes didn't know when the seeing changed nor did I always get a clear mental picture of the settings. Either the environmental descriptions were sparse or I didn't connect with the settings.

Paul wrote: "I got the impression that sleeves were mostly Android or clones but sometimes bodies that wouldn't be used because of brain death or incarceration."

Are we speaking about the book or TV show? In the book, the protagonist uses a criminal as a sleeve, Bencroft after suicide - a clone [but he is a rich Meth after all!], Kadmin - illegal sleeve... there is android [Carnage] but with our main characters the sleeves of criminals seems to dominate

Allison wrote: "I think the criminals are some of the sleeves, but not all. We know there are also clones and "upgrades" so it feels to me like there's an industry for creating sleeves that consumers can buy.

Between people who believe resleeving is a sin, those who can't afford new bodies, people whose stacks are destroyed when they die due to damage, the huge spread of humanity and technology, it felt to me like there was a ready supply of new sleeves if you were willing to pay for it. I thought that was one of the more interesting things--how skewed the systems got when generational wealth could be accumulated by almost anyone as long as you didn't die brutally."

I think the criminal justice system was leveraged toward the production of sleeves through the overpenalization of non-violent crimes, such as Irene Elliot's. Synthetic or cloned sleeves apparently aren't adequate to the criminal or perverted part of the market for them. Given the subsequent physical abuse of the bodies, I would think that the penalty ought be reserved for offenses that were violent themselves. This is one of the injustices that even a hardened ex-Envoy like Takeshi, who feels very little, is offended by. That aspect of the book makes this a dystopian novel. I was surprised not to see poor people forced to sell/rent their bodies for income.

Oleksandr wrote: "Oh, an another question - do some people choose to live in a virtual environment only - it is not only faster, but it allows a 'cure' for many disabilities from chronic pain to blindness to paralysis"

I agree that conceptually, the virtual environment and the sleeving/stacks/cloning technology are divergent speculations. The virtual environment is less developed in the book, something people project into rather than move into, used pretty much only for purposes of "phone calls", low cost sex acts, or torture. Yet, the sleeving/stacks/cloning technology must be fabulously expensive - such that use of the virtual environment would be more attractive among anyone with less wealth than the few Meths who run society. A flaw in the world building? Like Oleksandr, I have not read the sequels or seen the netflix television series. So it could be better justified later.

I have a plot question, and I was not able to resolve it, as I read this in paper rather than ebook with a search capability. Was Miriam Bancroft wearing Elizabeth Elliot's body?