Sunday, April 20, 2003
Title: Broken Angels
Author: Richard Morgan
Publisher: Gollancz
Broken Angels is the second book by Richard Morgan, a follow up to his debut Altered Carbon. Though in saying that Broken Angels and Altered Carbon are very different novels, even though they both feature the character of Takeshi Kovacs. Broken Angels making a lot more of something that was background detail in Altered Carbon, to the point where it took me a moment to recall the references at all.
Kovacs was introduced to us in Altered Carbon, an ex-envoy, the UN's special force. Highly trained and used to keep the planetary colonies in line with Earth authority as the human race spreads across the universe. After a particularly brutal little struggle, Kovacs quit and has been generally on hire since. With Altered Carbon Kovacs was hired to investigate a murder on Earth. This put us in a firmly noir territory with a hefty dose of SF back drop.
Broken Angels sees Kovacs as an officer in a strike force being used by corporate influences to crush a planetary revolution. However this is a fight Kovacs does not want a part of, but can't find a way out of. That is until he is made an offer that would seem to be the answer to all his problems.
Evidence of an ancient alien race was found on Mars, and although it has become clear that they were actually scattered across space they have been referred to as Martians ever since. It is using the technology that Earth has managed to piece together that has allowed humanity to spread across an increasing number of planets.
As such every discovery of something new is a big deal. Kovacs is being offered a Martian space ship. Something which has never been discovered before. With the team that have approached him the next step is to get corporate backing. But they aren't the only ones to know that there is something out there. Cue backstabbing and cloak and dagger that keeps Kovacs and his crew on their toes.
With a mission rather than a case and with a team behind him we have more of an action thriller than the private investigation. The violence also seems stepped down a little, at least initially, and with the key technology where the name altered carbon came from there is less of a concern about death anyway. In some ways it would have been too easy for Broken Angels to have been more of the same, in the way that so many recurring characters fall into a rut style-wise. For Broken Angels to break the mould to this degree it is a smart move. The fact that it launches off the whole alien culture/technology vibe that was set up in Altered Carbon is something that makes so much sense.
Morgan as a writer is entirely contemporary with his style, even where certain ideas like ancient alien civilisations have been played with for many years in the science fiction genre. Fitting in well with his peers, reflecting the currents of popular culture well. Themes that come to the fore are the role of corporations in government and world finance. Broken Angels was published the same day as America invaded Iraq, and only a few chapters in, Morgan is discussing the idea of the UN and regime engineering. How much more up to the minute and contemporary do you want? Comparisons to Peter F. Hamilton's work seem to be most relevant with Broken Angels, with themes in common with both The Night's Dawn trilogy and Fallen Dragon. Richard Morgan is probably more political in his approach than Hamilton, though not as much as say Ken MacLeod, or at least more subtle than anyway. With Takeshi Kovacs, Morgan offers a character that is smart and quite capable of being brutal above and beyond the call of duty. Kovacs has developed already across only two books, each fleshing out his back history, while demonstrating why he has a tendency to be thoroughly pissed off with his lot on life.
Broken Angels offers the contrasts between the ideas of corporate expansionist culture and a post-Martian universe. With the idea that there must be a further visit to the life of Takeshi Kovacs being an irresistible thought - there are far too many questions about the big picture for there to be any other choice.
RVWR: PTR
April 2003
