Market Forces
by Richard K. Morgan (Victor Gollancz, 2004)
audiobook read by Simon Vance (Tantor, 2006)
Near-future dystopia that mashes brutal, corporate-driven world politics with Shakespearean tragedy. Though deeply flawed, antihero Chris Faulkner almost charms as the embodiment of an increasingly dog-eat-dog society. It’s hard not to imagine him and Mike Bryant as Sam Tyler and Gene Hunt.
Woken Furies
by Richard K. Morgan (Del Rey, 2005); audiobook read by William Dufris (Tantor Audio, 2006)
Morgan’s great anti-hero and brutish cyberpunk imaginings are lessened here by wallowing writerly indulgence, gratuitous, cringeworthy sex scenes and a narrator who guesses at pronunciations and whose hard-boiled American take on Takeshi Kovacs entirely disregards the character’s Japanese / Eastern European ethnicity.