Tag: Richard Morgan

Market Forces

Market Forces

by Richard K. Morgan (Victor Gollancz, 2004)

audiobook read by Simon Vance (Tantor, 2006)

Book cover: “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

Woken Furies

by Richard K. Morgan (Del Rey, 2005); audiobook read by William Dufris (Tantor Audio, 2006)

Audiobook cover: Woken Furies by Richard K. Morgan

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.

Broken Angels

Broken Angels

by Richard Morgan (Victor Gollancz, 2003); audiobook read by Todd McLaren (Tantor, 2015)

Morgan_Broken Angels

Reprising antihero Takeshi Kovacs, Morgan expands upon his racially diverse though otherwise cynical SF future beyond cyberpunk. More world-building than story, Broken Angels suffers from awkwardly explicit sex scenes and—in audiobook form—from McLaren’s faux-jaded characterisation of Kovacs and jarring mispronunciations.

 

 

Altered Carbon

Altered Carbon

by Richard Morgan (Gollancz, 2002)

Morgan_Altered Carbon

Beyond the action/intrigue of its no-holds-barred cyberpunk murder mystery, Richard Morgan’s debut novel packs a hefty SF punch by immersing the reader in a cynical, comprehensively envisaged future of haves and have-nots; of memory storage, body downloads and associated abuses and liberties.

 

Black Man

Black Man

by Richard Morgan (Gollancz, 2007)

Morgan_Black Man

Anybody looking for the written equivalent of Blade Runner should try the immersive, unromanticised near-future science fiction of Richard Morgan. Black Man (or, rebranded with North American irony, Thirteen) is a stark, at times gruesome classic, pitting genetic manipulation against human prejudice.

 

The Dark Defiles

The Dark Defiles

by Richard Morgan (Gollancz, 2014)

Morgan, The Dark Defiles

Richard Morgan made his name writing gritty SF, then dragged the fantasy novel kicking and screaming from within its feel-good boundaries. Unapologetically dark, spurning escapism, this book clinches his genre-breaking trilogy, Morgan showing no compunction at leaving Tolkien and Company for dead.

Derelict Space Sheep