Richard Morgan at Tangled Web UK

Page Updated: 28/01/2008

Richard Morgan

pbk 01 Nov 07

About the Author (Photo (c) Virginia Cottinelli)

Bibliography

Paperback - Gollancz (2007)

First British Edition Gollancz (2007)

Black Man
One hundred years from now, and against all the odds, Earth has found a new stability; the political order has reached some sort of balance, globalised commercial interdependence and cooperative co-existence are the order of the day, and a new nanotech-aided colony on Mars is growing. But the fraught years of the 21st century have left an uneasy genetic legacy. The failed results of science’s early excursions into twisting the human genome to advantage now live among us as barley tolerated variant outcasts - licensed, monitored and cordially despised.
Sevgi Ertekin, ex-NYPD homicide detective turned security executive for the colony corporations, is no stranger to the issues surrounding human variants. But when a Variant 13, a genetically engineered hyper-male cultured to fight the century’s last conflicts, survives a mysterious crash landing in mid-ocean and a series of brutal slayings erupts across America, she discovers that sometimes you can only fight fire with fire.
Carl Marsalis, a genengineered ex-soldier himself, hunts down rogue hyper-males for the UN. It’s not an easy gig; he’s hated and feared by his former fellow 13s as a traitor and a bringer of death, and by the rest of humanity as a genetic freak and an unwelcome reminder of all that is dark in the human psyche - he is, in every sense of the word, the Black Man. And at the moment he’s beyond even UN jurisdiction or help, banged up in a Florida jail for intent to procure an abortion. So when Sevgi comes calling, Carl is only too ready to cut a deal.
And so begins a frenetic man-hunt and a battle for survival. And a search for the truth about what was really done with the world’s last soldiers. BLACK MAN is an unstoppable SF thriller but it is also a novel about prejudice, about the ramifications of playing with our genetic blue-print. It is about our capacity for violence but more worrying, our capacity for deceit and corruption.
This is another landmark of modern SF from one of its most exciting and internationally successful authors.
‘His mastery of the SF thriller has brought a well deserved new kudos to the genre’ Peter F Hamilton
‘Brilliantly plotted and unremittingly violent’ The Guardian

First British Edition Gollancz (2005)

Woken Furies
Takeshi Kovacs has come home.
Home to Harlan’s World. An ocean planet with only 5% of its landmass poking above the dangerous and unpredictable seas. Try and get above the weather in anything more sophisticated than a helicopter and the Martian orbital platforms will burn you out of the sky.
And death doesn’t just wait for you in the seas and the skies. On land, from the tropical beaches and swamps of Kossuth to the icy, machine-infested wastes of New Hokkaido the hard won gains of the Quellist revolution have been lost. The First Families, the corporations and the Yakuza have a stranglehold on everything.
Embarked on a journey of implacable retribution for a lost love, Kovacs is blown off course and into a maelstrom of political intrigue and technological mystery as the ghosts of Harlan’s World and his own violent past rise to claim their due. Quellcrist Falconer is back from the dead, they say, and hunting her down for the First Families is a savage young Envoy called Kovacs, who’s been in storage for two hundred years and who isn’t about to share his new existence with a burnt out, ageing, criminal self.
There are gangsters, bounty hunters, religious cultists and hopeful revolutionaries, all wanting a piece of the action - and Kovacs is still trying to work out exactly what that action is. Amidst the rapidly mounting chaos, only one thing is certain - at some point, someone called Takeshi Kovacs is going to have to die. For good.
Reviews for Richard Morgan
'His mastery of the SF thriller has brought a well deserved new kudos to the genre' Peter F Hamilton
Altered Carbon
‘Outstanding. This seamless marriage of hardcore cyberpunk and hard-boiled detective tale is an astonishing first novel.’ The Times
`A first novel so exciting, so addictive and so bone crunchingly in your face that it beggars the need for such virtual reality as it occasionally employs. This is a ceaseless, permanently off-balance sprint through an all-too-grimly-familiar future where miraculous technologies are degraded through everyday use and abuse. There are occasional throwaway mentions of background details here that beg entire novels on their own; ubiquitous pieces of history dismissed in single lines that had my nose twitching, scenting something far bigger lurking, hidden under the surface.’ Infinity Plus
Broken Angels
‘Morgan unfurls the twisting plot and counter-plot of corporate greed an corrupt politics brilliantly’ The Times
‘Maintains the in-your-face savagery and thrilling intensity of Altered Carbon, but creates even more convoluted and ironic twists throughout the high-velocity storyline’ Dreamwatch
Market Forces
‘A bleak, violent portrait of a world that is only a few heartbeats fro our own… imagine Michael Moore, George Orwell and Philip K Dick collaborating on a novel and you’re halfway to realizing what a mind-blowing book this is’ INK
‘A fast-forward thriller from a major new talent’ SFX

Paperback - Gollancz (2004)

Market Forces

‘All over the world, men and women still find causes worth killing and dying for. And who are we to argue with them? Have we lived In their circumstances? Have we felt what they feel? No. it is not our place to say If they are right or wrong.
‘At Shorn Conflict Investment, we are concerned with only two things. Will they win? And will it pay?’

Chris Faulkner has just landed the job of his life. But Shorn Associates are market leaders in Conflict Investment. They expect results, they expect the best. Chris has one very high-profile kill to his name already but he will have to drive hard and go for kill after kill if he’s to keep his bosses happy. All he has to do in the meantime is stay alive…
'Morgan unfurls the twisting plot an counter-plot of corporate greed an corrupt politics brilliantly' The Times

First British Edition Gollancz (2003)

Paperback - Gollancz (2003)

Broken Angels
The diamond-hard new novel from the author of Altered Carbon
Sleeved in a damaged Wedge-issue combat body, Takeshi Kovacs is serving as a mercenary in a brutal little Protectorate-sponsored war to put down the revolution on Sanction IV.
Taking the chance to join a covert team trying to secure an archaeological prize, Takeshi is dropped into a maelstrom of treachery and betrayal that makes the front-line a happy memory. For this is a prize whose value is limitless and whose dangers are endless. It’s a prize that the corporations will kill for. A prize that will take mankind to the brink.
Broken Angels rips apart the 26th century to lay bare the violence, the follies and the naked greed that leave man so ill-prepared for the legacy he has been given: the stars.
This is SF at its dizzying best: superb yet subtle world-building; strong yet sensitive characterisation; awesome yet believable technology; thrilling yet profound writing. Richard Morgan is set to join Science Fiction’s world-wide elite.

Paperback - Gollancz (2007)

First British Edition Gollancz (2002)

Paperback
Gollancz (2002)

Altered Carbon
In the 26th century mankind has spread through the galaxy, taking its religions and racial divisions out into the cold arena of space. While tensions exist and small dirty wars flare up every nova and then, the UN Protectorate maintains an iron grasp on the new worlds, aided by its very own elite shock-troops: the Envoy Corps.
Meanwhile, what religion cannot guarantee technology has already delivered; when your consciousness can be stored in a cortical stack and routinely downloaded into a new body, even death has become little more than an inconvenience. As long as you can afford a new body. . .
Ex-UN Envoy Takeshi Kovacs has been killed before; it was a hazard of the job, but his last death was particularly brutal. Needlecast across light years of space, re-sleeved into a body in San Francisco on Old Earth and thrown into the centre of a conspiracy that is vicious even by the standards of a society that has forgotten how to value life, he soon realises that the shell that blew a hole in his chest on Harlan’s World was only the beginning of his problems.
Richard Morgan’s Altered Carbon is an SF novel of extraordinary vision and depth. This fast-moving, breathtakingly violent thriller carries a weighty cargo of ideas and speculative science with graceful ease.
‘Carbon-black noir with drive and wit, a tight plot and a back story that leaves the reader wanting a sequel like another fix.’ Ken McLeod
‘Morgan unfurls the twisting plot and counter-plot of corporate greed and corrupt politics brilliantly’ The Times
`Writes with panache and conviction. Morgan’s going to be a heavy hitter in the genre in the next few years’ SFX
`Maintains the in-your-face savagery and thrilling intensity of Altered Carbon, but creates even more convoluted and ironic twists throughout the high-velocity storyline’ Dreamwatch
`The astonishingly good follow-up to the stupendously impressive Altered Carbon’ thealienonline.net
`Hits the floor running and then starts to accelerate. For a first novel it is an astonishing piece of work. Intriguing and inventive in equal proportions and refuses to let go until the last page. A wonderful SF idea.’ Peter F. Hamilton
`Brilliant. Unputdownable. Lots of similar blurb-writing clichés, only in this case all true. I loved it. It is expertly plotted, grips you throughout, a high-tech ride in which the shocks and excitement are placed with machine-tooled polish. It is also superbly written, passages of cool, detached writing that is wonderfully atmospheric, alternating with passages of ultraviolence brutal enough to be genuinely shocking.’ Adam Roberts
‘Morgan’s first novel is a brilliant start to what promises to be an outstanding career. Altered Carbon captures the best of SF and spins it in a new direction that will not only have existing genre fans crying out for more, but will in all likelihood attract the biggest new readership since William Gibson made SF cool again. This is without doubt my hottest recommendation for 2002.’ Michael Rowley, Waterstones Enigma magazine
`An exhilarating and glossy adventure punctuated by bursts of extreme violence. The plot reaches terminal velocity early on and stays there. What makes altered carbon a winner is the quality of Morgan’s prose. For every piece of John Woo action there is a stunning piece of reflective description, a compelling sense of place and abundant 24-carat witticisms. A commanding novel.’ SFX magazine
`A crisp, tight SF mystery. Its plotting is nothing short of first rate. The level of sheer pulp violence is almost exhilarating. Altered Carbon may be high-octane pulp, but it’s pulp that does exactly what it sets out to do.’ Locus
`I was completely blown away by Altered Carbon. From the very first page, it’s a pure adrenalin rush of slick, hard-hitting prose, superb characterisation and a plot that grabs you and just won’t let go. A superbly rich and varied feast of fiction. Richard Morgan is destined to be a very, very big name in science fiction circles for a long time to come. Welcome to the Next Big Thing.’ The Alien Online
`A superb SF noir-thriller . . . truly remarkable. Brash and violent, highly intelligent and highly entertaining. Morgan bounds on to the stage with his debut performance and totally astounds the audience.’ SF Revu
`Dazzling. An excellent, no-holds-barred, fast paced thriller with a strong central character and plenty of betrayals, twists, shocks and action.’ Dreamwatch Magazine
`A tautly plotted slice of noir . . . the sense of wonder is in the details. Morgan gives notice that there’s a new star in the SF firmament.’ The Third Alternative
`A homage to old-school cyberpunk . . . Altered Carbon reads like a hypermodern vampire novel.’ The Guardian
`High-tension SF action, hard to put down, though squeamish readers may shut their eyes rather frequently.’ David Langford, amazon.co.uk
`Combining thought-provoking ideas with page-turning, intense narrative is no mean feat, but Altered Carbon delivers. Richard Morgan looks set to become one of sf-noir’s best, diamond-bright practitioners.’ Interzone

About The Author
Richard Morgan is a tutor at Strathclyde University. This is his first novel

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Bibliography
N.B. dates and publishers in dark red indicate British First Editions. Dates and publishers in black indicate recent reprints.

Black Man (Gollancz, 2007) Gollancz Pbk Nov 07

Woken Furies (Gollancz, 2005)

Market Forces (Gollancz, 2004) Gollancz Pbk Dec 04

Broken Angels (Gollancz, 2003) Gollancz Pbk Dec 03

Altered Carbon (Gollancz, 2002) Gollancz Pbk Aug 07