From: Hal Finney (hal@finney.org)
Date: Fri Jun 27 2003 - 12:48:37 MDT
On slashdot today there is a review of a science fiction book about
our perennial topic, copying minds: Altered Carbon, by Richard Morgan.
Here's an excerpt of the review by Tom Perrine at
http://books.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/06/27/1559252
> Although this book is set in a future that is seems to be heavily
> influenced by the punk movement, with computers, hackers, weapons, and
> leather, this is no superficial, cartoon world setting for a quick romp
> through cyberspace. There is a depth and texture here that promises,
> and delivers, as a setting for a novel that could end up as influential as
> Vinge's True Names, or Stephenson's Snow Crash or Spillane's Mike Hammer.
>
> The main technological trapping of this setting is the ability
> to digitize, store and transport human consciousness. Peoples'
> consciousnesses can, and are, digitized and loaded out of and into their
> bodies on a regular basis. The state uses this to punish criminals by
> storing their minds "in the stack" (digital prison) and the wealthy and
> powerful can have themselves "backed up" like yesterday's spreadsheets.
> Interstellar travel is via "digitized human freight." Human bodies
> ("sleeves") can be rented, bought and sold, to provide containers for
> these digitized minds. And this is just the background.
>
> This is also a hardboiled detective thriller, easily the equal to Chandler
> or Hammett in both plot and characterization. There is a complex plot,
> the de rigueur dames and guns, but also some important themes that are
> surprising for the genre. The plot is never formulaic, with a depth and
> enough unexpected twists and turns to keep the reader guessing well into
> the last chapter.
Read more of the review at the link above. Sounds like it is worth
checking out.
Hal
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