Broken Angels (novel)

Last updated

Broken Angels
Broken Angels cover (Amazon).jpg
First edition
Author Richard K. Morgan
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Series Takeshi Kovacs
Genre Military science fiction
Publisher Victor Gollancz Ltd
Publication date
20 March 2003
Media typePrint (hardback & paperback)
Pages400 (Hardback),
366 (Paperback)
ISBN 0-575-07323-3 (Hardcover),
ISBN   0-345-45771-4 (Paperback)
OCLC 51271661
Preceded by Altered Carbon  
Followed by Woken Furies  

Broken Angels (2003) is a military science fiction novel by British writer Richard Morgan. It is the sequel to Altered Carbon , and is followed by Woken Furies .

Contents

Plot

Approximately 30 years after Altered Carbon , Takeshi Kovacs is now serving in Carrera's Wedge, a mercenary organization that joins a war on a distant planet, Sanction IV, fighting against an anti-corporate-government rebel group. Pilot Jan Schneider recruits Kovacs to help him lay claim to a buried Martian artifact. The artifact is a gate that opens a portal to a Martian starship. Kovacs and Schneider rescue Tanya Wardani, the archaeologue who coordinated the gate's discovery, from a prison camp. Unable to reach the heavily contested location alone, Kovacs enlists the support of the Mandrake Corporation, one of the corporate entities profiteering off of the war. Mandrake is represented by an executive named Matthias Hand.

Kovacs and Hand select an elite squad of resurrected soldiers to accompany them. Hand secretly leaks information that prompts the rebels to destroy the city of Sauberville with a nuclear weapon. This clears the gate site of opposing forces, and the recovery expedition begins. However, the radiation severely damages the team's bodies, and they must work against the clock to find the ship before dying of radiation poisoning. While Wardani works to open the gate, someone sabotages the beacons necessary to claim the starship. Two expedition members are killed by nanodes deployed by Hand's rivals within the Mandrake firm.

The party goes through the portal and finds an inactive Martian starship, along with the bodies of Tanya's original archaeologue team. Mysteriously, it appears that the original team chose to die in space rather than inside the breathable air of the spaceship. Suspecting that Schneider is the saboteur, Kovacs confronts him. Schneider flees in the shuttle they arrived in, triggering a booby trap set by Kovacs and blowing the shuttle up.

During their exploration, the Martian starship is attacked by an unknown starship, which causes its automated defense systems to come online. During the attack the party begins to experience visions and emotions from the dead Martians, bringing them to the brink of insanity. Hand realises the danger and orders Kovacs to shoot the others with a stunning weapon to render them unconscious.

After the battle is over, Isaac Carrera and a Wedge unit arrive and imprison the remaining members of the squad. One member of Kovac's squad, Sutjiadi, is wanted for killing an officer of the Wedge. The Wedge opts to torture him to death. During this public execution, Kovacs frees his squad and kills the Wedge unit. Kovacs then follows Carrera through the portal and kills him.

Kovacs realises that Tanya Wardani sabotaged the first archaeological team after discovering that they wanted to use the Martian ship as a weapon. She was responsible for the bodies they found, as well as the destroyed equipment in the shuttle. She decides to stay and oversee the recovery of the portal. Kovacs trades the rights to the Martian ship for safe passage out of the solar system for the surviving members of his team.

Themes

Writing for The Guardian , Colin Greenland found that Altered Carbon was about fighting against wealth and power. In contrast to the first novel, in which Kovacs was attempting to fight for human value, Greenland finds that "truth and justice ... are rarely the ethos, or the issue" in Broken Angels. [1]

Reception

Publishers Weekly wrote that the novel succeeded despite a formulaic structure, calling it a "superior, satisfying cyberpunk noir adventure". [2] Kirkus Reviews wrote that the novel was a good expansion of the worldbuilding which began in the first novel, praising it as "a thrilling cyberpunk actioner" while stating that it occasionally overdid its world-weary tone. [3]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cyberpunk</span> Postmodern science fiction genre in a futuristic dystopian setting

Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction in a dystopian futuristic setting that tends to focus on a "combination of lowlife and high tech", featuring futuristic technological and scientific achievements, such as artificial intelligence and cyberware, juxtaposed with societal collapse, dystopia or decay. Much of cyberpunk is rooted in the New Wave science fiction movement of the 1960s and 1970s, when writers like Philip K. Dick, Michael Moorcock, Roger Zelazny, John Brunner, J. G. Ballard, Philip José Farmer and Harlan Ellison examined the impact of drug culture, technology, and the sexual revolution while avoiding the utopian tendencies of earlier science fiction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Shirley</span> American novelist

John Shirley is an American writer, primarily of horror, fantasy, science fiction, dark street fiction, westerns, and songwriting. He has also written one historical novel, a western about Wyatt Earp, Wyatt in Wichita, and one non-fiction book, Gurdjieff: An Introduction to His Life and Ideas. Shirley has written novels, short stories, TV scripts and screenplays—including The Crow—and has published over 84 books including 10 short-story collections. As a musician, Shirley has fronted his own bands and written lyrics for Blue Öyster Cult and others. His newest novels are Stormland and Axle Bust Creek.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard K. Morgan</span> British science fiction and fantasy author

Richard Kingsley Morgan, is a British science fiction and fantasy author of books, short stories, and graphic novels. He is the winner of the Philip K. Dick Award for his 2003 book Altered Carbon, which was adapted into a Netflix series released in 2018. His third book, Market Forces, won the John W. Campbell Award in 2005, while his 2008 work Thirteen garnered him the Arthur C. Clarke Award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Space marine</span> Type of soldier in military science fiction

The space marine is an archetype of military science fiction describing a kind of soldier who operates in outer space or on alien worlds. Historical marines fulfill multiple roles: ship defence, boarding actions, landing parties, and general-purpose high-mobility land deployments that operate within a fixed distance of shore or ship. By analogy, hypothetical space marines would defend allied spaceships, board enemy ships, land on planets and moons, and satisfy rapid-deployment needs throughout space.

<i>Altered Carbon</i> 2002 novel by Richard K. Morgan

Altered Carbon is a 2002 cyberpunk novel by the English writer Richard K. Morgan. Set in a future in which interstellar travel and relative immortality is facilitated by transferring consciousnesses between bodies ("sleeves"), it follows the attempt of Takeshi Kovacs, a former U.N. elite soldier turned private investigator, to investigate a rich man's death. It is followed by the sequels Broken Angels and Woken Furies.

<i>Market Forces</i> 2004 novel by Richard Morgan

Market Forces is a science fiction thriller novel by British writer Richard Morgan. Set in 2049, the story follows Chris Faulkner as he starts his new job as a junior executive at Shorn Associates, working in their Conflict Investment division where the company supports foreign governments in exchange for a percentage of the country's gross domestic product. Contracts are awarded, and promotions are given to employees, through driving duels in which combatants race vehicles on empty roads and often kill their opponents. With the Shorn-supported Colombian dictator Echevarria expected to transfer power to his son, who is supported by a competing firm, Chris allies Shorn with a rebel group to overthrow the government, though other executives attempt to sabotage his plans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sabatier reaction</span> Methanation process of carbon dioxide with hydrogen

The Sabatier reaction or Sabatier process produces methane and water from a reaction of hydrogen with carbon dioxide at elevated temperatures and pressures in the presence of a nickel catalyst. It was discovered by the French chemists Paul Sabatier and Jean-Baptiste Senderens in 1897. Optionally, ruthenium on alumina makes a more efficient catalyst. It is described by the following exothermic reaction:

<i>Woken Furies</i> 2005 novel by Richard K. Morgan

Woken Furies (2005) is a science fiction novel by British writer Richard Morgan. It is the third novel featuring the anti-hero Takeshi Kovacs and is the sequel to Broken Angels.

<i>Armitage III</i> 1995 cyberpunk original video animation series

Armitage III is a 1995 cyberpunk original video animation series. It centers on Naomi Armitage, a highly advanced "Type-III" android. In 1996, the series was edited into a film called Armitage: Poly-Matrix.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Transhumanism in fiction</span> Overview of the role of transhumanism in fiction

Many of the tropes of science fiction can be viewed as similar to the goals of transhumanism. Science fiction literature contains many positive depictions of technologically enhanced human life, occasionally set in utopian societies. However, science fiction's depictions of technologically enhanced humans or other posthuman beings frequently come with a cautionary twist. The more pessimistic scenarios include many dystopian tales of human bioengineering gone wrong.

Takeshi Lev Kovacs is the protagonist in the books Altered Carbon, Broken Angels, and Woken Furies by Richard K. Morgan, which take place in or around the 26th century.

Mandrake of Oxford is a specialist independent publisher based in Oxford, England, primarily known for the publication of "hands-on" books for occult practitioners. The company was started in 1986 under the name Golden Dawn Publications, but changed its name to Mandrake upon the publication of Sexual Magick by Katon Shual in 1988. Mandrake publishes texts on magick, occulture, tantra and Thelema.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joel Kinnaman</span> Swedish actor (born 1979)

Charles Joel Nordström Kinnaman is a Swedish actor. He first gained recognition for his roles in the 2010 Swedish film Easy Money and the Johan Falk crime series. Kinnaman is known internationally for his television roles as Detective Stephen Holder in AMC's The Killing, Takeshi Kovacs in the first season of Altered Carbon, and Governor Will Conway in the U.S. version of House of Cards. He has also played Alex Murphy in the 2014 RoboCop remake, and Rick Flag in the Warner Bros. film adaptations of the DC Comics anti-hero team Suicide Squad (2016), as well as its sequel, The Suicide Squad. Since 2019, he has starred as NASA astronaut Ed Baldwin in the Apple TV+ science fiction drama series For All Mankind.

<i>Leviathan Wakes</i> 2011 science fiction novel by James S. A. Corey

Leviathan Wakes is a science fiction novel by James S. A. Corey, the pen name of American writers Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck. It is the first book in the Expanse series, followed by Caliban's War (2012), Abaddon's Gate (2013) and six other novels. Leviathan Wakes was nominated for the 2012 Hugo Award for Best Novel and the 2012 Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. The novel was adapted for television in 2015 as the first season-and-a-half of The Expanse by Syfy. Five short stories that take place before, during, or after Leviathan Wakes were published between 2011 and 2019.

<i>Altered Carbon</i> (TV series) Science-fiction television series

Altered Carbon is an American cyberpunk television series created by Laeta Kalogridis and based on the 2002 novel of the same title by English author Richard K. Morgan. In a world where consciousness can be transferred to different bodies, Takeshi Kovacs, a former soldier turned investigator, is released from prison in order to solve a murder. The first season consists of ten episodes and premiered on Netflix on February 2, 2018. On July 27, 2018, the series was renewed for a second season of eight episodes, which was released on February 27, 2020, with an anime film set before the first season released on March 19, 2020. Though the series received generally positive reviews, it was canceled after two seasons.

<i>Project Hail Mary</i> 2021 science-fiction novel by Andy Weir

Project Hail Mary is a 2021 science fiction novel by American novelist Andy Weir. Set in the near future, it centers on junior high (middle) school-teacher-turned-astronaut Ryland Grace, who wakes up from a coma afflicted with amnesia. He gradually remembers that he was sent to the Tau Ceti solar system, 12 light-years from Earth, to find a means of reversing a solar dimming event that could cause the extinction of humanity.

<i>Altered Carbon: Resleeved</i> 2020 Japanese film

Altered Carbon: Resleeved is a 2020 Japanese anime film that is a spin-off of Netflix's Altered Carbon television series. The film is directed by Jō Nakajima and written by Dai Sato and Tsukasa Kondo. Set 253 years before the main events of season 1, and 283 years before the events of season 2, Takeshi Kovacs, on the planet Latimar, must protect a tattooist while investigating the death of a yakuza boss alongside a no-nonsense CTAC.

References

  1. Colin Greenland (11 April 2003). "Review: Broken Angels by Richard Morgan". The Guardian . Retrieved 5 November 2019.
  2. "Fiction Book Review: Broken Angels by Richard Morgan". Publishers Weekly. 9 February 2004. Retrieved 5 November 2019.
  3. "Broken Angels by Richard K. Morgan". Kirkus Reviews. 15 December 2003. Retrieved 5 November 2019.