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What TV SHOWS are you watching?
The really big idea in this setting is that your memory, your personality, pretty much everything that makes you who you are mentally, can be reduced down to a set of data stored on a small device. Many people have this device attached to their spinal cord, and do periodic backups. A person could live a really long time, by periodically having this data moved to a different and younger body. And it is much easier to transport this data across interstellar distances than to transport entire living human beings. As a side effect of this technology, racism isn't really a thing anymore, and gender identity is less rigid.
The main character, Takeshi Kovacs (which roughly translates to "military smith" or "war maker"), has Envoy training. This gives him total recall, makes him extremely alert to his surroundings (including body language and advanced pattern recognition) and removes normal human restraints to violence. Envoys also have great control over their emotional and physiological reactions. Envoys are feared as the ultimate troops, and their abilities also translate well to criminal activity.
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Shellhead wrote: I haven't seen Altered Carbon yet, but I enjoyed the trilogy of books so much that I have read them all twice. I look forward to watching the show and hope they did justice to the books even if they took some liberties in translating from the page to the screen.
The really big idea in this setting is that your memory, your personality, pretty much everything that makes you who you are mentally, can be reduced down to a set of data stored on a small device. Many people have this device attached to their spinal cord, and do periodic backups. A person could live a really long time, by periodically having this data moved to a different and younger body. And it is much easier to transport this data across interstellar distances than to transport entire living human beings. As a side effect of this technology, racism isn't really a thing anymore, and gender identity is less rigid.
The main character, Takeshi Kovacs (which roughly translates to "military smith" or "war maker"), has Envoy training. This gives him total recall, makes him extremely alert to his surroundings (including body language and advanced pattern recognition) and removes normal human restraints to violence. Envoys also have great control over their emotional and physiological reactions. Envoys are feared as the ultimate troops, and their abilities also translate well to criminal activity.
I just finished watching Altered Carbon. All of what you described from the books is generally present in the show. Although what we see of the Envoys is of the "Tell, don't show" variety. We're often TOLD how dangerous they are. We rarely ever SEE it.
The show looks great. Netflix clearly dropped some money on this, and the sets, costumes, and special effects generally all look really good in a Blade Runner-ripoff sort of way.
I got annoyed by how often the characters are surprised, or fooled, by this consciousness-transfer technology that has been around for hundreds of years. One character discovers that his wife's consciousness has been transferred into the body of a man. He's SHOCKED by this and initially refuses to accept it. Again, this technology has been around for centuries! Why are people not used to this sort of thing? Why haven't they developed new ways of recognizing a person besides just facial recognition, which is clearly no longer to be trusted? The sci-fi ideas presented here are big and meaty and bring up all kinds of interesting philosophical questions ... none of which are really explored.
Season 2 of The Expanse finally showed up on Amazon Prime, so I'm happily going back to that show, which I like quite a bit more.
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I wanted it to be better. That's my biggest gripe. They went for titties and squishy gore when acting and writing is what they should have paid for.
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- Cranberries
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jeb wrote: They went for titties and squishy gore when acting and writing is what they should have paid for.
Wait, are we talking about Game of Thrones?
I read the first book and it felt like a heavy-handed, unnecessarily violent airport thriller that was ripping off better cyberpunk novels.
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jeb wrote: They went for titties and squishy gore when acting and writing is what they should have paid for.
In a perfect world, we would have all of those things.
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The first book does come across as somewhat generic cyberpunk, aside from the cortical stacks and the Envoy training. The second book is very different, and my favorite of the series, getting into some very interesting sci-fi material. The second book mostly takes place in a hot warzone, instead of a cyberpunk metropolis. The third book is also a different setting, and feels like Point Break (!) was an influence, though one of several.
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I definitely don't think they captured Amos very well in the tv series. Everyone else seems fine.
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- ChristopherMD
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Altered Carbon I quit after the first 2 episodes. Just didn't grab me at all.
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- Sagrilarus
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I have been pleased with its more political intrigue aspects.
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I don't really feel like the pace has slowed in the series. Certain books aren't quite as tense as others but they all have some very pivotal moments and geniune surprise.
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Sagrilarus wrote: We're watching The Alienist, and we're waiting for a plot to appear. As it stands it keeps showing scenes where someone explains something that just adds to the mystery, without providing any footing for the viewer. It's on the edge, could be deleted from the Tivo queue at any moment.
That's a shame, I really enjoyed this book and the sequel. The book was as much about the beginning of the notions of profiling as it was about murders, though. That might be a hard thing to film.
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The constable is played by Sean Bean and they have made a few callbacks to his long running role as Richard Sharpe.
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charlest wrote: It does not turn into a bug hug really, assuming they follow the books.
I don't really feel like the pace has slowed in the series. Certain books aren't quite as tense as others but they all have some very pivotal moments and geniune surprise.
I've read all of them and I feel like the only real dud is in the middle where:
But they surprisingly pick themselves back up after that, IMHO, with the newest plotlines. It has looped around to a fairly predictable conflict with a very obviously opened mystery/loose end in an earlier book.
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