The latest novel from acclaimed Altered Carbon writer Richard Morgan
sees Takeshi Kovacs in a rather unusual position - taking on a hitman
copy of himself. Before you start, this is not just a case of a really
bad hangover; he is indeed under attack from his own copied sleeve.
Whatever his original mission was meant to be, the confused Kovacs not
only has to cope with the threat of his very dangerous copied self, but
also has to deal with the even more worrying thought of Quellcrist
Falconer, back from the digital dead and possessing some girl he met in
a bar. (Feels like some of my nights out).
Between revolutions, chases, dead Yakuza and a weird desire to collect
stacks, Kovacs is faced with probably his hardest mission yet. While starting out as a good concept, 'Woken Furies' suffers from some
of the same problems 'Broken Angels' did, i.e., Yay, great ideas, but
how exactly are they going to hang together' syndrome. The plot
just doesn't quite accommodate the moments of creative genius. As a
result,
while some of the ideas are absolutely awesome, they are marred by a
story that drones on, peters out and and then picks up again far too
late, leaving little more than padding. Like many sci-fi novels
before it, 'Woken Furies', bluntly, just
runs out of steam before it really gets going. It also lacks the same
Miriam Bancroft-style erotic scenes and moments of intense
violence/torture that, while disgusting and utterly horrifying, made
the first book so amazingly cool.Definitely not as good as 'Altered Carbon', not really as good as
'Broken Angels' either, 'Woken Furies' is a book that should only be
reserved for the most hardcore Morgan fan. Starts off with promise, but
ends up being well, kinda like 'Matrix Revolutions' ended up.