[Tif the Barber Boy]

drinksinbars;173386 said:

very good interview mate:) have some rep

Hey, that actually was one of the best interviews I've read in a long while. Thanks.

[sinag55]

I finally got my copy of Woken Furies. (Damn the bookstores here!) I hope the Black Man ships here, else I'd have to order online. (Damn those shipping rates!)

[pat5150]

Just posted a new interview with Morgan on the blog...

Patrick

[Deornoth]

Just finished reading this fella last night, there's still a few months left in the year but I don't think there'll be a better sci-fi book released between now and then. It's a slow starter but before you know it, you're completely sucked into the plot and it's a real page turner :cool: . I've posted a review on my Blog

[pat5150]

Black Man/Thirteen is excellent! It just might be the book of the year, even!

But as explained in my review, Morgan's depiction of the Republic, Jesusland, felt almost like a caricature. I mean, come on! It's my only complaint in an otherwise nearly flawless novel.

Patrick

[Rob B]

I read it a while back and liked it, but ultimately was a bit let down. The pacing seemed a little uneven to me. A lot going on in the first 2/3 to 3/4 of the novel - great action, really thought-provoking dialogue, you name it Morgan was doing it well. However, the novel seemed to resolve itself a bit to early and I felt the ending slightly tacked on.

[cervantor]

Well, I know that I’m behind a bunch of blogs/sites regarding Richard K. Morgan’s “Black Man/Thirteen�, but if anyone’s interested, you can check out my thoughts HERE. From a technical, thematic and creative standpoint, I thought “Black Man/Thirteen� was Mr. Morgan’s strongest novel to date, while as a fan, it was my second least favorite Richard K. Morgan novel. If I had to rank them, it’d probably go “Woken Furies�, then “Altered Carbon"/�Broken Angels� (about the same), then “Black Man/Thirteen� and finally “Market Forces�. It wasn’t that I had any major problems with “Black Man/Thirteen�, I just love the Takeshi Kovacs novels more . Overall, while I don’t read nearly as much science fiction as I do other genres, “Black Man/Thirteen� definitely ranks up there at the top for sci-fi novels that have been released this year and that I’ve had a chance to cover. In short, regardless of whether you’re a Mr. Morgan fan or not, I think the book is worth checking out...

Robert

[drinksinbars]

you know, i am a big fan of morgan's. i think he has a very distinctive and powerfully written style that can really nail a novel.

but this book failed to deliver as in his previous novels. the characterisation was strong. the descriptions were impressive, the writing flawless. but the story started so strongly and offered a promise of so much, that the pacing felt utterly wrong in many places.

unlike his previous novels, were a lot was set up from the start and the novel built and built and built. this one started strong then settled down nto a monolgue of morgans views on humanity and our future. It felt more like he was writing the scenes around bulks of dialogue he had prewritten about the subjects he wanted discussed.

the entire merrin plotline became null, and the promise of the prologue was abandoned in favour of something that on the surface seemed much more complicated but if you scrayched under neath it felt hollow and weak.

there were too many coincedences explained away by carl mulling over how close he actually was. The finale as well felt weak, with a very hollow rewvenge motive as its basis. the entire book we are told how 13's dont form relationships of any kind, yet this becomes the protaganists sole focus in the second half of the novel.

all those things aside it was well written and the setting was well thought out and fleshed out. i enjoyed the read immensily but felt it lacked the punch of kovac novels. the same could be said for market forces, but i thinkk its major flaw was the fact the lead character was very hard to like as a character, not good enough or evil enough to stand out and so in some ways was dwarfed by secondary characters.

a solid 8/10 for style and brutality.

[tickhill43]

I'm surprised that the biggest flaw of the book (in my opinion) hasn't been pointed out, the masive similarity between this and 'Altered Carbon', Morgan's 1st novel. For a start the main characters of both novels were very similar, the differences between 13s and envoys slight. Both noir detective stories about a murder/s. Also look at the sidekick in both novels. In AC a police officer getting over a relationship with a man whose body Kovac is wearing with similar characteristics to Kovacs. In BM a ex-cop turned corporate investigator getting over a relationship with a 13 who is very much like Carl. Surprise surprise in both circumstances they end up in bed. Also Carl's sensai and Virginia Verdua (I can't remember the name but thats close) hae almost identical roles in both books. Carl and Kovacs also had ghosts that speak to them at diferent times (Jimmy De Soto and the freezer girl).

This sense of Deja Vou diminshed a great book. The charaters, themes and atmosphere (fortunatly not the plot) of these books were remarkably similar.

[Astra]

Can I read the book as stand alone?

I never read anything by Richard Morgan. Is it Sci-Fi?

Thanks!

[polishgenius]

It's a standalone, yeah. And it is scifi, but not of the space-opera type. It's reasonably near future, and set on Earth.
Still, I'm reading it now and it's cracking.

[Astra]

Thanks for info.

I will read it after I finish Earthsea and The Terror.

[polishgenius]

I agree pretty much with Cervantor, with moments of drinskinbars opinion thrown in.

As mentioned, the theme and setting is very strong, and he puts up some interesting theories. And the supporting characters are mostly good, and for the most part, so is Marsalis.
However, like DiB says, it seems to be a plot built around a few set points he wanted to get in, which made it seem slightly on rails. And for all the talk about cold killer thirteens, the moments of complete bastardness are at odds with the character the rest of the time, where he is prepared to kill but really just acts like your average joe. Kovaks is better realised, and this character doesn't quite stand up to past glories.

And

Spoiler

Merrin dying so far from the end could have been a neat touch, but the mystery it set up turned out a bit weak. It was working fine as a straight thriller, the conspiracy thing just let it down. The whole Jeff & Ortiz thing came totally from nowhere.
I was, however, impressed with the whole long-dying/grief bit, it could have been tedious but wasn't. And the first two thirds in general was probably his best work so far, it was that last bit that let it down.

So, summary: good book, his most ambitious and polished, but in the end not his best.

[Mort]

....Or "Do Androids dream...."

As a basic premise the thing that most bothered me in this novel was the similarity to the Bladrunner/DADOES concept. The concept of a creature hunting other similar creatures was a little bit familiar

However, I must say that I did inhale the novel, and would place it only slightly behind the TK series (only 'cos I love the ex Envoy and his criminal/revolutionary tendencies).

As for discussion of how hollow the story was, yes, the revenge-motive did get me a bit, but the story was still solid. Characteruisation falls apart a bit in the end, both for Carl and U-man.

Overall a big

[Astra]

I think I have figured out why I hate sci-fi.
I don't understand plain English.

I have started to read Black Man....

It has started with:

automated gurney as it tracks under a linear succession of lighting panels and lateral rood struts.
I had to open dictionary and translate it...done.

then: she is in the dorsal corridor. What does it mean?
next: the accustomed groggy swim of the decanting drugs. what is it?
next: One hand rests on her chest, pressing into the thin fabric of the cryocap leotard. I translated leotard but what is cryocap???


The cormorant's legacy, yes, again. what does it mean?

help? :confused:

[caladanbrood]

Dorsal corridor just means a corridor. Don't sweat it;)
Decanting drugs? Drugs that... urr, decant. Don't really know how to define that.
Cryocap is a slang term Morgan appears to have made up which just means cryogenic freezing.


A Cormorant is a type of bird. But that particular bit is expanded on and explained a lot later in the book

[stone monkey]

If your first language isn't English, I'd hazard a guess that sf isn't the genre to read in. Nor fantasy for that matter. Too many words coined from others that the author assumes are in the reader's vocabulary.

A good dictionary should get you through most of these words, but context is key to understanding any unfamiliar word.

dorsal implies running along the top, back or spine of a ship, station or structure - like the dorsal fin of a fish that runs along its spine - the opposite is ventral

decanting means pouring out into another vessel - in context iirc the "decanting drugs" are used when one is "poured out" of a cryocap; presumably in order to prevent shock.

cryocap is fairly obviously a made up slang word - "cryogenic capsule" perhaps?

In context the word "cormorant" is used as a code word; you'll understand later in the book as I do think it is more fully explained.

For information a cormorant is one of a number of species of diving sea bird.
The Greater Cormorant looks like this:

[Astra]

Thanks a lot

Yes, English is not my first language, however, I read in English for ...8 years I think. Actually, besides a couple of forums, I read only in English. All fantasy I have ever read except LotR (except the first 3 times, after that I have read it twice in English) was in English. It was difficult in the beginning. Considering that I started with Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice But I am fine. Sometimes I don't know a word or two that I translate but it is not a problem at all.
My day to day English is worse than my fantasy vocabulary When I don't know something obvious in my wife's opinion she says: Tolkien does not use it, eh? Because I know many words she doesn't know when it comes to reading books. However, Sci-Fi is a challenge. I remember the same frustration when I started to read Hyperion. It took my a while to get used to the vocabulary.
Well, I hope to overcome the problem after I read 100-150 pages

[stone monkey]

I can see how Hyperion would be a problem - one of the things that made it a very rewarding read for this native English speaker is that a lot of the terms used for the "science fictional" stuff in it are completely unexplained (fatline, farcaster, EMV, hawking mat etc.); they're just thrown out there for the reader to guess about. To my mind this adds greatly to the atmosphere of the piece.

I mean, most books set in the present day don't go about explaining how a tv or mobile phone works; also most people don't actually know how these things work, they just know what they do... So why should an sf novel - whose characters are as familiar with the use of their super-high-tech gizmos as we are with our tvs and mobiles - explain itself for the benefit of the reader? They know what they do and they use them for that.

[Astra]

I agree with you. I have come to the same conclusion and the reading became easier when I accepted the terms for what they are supposed to be accordingly to my imagination/understanding (Hyperion and other 3 books in the series). But I forgot the feeling.... especially after Harry Potter 7 books spree!