Altered Carbon

Abstract

Altered Carbon is set in a future where immortality is possible by preserving one’s consciousness after death and transferring it to “sleeves”, new bodies, on a continual basis (that is, body after body). The novel deals heavily with the implications of “sleeving” and “re-sleeving” in society. While most people can afford to re-sleeve after death, the poorest cannot buy updated bodies, and so they need to go through the complete aging process after each re-sleeve, which makes immortality unappealing. The wealthy, on the contrary, are able to buy replacement bodies, and most choose to go on re-sleeving. There are also laws that prohibit dual-sleeving (controlling two bodies with only one consciousness). On a religious scale, Roman Catholics become easy targets for murder, since they choose not to re-sleeve, holding the belief that the soul would not accompany that transition. This choice usually means that murderers will not be caught, as Catholics are not re-sleeved so as to testify and accuse who murdered them. The novel also explores genetic engineering, in the form of Envoys, a military group created and sanctioned by the United Nations to combat in interspace wars (as spatial exploration also characterises this future society), and to which the novel’s protagonist, Takeshi Kovacs, belongs to. These enhanced humans undergo extensive training in re-sleeving and are also subjected to psychological and combat modifications.