I enjoy a lot of Science Fiction, or as it is traditionally (and should always be known as) - speculative fiction. I have recently managed to find the time to sit down and watch Altered Carbon on Netflix, and I'd like to colour myself pretty impressed.
Not only is Altered Carbon a visual delight, (especially on a 4K HDR compatible device) - but its dialogue, and in particular, its monologues are written in an excellent manner.
In Altered Carbon the human consciousness can be downloaded onto a "stack", which is known as Digital Human Freight, also DHF. This disc, inserted into the brain of citizens of the protectorate when they're just a wee babe of a single year, allows for the human consciousness to be transferred to another body, otherwise known as a "Sleeve".
There's organic, natural born sleeves, conceived in the traditional manner, then there's synthetics, made of silicon and other parts. It's all ludicrously expensive and managed by a group of social, economic, and generally everything-else elites, known as the "Meths" Methuselah - after the biblical figure that lived for hundreds of years.
Following Takeshi Kovacs, the story unfolds with death, violence, political intrigue, and classic "Sci-Fi cop meets web of lies" plot, which is a perfect introduction to a foreign, solidly built world, with enough atmosphere to keep anyone engrossed. You'll be pleased to also know that this isn't a back of the envelope sort of TV series, with the plot being based on a series of books written by Richard Morgan.
The Netflix series has a lot of visceral content - with the violence, choreographed gun play, and puddles of bloods turning into rivers very quickly. This is a dark, consequence-less world for a lot of the characters that are followed, which leads to an enormous amount of murder and collateral damage.
This isn't the most interesting part of the series, however; and I imagine that there are many elements of the novels left untouched in the series - there's also some elements of the world building which are left untouched, completely. The ability to "needlecast" - move from one "Sleeve" to another body, in another location - and the associated hangover (or sleeve sickness) from moving to another body isn't explored in adequate depth on screen to make this a risk which it is suggested to be.
There's a lot more to explore with this series than the colour, sound, and direct words spoken by the characters to one another. There's so much subtext and suggestion, leading to a truly polynomial story, with interesting "side-stories", and an entire world of "before this all happened" left to explore in lush, vibrant flashback scenes, in opposition to the contrast riddled and very intentionally HDR modern, noisy world Altered Carbon presents.
If you're into Science Fiction, or Speculative Fiction (as I'm adamant it should all be) and seeing just one of the answers to "what if", then schedule out about 11 hours, and sit down and watch the whole lot.
Good review H. Have been meaning to watch this. Will make the 11 hours available these holidays. SK.
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I really enjoyed the series, can't wait for season 2 to come out. it's a really original and interesting take on the whole immortality thing.
The title has a spelling mistake, obviously just a missed keystroke but could hamper people searching for stuff to do with the show.
Thanks for pointing that out! I'm keen to give the novels a go, but I am slowly making my way through Arthur C Clarke's Rama series. I just don't want to spend more money on an additional bookshelf at this point.
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I'm really not much of a reader, I would love to but I find myself getting tired after a couple of pages and really can't focus for much longer than that. I have a huge backlog of stuff I need to get to... Maybe I should try Audible or something? I really enjoy the concept of the show and the universe is pretty accurate.
I loved the series. Anxiously awaiting for the next one. You described it very well too.
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Good overview, will check this out:) resteemed! Green, Geek & Creative [crypto-led] adventures. https://adespress.blog
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Been meaning to watch this.