"All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered."

Altered Carbon

C22B45EC-B7E0-4FE7-9D57-92C23F0D9474
One of the finest sci-fi series I’ve seen in a while starts off with a dissatisfying episode that might give you the temptation to give it up. Don’t. I know that the concept is ripped off a novel by Arthur Clarke and I know that you might feel like you’re trapped in a science fiction trivia, for all the concepts you will see that you’ve already seen elsewhere. And I know that you’d rather feel like stabbing yourself in a leg before witnessing more of Martha Higareda’s “acting”. And I won’t lie to you: the second part doesn’t get any better. The first one, however, reach a certain peak to almost become a feature and one might argue that every episode is centered around a topos of sci-fi. I didn’t read the novel, so I don’t know if this is the case.
However, you should resist the urge of dropping it, and keep going. I promise it will be worth your time.

The story revolves around a former terrorist, whose conscience gets reinstated in the body of… well, ok, no spoilers. It’s an investigation and a damn good one. It has Joel Kinnaman as the main guy and James Purfoy is magnificent in the role of the murder victim who hires him to find the killer. A mention of honour also goes to Chris Conner: his Poe is one of the best characters, brings a little steampunk in an otherwise explicitly cyberpunkish series.
What I found to be more deserving is the way everything is significant to the main plot and how all seemingly loose ends got tied together, in the end. In this way, it is as good as Heroes season 1, or even Westworld. Watch it.

music and theatre

Suzanne Vega in Milan

Yesterday, we went to see Suzanne Vega, one of the greatest artists and musicians of all times whom occupies a special place in my heart next to Tori Amos. It was a packed house at Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi here in Milan, with people belonging to

Read More »
books and literature

Isaac Asimov’s Gold (and other stories)

It’s unfortunate that I’m coming to this after the very unsatisfactory collection of “fantasy” stories (Asimov never wrote fantasy: he wrote satire), because this was another disappointment. The book is half short stories and half non-fiction, for random reasons, and the non-fiction half is random writings

Read More »
books and literature

The Murderbot Diaries: Rogue Protocol + Exit Strategy

I’m not crying: a piece of some murdering bot must have gotten in my eye. Rogue Protocol is the third novella in the Murderbot Diaries, and deals with the titular character going deep undercover to figure out what happened in the “mining incident” that was

Read More »
Share on LinkedIn
Throw on Reddit
Roll on Tumblr
Mail it
No Comments

Post A Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

RELATED POSTS

Suzanne Vega in Milan

Yesterday, we went to see Suzanne Vega, one of the greatest artists and musicians of all times whom occupies a special place in my heart next to Tori Amos. It was a packed house at Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi here in Milan, with people belonging to

Read More

Isaac Asimov’s Gold (and other stories)

It’s unfortunate that I’m coming to this after the very unsatisfactory collection of “fantasy” stories (Asimov never wrote fantasy: he wrote satire), because this was another disappointment. The book is half short stories and half non-fiction, for random reasons, and the non-fiction half is random writings

Read More

The Murderbot Diaries: Rogue Protocol + Exit Strategy

I’m not crying: a piece of some murdering bot must have gotten in my eye. Rogue Protocol is the third novella in the Murderbot Diaries, and deals with the titular character going deep undercover to figure out what happened in the “mining incident” that was

Read More