Thirteen
by Richard K. Morgan
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Book Reviews of Thirteen
Book Review: My conclusion: Richard K. Morgan is a bigot
Summary: 2 Stars
The story is OK. As written, it's far too long. It's a mystery without involving the reader enough so the reader can guess at the solution. It's an action story with long, ponderous descriptions breaking up the action. It's a story about people, but Richard Morgan seems unable to create a character that can evoke audience empathy. It's a science fiction story set in a world that's only mildly interesting -- it's missing the "gee wiz" technology that adds to most science fiction stories.
But the real problem is Mr Morgan's apparent bigotry against Christians and middle America. He calls it "Jesusland", which seems to be meant as a slur, but I don't think it's offensive, so no big deal. Jesusland and everything about it is always portrayed negatively. Every person from there is a racist and most use the N-word casually. Every Christian in the story is easily manipulated. Every mention of a "preacher" is negative. Morgan's Jesusland is universally backward.
Every other culture in the book -- and there are many -- is treated with understanding. Things don't work out good for everyone, but they're all "human" and each has a point of view. Not the Christians though. The genetically engineered killers have their reasons and their imperatives. The Muslims have their belief system and their reasons. But Morgan's Christians in Jesusland are just stupid. I can only conclude from this that Morgan is a bigot.
Don't buy this book. You're not missing much anyway. Life is too short to waste on mediocre entertainment. And bigotry should not be rewarded.
Book Review: Can't call it spellbinding...
Summary: 2 Stars
The only thing spellbinding about this book was that someone reviewed it as "spellbinding". Someone at the bindery must have accidently put the wrong cover on a Takeshi Kovacs novel for the reviewer.
To begin with the book is only a fair read. Some action, some sci-fi, nothing groundbreaking. I read it through, only finishing because I came three quarters through when it stalls out hopelessly. I am a fan of Morgan's earlier Kovacs novels. If you like those books then you will quickly realize that the tone is pretty similar minus the sleeving technology. The book goes off the rails when he starts painting the future in pretty simplistic political terms. Jesusland.. Really? The concept of the THIRTEEN is a good one but somewhere in the middle of the book there is a full blown seminar on Anthropological societal development that sounds like he wrote it right out of his research notebook when he got off the phone with whatever college professor he uses. Then there's Peru... The author must have wanted to vacation somewhere and write it off as work expense. The whole book is weak on plot. All the female characters are interchangeable. Same personality, same dialog just paper cut outs. BUT BY FAR the most unforgivable aspect is the main character is english... Say it with me English. Yet he is written with no location specific speech, vernacular cadence... nothing. He makes no real English references, has no cultural differences whatsoever. Of course none of the characters have except the ignorant southerners.
Book Review: Never boring or dumb
Summary: 4 Stars
I first discovered Richard K Morgan through comics (his unfortunately overlooked excellent Black Widow stories for Marvel: Black Widow, Vol. 1: Homecoming, Black Widow Vol. 2: The Things They Say About Her (Mighty Avengers)) and was immediately entranced by the intelligence of his themes and ideas. A true "futurist", Morgan's fiction is full of technology, products, politics and culture that make sense as an extrapolation of the world around us here and now. And when he is at his best, he is capable of creating compelling characters to inhabit his fascinating worlds.
Thirteen is Morgan at not quite his best. All of his strengths are present. Too often, though, the scene is set by forced exposition. It's interesting exposition, and I can only think of a couple of occasions where it is so obvious that it takes you out of the story - but it should and could be more streamlined into the narrative. My other knock is that the semi-satirical approach toward the political map of the former US lessened the impact of some of the more primary (and more successfully presented) themes of the novel like genetics and prejudice.
Minor gripes aside, this is a smart, exciting, emotional thriller of a novel that has me even more anxious to read Morgan's future work.
Book Review: 3 X C 3 L L 3 N T !!
Summary: 5 Stars
This dark cyberpunk novel is another proof that RICHARD MORGAN is the cutting edge of the genre. In a not so distant future, Mars has been colonized and genetic altered humans have been created, used up and then discarded into the margins of society - with prejudice. Hunting down renegade Thirteens (augmented alpha-males that should only choose between exile to Mars or never leaving their reservation) is Carl Marsalis, another Thirteen with an agenda of his own.
In the backdrop of a dystopic yet all too human society several paradigm shifts away, this roller-coaster ride starts off with a bang and never slows down.
Ever since his first novel (ALTERED CARBON), Richard Morgan has conjured up a rich world full of images, sounds, scents and tastes that, although is science fiction, it never ceases to be recognizably and timelessly human. His imagination has given this future such depth that allows him to move effortlessly back and forth in time between books. I can only compare him to another titan of the genre : FRANK HERBERT of DUNE fame.
The Agricultural revolution domesticating humans? Highly probable. Together with the emergence of religious predisposition and reduced aggressiveness, the [implied] Social Selection favoring docile humans was a good way for societies to consolidate and thrive. As a NeuroBiologist I was very impressed to find his understanding of evolutionary NeuroSciences on the mark.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!
Book Review: Yanomamo in the Near Future
Summary: 2 Stars
This excessively long book is based on a simple idea about human evolution. With the development of agriculture and sedentary civilizations, certain personality traits were the subject of negative selection. This negative selection resulted in loss of brain features producing charismatic, powerful, somewhat anti-social males. In the near future, genetic engineering to resurrect a cadre of these males as super-soldiers. These men (variant thirteens) are essentially exaggerations of Napoleon Chagnon's descriptions of Yanomamo warriors. One of these thirteens is the protagonist of this book. The near future is a rather messy and somewhat dystopian world of nano-technology, genetic engineering, and fractured political systems, including breakup of the USA. The plot pits the protagonist against another thirteen.
Both the basic idea other aspects of the book have significant defects. The idea of these sorts of atavisms being typical of hunter-gatherer cultures and genetically driven are far-fetched. The suggestion that such individuals would constitute a different human species is completely wrong. The excessively complex plot, gratuitous violence and sex, and wooden writing obscure the intellectual value of the ideas. To be fair to Morgan, he does try to introduce some more sophisticated elements into the plotting, notably a recurrent theme of sibling conflict, but these touches are generally lost in a welter of bloodly scenes.