Thirteen
by Richard K. Morgan
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Book Reviews of Thirteen
Book Review: Richard Morgan gets betters and better
Summary: 5 Stars
In his fourth major novel Richard Morgan hits a new high in terms of narrative style. This is a bit like Altered Carbon in that it has a central, morally ambiguous character, involved in a thrilling sort of who-done-it adventure. At the same time the novel benefits from from witty dialogue, great futuristic imagination, and to a far greater extent than earlier novels, highly poetic scene settings and character descriptions. Comparisons with Raymond Chandler came to mind as I was reading this. 13 is not only a gripping, high adrenaline story but also beautifully crafted and written. I would love to know more about the author and how he manages to continue writing like this. Morgan has truly an exceptional talent which just better and better as he matures.Book Review: Effing Thirteen
Summary: 2 Stars
This seemed like a lite version of Morgan's previous Takeshi Kovacs novels: same hero, less sci-fi. Accordingly, it's about one-third as enjoyable as those novels. I deducted an additional star because Morgan's love for using the f-word as an adjective has become intolerable. He seems to think the best way to show that a character is really serious is to emphasize his every statement with the f-word. I don't object to it as profanity; I object to it as repetition. It's effing tedious and it's effing boring. It's like listening to someone speak whose every fourth word is "like". It's like reading something written entirely in effing caps. Knock it off already for crissakes, Morgan.Book Review: Vintage Morgan
Summary: 5 Stars
I don't like giving any of the plot away to so I have a hard time reviewing. Let's say if you like Morgan, Hamilton, Sterling, Gibson, early Stephenson, Cherryh's hard SF (although her fantasy is almost a genre in itself), Charlie Stross, Noon, Walter Jon Williams, Verner Vinge, Scalzi, some Greg Bear (Darwin's Radio and sequel), you should like this. I other hand, if you lean more towards Bujold, Turtledove, and McCaffrey, you might not. This author is on my list of buy everything he writes. BTW, William Gibson's Pattern Recognition completely ripped off Kristine Kathryn Rusch's novella Coolunting.Book Review: Thr1te3n; great sci-fi
Summary: 4 Stars
I enjoyed thirteen a lot. Morgan threw in some mystery and technology ideas that added spark to the building plot. There were surprises that kept me interested through the whole book. It was a little week on explaining some of the technology. I felt it would be a better story if he had delved into how thirteen genetic materials were acquired. And there is something called "mesh" that I was interested in but it was never explained. The graphic descriptions of crime scenes were a little too raw for my taste, so if you have a week stomach be prepared.Book Review: Slow, not
Summary: 2 Stars
Not recommended
If you like fast-paced, hard sci-fi, you will not enjoy this. Way, waaay too much character development and far too little plot development. The violent passages are just lame. If you like chatty, introspective dialog, then you may find this book to your liking. It has a few interesting ideas none of which are very original to those who have read many S.F. books.
This story could have been edited down to a short story and published in "Analog".
Not his best work in my estimation.