 |
|
Originally published: 2002 Read: January 2021 |
I read this as part of my ongoing investigation of science fiction about mind transference and life extension; it's set in a world where people can move their minds into different bodies ("sleeves") as easily as you or I might change our clothes-- at least, if you have the money for it. It's a hardboiled detective story, about someone investigating the murder of a man who didn't die, because his mind was restored from a backup and loaded into a clone.
At first it's fun. Morgan gets the style of hardboiled down very well, and he explores a lot of the different ways, little and big, that this kind of mind transference technology might affect a society. It's 516 pages, though, and I ended up feeling that there was maybe about 400 pages of actual incident and ideas in it; I hit a point where I was just waiting for the end to come because it seemed nothing new was really happening anymore. I kind of lost track of why the protagonist was doing what he was doing.
Still, the book raises some good issues about this kind of technology and has plenty that entertains. I think I will be teaching it my class on sf and life extension, and I definitely will get around to the sequels someday, too.
No comments:
Post a Comment