Altered Carbon

Centuries from now, human consciousness can be digitised and stored on a "stack" implanted at the base of the skull, then re-sleeved into a new body at will. Death is negotiable for those who can afford it; the wealthy are effectively immortal. Takeshi Kovacs — a former Envoy, an elite and dangerous kind of soldier — is killed on his home world and wakes up hundreds of light-years away in a borrowed body on Earth, downloaded into a job he did not choose.

His new employer is Laurens Bancroft, one of the near-immortal super-rich, who was found with his head blown off. Bancroft was restored from a backup, but the backup predates his death, so he has no memory of it — and he does not believe the police verdict of suicide. He hires Kovacs to find out who killed him, and why.

What follows is a hard-boiled murder investigation set in a neon, rain-slicked future, unfolding through virtual torture, designer drugs, corporate conspiracy, and the philosophical vertigo of a world where the self can be copied, edited, and deleted. Violent, cerebral, and stylish, Altered Carbon is a landmark of modern cyberpunk and the first novel in the Takeshi Kovacs trilogy.