If HG Wells Collaborated with Harry Turtledove, This Book Would be the Result

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	• Thirteen Richard K. Morgan Del Rey, 2007 - 560 pages average customer review:based on 60 reviews view larger image
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If HG Wells Collaborated with Harry Turtledove, This Book Would be the Result

Richard K Morgan (RKM) has already established himself as the master of the alternate/future history dystopian novel. But in 13 he has outdone any of his previous writings. The book itself has more interesting speculations relating to government, religion and medicine than Robert Jordan put into all of the "Wheel" cycle. Most writers would have turned this into a trilogy or tetralogy, to be able to fill out all of the ideas that are contained in it.

Starting with the fracturing of the USA into three nations, the growth of the UN as a world policing body, the colonization and terraforming of Mars, the creation of super-soldiers through gene manipulation, and the list goes on. His creation of different societies that reflect the change in events relating to "variant" humans and the reactions to them.

The most interesting part of the story is watching the basic character- istics that make us human beings, being manipulated by "puppet" masters in the background is what makes this a remarkable book. RKM's bottom line seems to be that we all are looking for some one to protect and for some one to protect us, we all need to feel that we belong somewhere and that we can make a difference.

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Awesome

DNAngineering has created variants: optimized types of humanoids, suited for specific tasks. Bonobo's are optimized for sexual service. And mankind's optimal genetic traits have been spliced into variant 13. That doesn't make a 13 a very social animal...

Now there's a 13 on the loose. Hitched a ride on a Mars-ship, eating the crew to stay alive. And killing, apparently at random, people across what previously was the US of A. And a 13 is not easily caught, not by ordinary humans. Enter our hero: a 13 himself, despised, rejected, focused almost to autistic level and increasingly pissed off with the Bad Guy.

Morgan has given his version of Bladerunner: a corporate world in its initial space-faring stage. With The Beast returned from Space, hunted by a Flawed Sheriff.

The opening scene is a bit haunting (actually, it made me put away the book for 4 months, before I decided to pick it up again). Once you've made it past the introductions of the main characters, it's a helluva ride: fast, smooth, engaging, deep, unnerving, excellently written and extremely excellent SF.

I miss Takeshi. Yet Mr. Morgan has given us another very strong, interesting character (not all too different from Takeshi, in his detached approach to life and the living). To be honest, I don't care who features in his next story, as long as Mr. Morgan writes it fast!

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Fast paced and lengthy but not redundant

The setting of Richard K. Morgan's latest novel is far into the future, the year 2091 and beyond. Carl Marsalis has been engineered as a "thirteen" by the current government. He is arrested in a police sting and languishes in a high-security prison in Florida, uncertain if he will ever regain his freedom. While he is incarcerated, a chilling crime scene is discovered by COLIN, the law enforcement arm of government. Marsalis possesses abilities that the authorities do not have.

A space shuttle has crashed deep into waters within the New York City Police Department's jurisdiction. Its inhabitants have been brutally murdered, dismembered and cannibalized. The shuttle was en route to Earth from the outer planet, Mars, desolate home to prisoners, misfits and outcasts from Jesusland, the Rim states and former American landscapes.

The recovery operation is kept secret. There would be widespread panic in the streets if the truth about the agonizing deaths was made public. Additional senseless killings have surfaced throughout the country within a short time after the crash. COLIN officers suspect that these new cases are somehow related to the shuttle deaths. WHAT is to solve the brutal murders. WHO is the probability of a highly trained engineered prototype known as a thirteen. WHY remains the biggest unanswered question.

Sevgi Ertekin and her partner, Tom Norton, are the COLIN officers assigned to the destruction and devastation on Harkin's Pride. Built to withstand a crash landing on Mars, the downed ship had not been ocean-tested. Rim-state cops guard the scene when the two arrive. Convinced by the evidence that the perpetrator is insane, Eretkin and Norton feed all collected crime scene information into the path "face" for analysis. The face on the screen responds, "...salients are consistent with the perpetrator being a variant thirteen reengineered male."

Enter Marsalis, freed and now in service to Norton and Ertekin. Marsalis has the physical and mental capabilities to assist in the capture of a renegade thirteen. An investigation leads to the identity of Allen Merrin, whose resume reads like death-row statistics from Alcatraz. Marsalis's freedom depends on his ability to capture and eliminate Merrin, who is protected by an unknown entity difficult to penetrate. The chase takes them from South America to Turkey and numerous points between.

For those readers who consider science fiction to be among their favorite genres, THIRTEEN will be a barn-burner. Action moves with intercontinental speed. Vehicles are characterized as futuristic but believable. Thirteens are designed to inflict deadly force by brute strength alone but have at their command weaponry instilled with lethal ammunition. Marsalis operates by sheer strength, a virtual soldier, though his physical effectiveness may be compromised by a leak in his emotional armor.

Drug lords and mafia-type familias use thirteens for dirty work in the future world. It is said, "Cross the familias and they'll send a...thirteen to visit you." Fear of deportation to Mars no longer threatens Marsalis once he is determined to avenge the variant thirteen's bloody rampage.

THIRTEEN is fast paced and lengthy but not redundant. Morgan's characters are believable entities in a futuristic society because they are laced with emotions to which the contemporary reader can relate. We do care what happens to them, even to the engineered personality of our hero thirteen. Events are credible, from means of time-travel and outer-space transportation to weapons used in a future world. Fans of ALTERED CARBON will embrace this novel as a must-purchase for their sci-fi library. Morgan is a genius at holding the reader's attention, and storytelling mastery is his forte. THIRTEEN is his latest triumph.

--- Reviewed by Judy Gigstad

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Hard-boiled, futuristic detective fiction

At its core this is a labyrinthine tale of crime-family warfare, political and military intrigue, all told in Richard Morgan's typical hard-boiled style and set about a hundred years in the future. There are space elevators, Mars colonies, virtual environments, genetically-modified humans ... AND, typical of Morgan, some good measures of explicit violence and sex. Political and religious conservatives will undoubtedly take issue with the author's portrayal of a fragmented North American society, but it worked for me. I WILL have to agree with many reviewers in that this book, at almost 550 pages, really is longer than it needs to be ... but it you like Richard Morgan's style and his ability to create plausible futures, this is worth the slog.

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Morgan's Best!!

I've bought all of Richard K. Morgans books and this is my favorite, by a mile. I've always been fascinated by the "superman" subgenre in sci fi. This book is one of the best ever. I agree with other reviewers, it deserves an award or two. I won't rehash the plot, since it's been thoroughly covered by other reviewers. But, I don't agree with some of the less than stellar reviews - the plot wasn't too scattered at all, imo. Honestly, I'm constantly amused by some of the complaints; read one the other day that gave the book a bad rating because the writer didn't care for the protagonists name!?! Read this book for yourself, you'll never regret it. I love the Takashi books, but this one was better!

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reviews: 1, 2, page 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

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