Lusty Tale of an Enhanced Alpha Male

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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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Underwhelming Bloated Thriller

Like many many others, I loved Morgan's amazing debut, Altered Carbon, and have been waiting for something similarly exhilarating from him ever since. I liked the second and third Takeshi Kovacs books (Broken Angels and Woken Furies) well enough, but Market Forces was terrible (to be fair, it was written before all his other books and only published after the success of Altered Carbon). This fifth book (published in the UK under the title "Black Man") is neither particularly good, nor particularly bad, it's a bloated thriller filled with mostly familiar futuristic concepts, underwhelming social commentary, all undermined by a woefully undeveloped protagonist.

The story revolves around Carl Marsalis, a genetically engineered soldier (aka a "variant thirteen") who works for the UN as a freelance hit man/bounty hunter, seeking out "thirteens" who have gone rogue. (Shades of Blade Runner, Terminator 2, and Universal Soldier.) Alas, when a job in Peru goes wrong, he finds himself stuck in a Miami prison with no reprieve in sight. That is, until a seriously psycho thirteen somehow hijacks a transport from Mars, eats the crew, crashes into the Pacific and starts running amok on the west coast. The escalating body count leads the UN to spring Carl and team him up with a female Turkish-American investigator to track down the killer.

The book is essentially more of a crime novel or thriller with science fiction trappings, as the hunt for the killer leads across the former U.S. (now splintered into a Northeastern Union, the south-central "Jesusland", and the western Rim States), to South America, Europe, Turkey, and Mars. It's an incredibly convoluted chase, which is often driven forward by little more than Carl's inexplicable "hunches," which have a remarkable tendency for being correct (something a true crime novel would never rely upon). The story takes far too long to unfold, but with Carl never really getting developed as a character, it's hard to stay connected with what's going on. Morgan's prose is tough and tight, but there's about 200 pages too much of it.

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Not Free SF Reader

Soldiers really do need aggro.

The background is that the USA was losing wars by literally becoming too girly. This in fact causes a secession in the country, with the fundamentalist friendly states splitting from the Rim States to form different countries, eventually. So, they came up with the Thirteen genetic variation to make a warrior breed that had the aggro back, with the ability to boost reflexes, and be more resistant, as well as be more charismatic. It also happens to make them paranoid loners.

Mutants like this scare everyone, so were heavily regulated. The protagonist of the piece is getting sick of his existence, and after getting into trouble gets hired to track a rogue thirteen, who has done a spot of killing and eating.

Said guy manages to make a friend, and find out a few secrets, while utilising his special talents.

If you liked Altered Carbon, not too much doubt you will like this book, too.

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Solid Morgan

Thirteen is a very enjoyable novel. Perhaps not quite as "noir-ish" as Morgans Takeshi Kovacs novels. Like Kovacs, the protagonist of this novel, Marsalis, is somewhat more than human (this time because of his genes and not just his training, although he also has had special training). An ambitious novel that at its root gets the reader to assess the whole "nature vs. nurture" question. Although the premise seems to be that genes/nature is of greater importance, I think the story actually makes the case that the issue is more ambiguous. Like the Kovacs novels the story has a number of surprising twists. For whatever reason, for the most part I liked the Kovacs novels better, but this was still well worth reading.

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Lusty Tale of an Enhanced Alpha Male

I take great exception to the negative reviews of Morgan's latest gonzo thriller. Once again, he has given us an incredible but vivid heroic super warrior with a humanizing streak of honor and compassion, striding purposefully through a sadly decaying future world reasonably predictable from current societal deficiencies. The plot is suspenseful with all the bloody realism any fan of ultimate fighting could hope for, the sex scenes sufficiently graphic to more than titillate. Except for the stretched creation of elevators soaring above the atmosphere, the future technologies described seem seriously achievable, but never proliferate to anything close to tecnobabble. The key genetic manipulation of humankind is current events written large. If anything, this tale is even better than the Takeshi Kovacs yarns, and equal to Market Forces.

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Not Morgan's best but still good

Fans of the Takeshi Kovacs series might be a little disappointed with Thirteen, but only because the Kovacs books set such a high standard. Thirteen drags a little in one or two places, then throws in a plot twist out of left field. At 500-plus pages, it's a little too long.

Having said that, it's still a worthwhile read for both Morgan diehards and those new to his work.

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

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