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• Thirteen
Richard K. Morgan

Del Rey, 2007 - 560 pages

average customer review:based on 54 reviews
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Well Crafted Novel

Thirteen, by Richard K. Morgan, is an extremely well crafted novel about life in the near future. Humans have colonized Mars, though by all reports it's not a very pleasant place to live. Humans have also toyed with genetic alteration of themselves, producing several variants, one of which is the thirteen. By the time this book takes place, the variants have fallen out of favor. The thirteens, in particular, are considered dangerous, and are required to either live in camps or go to Mars. Many thirteens, who obviously dislike these options, try to live in secret. Enter the protagonist, Carl, a thirteen hired by a big, faceless government agency to track down the rogue thirteens and bring them in if possible. Against this backdrop is set a murder mystery on a grand scale. Enjoy.

This book is available in ebook format both for the Sony Reader and the Amazon Kindle.


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Not Altered Carbon

If you start this book thinking you are going to get more of the story from the Altered Carbon line, then you will be disappointed.

The book is well written, the future setting (if a bit melodramatic in its portrayal of the future US) is well realized and eloquently depicted. It has all the essential elements.

The only two problems: The reader isn't let in on enough back-story early enough and the protagonist doesn't earn your sympathy (he is a bit of a chump).

All said, it was still an enjoyable read.









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Hard-boiled, futuristic detective fiction

At its core this is a labirythine 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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Excellent Near-Future SciFi Thriller

THIRTEEN(2007) is Richard K. Morgan's fifth SciFi novel, and the 2nd book outside the Takeshi Kovacs universe. I've read all five, and this is the best of the bunch.

It is a SciFi Thriller set 100 years in the future. "Thirteens" are genetrically-enhanced and specially-trained humans, designed to help outnumbered but cash-rich countries win the wars of the future. But Thirteens turn out to be Social Frankensteins, once they have helped win the wars they were created to help win... and the bulk of them end up getting shipped off to the new Mars Colony (or get internned in prison like colonies in out of the way locations)... but, strange things happen when thirteens get "loose" on Earth.

This book is very exciting most of the time; but, there were a few dull moments (how couldn't there be in such a long buok - 544 Hardcover pages), and events leading up to the ending get a little far-fetched. Having said that - this book is really pretty close to being the perfect type of SciFi stories that I'm interested in reading these days (Near Future High-Tech Military/Action SciFi)... I give it 4-1/2 stars, rounded up to 5.


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



The future isn’t what it used to be since Richard K. Morgan arrived on the scene. He unleashed Takeshi Kovacs–private eye, soldier of fortune, and all-purpose antihero–into the body-swapping, hard-boiled, urban jungle of tomorrow in Altered Carbon, Broken Angels, and Woken Furies, winning the Philip K. Dick Award in the process. In Market Forces, he launched corporate gladiator Chris Faulkner into the brave new business of war-for-profit. Now, in Thirteen, Morgan radically reshapes and recharges science fiction yet again, with a new and unforgettable hero in Carl Marsalis: hybrid, hired gun, and a man without a country . . . or a planet.

Marsalis is one of a new breed. Literally. Genetically engineered by the U.S. government to embody the naked aggression and primal survival skills that centuries of civilization have erased from humankind, Thirteens were intended to be the ultimate military fighting force. The project was scuttled, however, when a fearful public branded the supersoldiers dangerous mutants, dooming the Thirteens to forced exile on Earth’s distant, desolate Mars colony. But Marsalis found a way to slip back–and into a lucrative living as a bounty hunter and hit man before a police sting landed him in prison–a fate worse than Mars, and much more dangerous.

Luckily, his “enhanced” life also seems to be a charmed one. A new chance at freedom beckons, courtesy of the government. All Marsalis has to do is use his superior skills to bring in another fugitive. But this one is no common criminal. He’s another Thirteen–one who’s already shanghaied a space shuttle, butchered its crew, and left a trail of bodies in his wake on a bloody cross-country spree. And like his pursuer, he was bred to fight to the death. Still, there’s no question Marsalis will take the job. Though it will draw him deep into violence, treachery, corruption, and painful confrontation with himself, anything is better than remaining a prisoner. The real question is: can he remain sane–and alive–long enough to succeed?


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