ALTERED CARBON TV series greenlit by Netflix

Richard Morgan's classic cyberpunk novel Altered Carbon has been greenlit by Netflix as a ten-episode television series. This isn't an option or an "in-development" deal, but an actual guarantee to make the series.

Laeta Kalogridis, a producer and writer who has worked on Shutter Island, Avatar and Terminator: Genisys, is bringing the project to the screen. She has been trying to get the series made for several years and is a huge fan of the novel and the overall book series.

Altered Carbon is the first of six (so far) novels set in a coherent future universe. The first three - Altered Carbon (2002), Broken Angels (2003) and Woken Furies (2005), sometimes called The Takeshi Kovacs Trilogy - are set in the 25th Century and revolve around the titular soldier and mercenary, who hops from body to body on different worlds to complete missions and jobs for shadowy forces. Kovacs is noted for his intelligence and his ability to both hold a grudge and coldly execute it if he feels wronged. He also has something of a conscience, which gets in the way of his work.

The three later books in the setting form the Land Fit For Heroes Trilogy - The Steel Remains (2008), The Cold Commands (2011) and The Dark Defiles (2014) - which is set many thousands of years in the future and is actually a post-singularity, post-transcendence (kind of), Dying Earth-style epic fantasy. It is unknown if the rights to the fantasy trilogy are part of this deal, but probably not, as the links between the two series are fairly mild.

This is not the only Morgan book under development. His classic 2007 SF novel Black Man (known as Thirteen in the United States) is also under option as a feature film.

The airdate for Altered Carbon (assuming that's the name for the entire TV show) is unknown, but the earliest date is likely to be in the back half of 2017.

New cover art: Abercrombie & Morgan

Here's the UK cover art for Joe Abercrombie's Half a King, due out on 3 July:

And here's the American cover art for The Dark Defiles by Richard Morgan, due out on 7 October:

Richard Morgan completes THE DARK DEFILES

Richard Morgan has confirmed that he has finished The Dark Defiles, the concluding volume of the Land Fit For Heroes trilogy which began with The Steel Remains in 2008 and continued with The Cold Commands in 2011.

As Morgan says, this is by far the longest book he's ever written. At 247,000 words, it's a little bit shorter than Patrick Rothfuss's The Name of the Wind (259,000 words) and almost half again the length of The Cold Commands. At one stage the book was getting so big there were talks about splitting it, but that fear seems to have passed.

The book is listed as being released in the UK on 21 August and in the USA on 7 October, though neither date is finalised yet.

Great news. Morgan has reported that his next project will probably be SF, possibly set in one of his already-existing universes, so it'll be interesting to see what he comes up with. In the meantime, we have one very large fantasy (with SF overtones) novel to tide us over with.

UK cover art for Richard Morgan's THE DARK DEFILES

An early look at the working cover art for Richard Morgan's The Dark Defiles, provisionally due in August 2013:

No, I haven't read the book: it's still being written. The quote is from my review of The Cold Commands and may not be present on the final version of the cover for The Dark Defiles.

Richard Morgan on THE DARK DEFILES

Richard Morgan has released an excerpt from The Dark Defiles, the third book in his Land Fit For Heroes series and the follow-up to the excellent Cold Commands.

He's also revealed that the book is becoming rather larger than he was hoping, and he and his publishers are now actively considering breaking it down into two slimmer volumes. This isn't set in stone yet and depends on the final page count and if there's a place where he can split the narrative satisfyingly.

"Currently TDD is planned as a single volume to wrap up the trilogy – but it’s looking to be a dangerously fat volume, and I’m not sure how happy I am about that. So we may be talking about two books rather than one, forming a Land Fit for Heroes quartet. But that again will depend on finding a decent narrative shape for each of the two potentially slimmer books – I hate cliff-hanger finishes with a passion, and want to avoid writing one at all costs. Have to see how it shapes up further down the road……"

No release dates have been given yet, but I suspect we won't see the third book until the latter part of 2013 at the earliest.

THE COLD COMMANDS is out!

Richard Morgan's The Cold Commands, the excellent second volume in the Land Fit For Heroes trilogy, was published two days ago in the UK and USA. Review here.

The Cold Commands by Richard Morgan

A year ago, the famous swordsman Ringil Eskiath, hero of Gallow's Gap, prevented the return of the Dwenda, the ancient rulers of mankind, to the Earth. Ringil and his wartime allies, Egar the barbarian warrior and the half-Kiriath agent Archeth, stand vigilant against any future incursions by this foe.


Now Egar, Archeth and Ringil face separate mysteries. A bar-room brawl and reports of slaves being held in unusual circumstances leads Egar into an ill-advised confrontation with the Empire's dominant religion. A warning from the Helmsmen sends Archeth on a mission into the wastelands to recover a valuable item, an item which comes with a dire warning. And a chance encounter between a runaway slave and Ringil results in blood, mayhem and revelations of a dark kind.

The Cold Commands is the long-awaited sequel to Richard Morgan's The Steel Remains, the author's first foray away from SF and into the arena of secondary world fantasy. The Steel Remains was a blood-soaked, swords and sorcery adventure, black of humour and fairly brimming over with violence and sex (most of it graphic and gay, to the disquiet of some readers). It was solid enough stuff, though perhaps not as good as the billing suggested. Morgan's SF is so good because he writes with anger, flair and passion, and is at its best when he is clearly ticked off about something (in Black Man, particularly the self-destruction of a society which cannot talk to itself, only throw up barriers and tear itself apart). The Steel Remains, though a reasonably solid novel, lacked the vitality of his earlier SF.

The Cold Commands has that energy back, and in spades. Here Morgan confronts the issues of religious fundamentalism and blind dogma as the Citadel attempts to garner more control over the Empire than the young (and notoriously uncompromising) Emperor. Archeth recalls the religious disagreements that almost tore apart her parents' marriage: her Kiriath father's mounting horror as his calm, rational scientific explanations for everything are rejected by his human wife in favour of rote-learned rhetoric. These issues give the book a bit of a philosophical and thematic kick to it that sees Morgan's writing return to the top of its game.

Whilst this issue is present and explored intriguingly, it does not overwhelm the plot. This time around there is a three-pronged storyline with each of the major protagonists having their own story arc to follow. Ringil probably has slightly more action than Archeth and Egar, but the division of responsibility between the three is more equal this time around. This approach contributes to the book's greater length (more than half again the size of The Steel Remains) and also allows Morgan to bring in the noir-like investigative tone of his earlier SF work. We also get a lot more backstory and revelations about the mysteries of the world, which further the hints in The Steel Remains that this is as much a far-future SF story as it is a fantasy epic.

Morgan's skills with characterisation are extremely strong, as usual. Ringil remains an unreliable and flawed protagonist, whose motivations are fascinating and complex, whilst Archeth is conflicted and guilt-driven, unsure of her place in the world now the rest of her people have departed. Even the relatively straightforward Egar has his frustrations and demons that drive him to make some spectacular mistakes which drive the plot onwards. The secondary cast, this time consisting of mostly new faces with only a few returning characters, is also extremely well-drawn, particularly the increasingly punchable young Emperor and the new character of Anasharal, who is amusing and annoying in equal measure.

This is a character-driven and intelligent fantasy novel, but Morgan doesn't forget to bring the mayhem. There's a midnight raid on a temple that Robert E. Howard would have approved of, more swordfights and murders than you can shake a stick at and a few rare but impressive displays of sorcery...though the dividing line between 'sorcery' and 'vastly superior technology' is intriguingly blurry.

In fact, the only thing lets The Cold Commands down is that a major storyline is kicked into gear in the latter part of the novel only to be put on hold for the impressive finale. With this story presumably left to be picked up in the third book, this means that The Cold Commands does not stand alone as nicely as the The Steel Remains, and is not as self-contained. This is a relatively minor issue, but one worth bearing in mind.

The Cold Commands (****½) sees Morgan back on top form and delivering a book as passionate, fast-paced, smart and furious as any of his SF. The novel will be published on 11 October in both the UK and USA.

US cover for THE COLD COMMANDS

New American cover art for The Cold Commands by Richard Morgan has appeared:


If that looks familiar, that's because it's the UK cover, re-tweaked to include the series title, A Land Fit For Heroes. Del Rey are also listing a release date of 11 October 2011. Interesting to see if the book, which has only been delivered in the last few days, will make that date.

Richard Morgan's COLD COMMANDS nearly finished

Richard Morgan has blogged that he is close to polishing off The Cold Commands, the sequel to his 2008 fantasy novel The Steel Remains. Morgan expects to deliver the final manuscript in a few weeks. To tide readers over, he has published an excerpt from the novel as part of the blog entry.


The Cold Commands has a provisional release date of October 2011. Once the book is in and edited, we'll likely get a firmer release date.

New Gollancz covers: FENRIR and THE COLD COMMANDS

This is the hot-off-the-presses UK cover art for M.D. Lachlan's Fenrir (recently renamed from Wolfsbane), the sequel to his excellent debut Wolfsangel:

No word on if the Gollancz advertising campaign will make use of a Duran Duran song. You know the one. You're humming it now.

Fenrir is due for release in the UK in May 2011.

Meanwhile, this is the completed cover art for Richard Morgan's The Cold Commands:

"Harder, faster, bloodier...and that's just the sex!"

The cover was unveiled previously but this is the first time it's been reunited with its original title (the book was going to be called The Dark Commands for a while until Morgan found a way of making the original title relevant to the book). The Cold Commands, the sequel to The Steel Remains, is due in Spring 2011.

Richard Morgan update

Richard Morgan has let us know on the Westeros.org forum about the current status of The Dark Commands, the follow-up to 2008's The Steel Remains. Bantam US had put the book in their Fall 2010 catalogue despite the UK publishers, Gollancz, pushing the book's release date back to 2011. Morgan clarified the situation for us, explaining that it has taken some time for The Dark Commands to come together as a book and his time to work on it has been reduced by a new gig advising Electronic Arts on some of their forthcoming games.


The good news is that The Dark Commands will be fairly substantial in size (the first book was about 350 pages in hardcover, so at half again in size the follow-up should be in the 500-page margin), but the bad news is that it might not appear for a while.

The cover above is the American one. The UK cover, without title, can be seen here.

The Steel Remains by Richard Morgan

Richard Morgan erupted onto the SF scene six years ago with his blistering debut novel Altered Carbon, a hard-edged thriller set in the 26th Century. Morgan has made his name with intelligent, intrguing ideas about science, technology and sociology, based around unflinchingly violent protagonists and often withering analyses of the human condition. The Steel Remains is his first foray into fantasy, the first book of a trilogy with the unofficial name A Land Fit For Heroes (which I assume is ironic, because this land is very definitely not fit for heroes, although it desperately needs them).

This world is a harsh, dirty and grim place. Some years ago a race of sentient lizards - the Scaled Folk - crossed the western ocean from a dying homeland and attempted to conquer the lands of humanity. The forces of humanity - somewhat reluctantly - banded together under the leadership of the Yhelteth Empire and their Kiriath allies and destroyed the invasion at great cost. After four thousand years amongst humanity, the Kiriath finally abandoned this world, fleeing in their vast fireships back through the subterrenean portals leading to other worlds. Humanity has been left to lick its wounds and rebuild.

Ringil Eskiath is the famed hero of Gallows Gap, who led the heroic defence that finally broke the back of the Scaled Folk's invasion. However, his temper and his sexuality have led to him being outcast from his homeland and he now makes his living as a glorified tourist attraction, showing gawping spectators around the legendary battlefield. However, when his cousin is sold into slavery, he is called home by his mother and asked to rescue her. Ringil's journey leads him back into the shadow of his old life and to the realisation of a devastating new threat that is arising now the one thing it feared, the Kiriath, is gone.

Archeth is a Kiriath half-breed, left behind when her people left. Now she serves the Emperor as his advisor on Kiriath technology, but her presence is anathema to the increasingly fanatical religious leaders and she survives on the Emperor's sufference. The devastation of a coastal town leads Archeth's research to the horrific conclusion that an ancient force, powerful beyond measure, may be poised to return to this world.

Out on the windswept steppes, the barbarian warrior Egar finds life back among the clans unbelievably dull after he fought for the Empire as a mercenary, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Ringil at Gallows Gap, where Egar earned the name Dragonbane. When Egar's position in the clan comes under threat, he is rescued by a most unlikely patron and whisked into a battle he barely comprehends, alongside some old allies...

The Steel Remains is a pretty dark, full-on and - to use a cliche, gritty. Those easily offended best stay away, especially if you found GRRM too explicit for your tastes as Morgan goes way, way past anything that GRRM has ever done in a book. The violence is visceral, bloody and painstakingly described. The sex is full-on and explicit. To be honest, the levels of sex and violence are somewhat higher than the plot demands. Whilst Black Man was similarly explicit, at least there it could be said that it was only done when necessary for the plot. The Steel Remains is, at heart, a gratuitous story which I suspect a lot of people will be put-off by.

Those who can stomach those elements will find all of those things that have made Morgan one of the most striking authors of his generation: deft characterisation, increasingly accomplished worldbuilding and a fiendish plot which seems to dance out of reach just as you think you've got a handle on it, replaced by something even more cunning than you previously thought possible. Here Morgan takes on of the biggest cliches in fantasy history and turns it on its head in a manner which is probably not quite as original as he thinks (unless he's read Scott Bakker recently) but nevertheless is deftly executed, leading to a powerful final scene that leaves the reader demanding more.

The Steel Remains (****) is dark, brooding, bloody, visceral and absolutely takes no prisoners. But the story it is telling is compelling, the characters are well-defined and the world throws up some refreshingly new ideas and concepts (some heavily influenced by Morgan's SF background). Some may find it all a bit too much, some may find this world too full of pain and darkness to actually be worth saving, but amidst the gloom Morgan carefully plants a few seeds of hope and optimism which the reader can cling to.

The Steel Remains will be published on 21 August 2008 by Gollancz in the UK. A US release from Del Rey is apparently on the cards, but no date has been set as yet.