Product Description
Richard K. Morgan has received widespread praise for his astounding twenty-fifth-century novels featuring Takeshi Kovacs, and has established a growing legion of fans. Mixing classic noir sensibilities with a searing futuristic vision of an age when death is nearly meaningless, Morgan returns to his saga of betrayal, mystery, and revenge, as Takeshi Kovacs, in one fatal moment, joins forces with a mysterious woman who may have the power to shatter Harlan’s World forever.
Once a gang member, then a marine, then a galaxy-hopping Envoy trained to wreak slaughter and suppression across the stars, a bleeding, wounded Kovacs was chilling out in a New Hokkaido bar when some so-called holy men descended on a slim beauty with tangled, hyperwired hair. An act of quixotic chivalry later and Kovacs was in deep: mixed up with a woman with two names, many powers, and one explosive history.
In a world where the real and virtual are one and the same and the dead can come back to life, the damsel in distress may be none other than the infamous Quellcrist Falconer, the vaporized symbol of a freedom now gone from Harlan’s World. Kovacs can deal with the madness of AI. He can do his part in a battle against biomachines gone wild, search for a three-centuries-old missing weapons system, and live with a blood feud with the yakuza, and even with the betrayal of people he once trusted. But when his relationship with “the” Falconer brings him an enemy specially designed to destroy him, he knows it’s time to be afraid.
After all, the guy sent to kill him is himself: but younger, stronger, and straight out of hell.
Wild, provocative, and riveting, Woken Furies is a full-bore science fiction spectacular of the highest order–from one of the most original and spellbinding storytellers at work today.
From the Hardcover edition.
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 Kovacs comes home and faces the music ( werthead )
Takeshi Kovacs, an ex-Envoy now working for his own agenda, has returned to his homeworld of Harlan's World on a personal mission of vengeance. During his task he falls in with a gang of freelance mercs assigned to cleaning out the continent of New Hokkaida, where intelligent robots left behind from an old war are still making the land too unsafe for re-colonisation. A chain of events is set in motion that will transform the face of Harlan's World and bring Kovacs face-to-face with his own past in a very literal way.
Woken Furies is the third and, to date, final book featuring Morgan's protagonist Takeshi Kovacs. This time Kovacs is out for blood on his own terms when he is swept up in a very different and fuzzy chain of events which focuses on his own past. If Altered Carbon was a detective story and Broken Angels was a war story, Woken Furies is more of a political story and offers more of a glimpse into Kovacs' mindset, brought into sharp relief as he encounters old friends and enemies on his home planet. These events also allow Morgan to explore some more of the consequences of his body-swapping, re-sleeving universe, with subtle nods towards its implications for consciousness, sentience and what it precisely means to be human (a slight and barely perceptible nudge compared to Bakker's Neuropath, which yelled it into the reader's face loudly until we got it).
As usual, this is an ultra-violent, bloody, sexually explicit and generally pretty hardcore story of revenge, rebellion and fear, with some exploding robots, surfing and extreme rock-climbing thrown into the mix. Those who've followed Kovacs' adventures before will be at home here, although given that the events of the first two books do impact on the story here I would advise newcomers to start with Altered Carbon first.
Woken Furies (****½) is the last Kovacs novel for the time being, although Morgan has not entirely ruled out a return to him later on. The book is available from Gollancz in the UK and from Del Rey in the USA. Morgan's latest novel, The Steel Remains, is out now in the UK and in February in the USA.
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A well developed universe for exploring practical immortality from a mercenary point of view ( marcbourassa )
I originally heard about "Woken Furies" on a "Tech Nation" podcast interview with author Richard K. Morgan. The universe he described sounded intriguing so I picked up the book last December and have been slowly reading it ever since. I don't tend to rush through books I'm enjoying as I like them to last as long as possible.
I originally did not realize that this was the third in a series or I probably would have gone and picked the others up first so that I could grow with the story. As it turned out the book does a very good job of standing on its own.
I won't bother to summarize the plot here, others have done a much more thorough job on Amazon and elsewhere than I could hope to, what I am expressing rather are my impressions of the book.
It's relatively and graphically violent in portions, which is fitting given the history of the pro-(an?)tagonist. In real life he would not really be someone you'd want to meet... ever. But it is interesting to spend the book inside his head as he recalls past experiences that involve quelling far-flung planetary uprisings with a ruthlessness reserved for those who are trained to kill and are very good at it.
Of greatest interest to me is the culture of a civilization where death is a rarity. By choice or by accident you can "resleeve" and have a brand new body to use to carry on your existence and that body can be tailored to your personal or business needs. Starting with that premise, how do casual folks deal with relationships and their attitudes toward the everyday travails of life?
Mutually agreeable divorce or separation is much more to be expected as it is possible for centuries to pass across which your growth as a person may be expected to diverge from that significant other with whom you shared so much so long ago.
I found this a satisfying read and have added the preceding books to my Amazon wish list and anticipate that they will be equally satisfying.
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 Altered Carbon fans stay away ( christopherpotter )
Altered Carbon is one of my favorite books from the last 10 years. The world created by Morgan was fascinating, full of potential. However, the second book Broken Angels, was a major let down, and now the third book Woken Furies is worse still. If you liked the first novel, and are looking for more of the same, DO NOT READ WOKEN FURIES. You will be horribly disappointed. The plot is a rambling mess. Kovacs is a mopey character that you can not feel any connection to. Basically, there is nothing engaging about this novel. My interest in these Tokeshi Kovacs novels had been fueled by my admiration for the first novel, but now that is over. No more Kovac novels for me.
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 Excellent ( alexmarr )
Like the other books in this series this one is excellent. It doesn't matter in what order you read these books. The genre in this series varies from cyberpunk to hardcore science fiction with aliens and space battles. By the same author, but not part of this series, I recommend Market Forces.
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A very satisfying finish to the Takeshi Kovacs trilogy :) ( isoman2kx )
After enjoying the first two books of the Takeshi Kovacs Series, I'd gotten started on Richard Morgans next task in Woken Furies. Insert again everyone's favorite anti-hero in Takeshi Kovacs as Kovacs finds himself back on his home world this time after a lengthy and exhausting campaign on Sanction IV.
Kovacs is in bad shape after being on the run after making several attacks on priests of The New Revelation, an extremist religious order semi-responsible for the death of his one love, Sarah. Kovacs has made it his personal mission to kill every member of this New Revelation as a measure of ultimate revenge.
Kovacs meets a very interesting woman in the bar named Sylvie Oshima in the process of protecting her against some trouble-making members of The New Revelation Order. One sudden act of chivalry later, Kovacs begins his journey by taking refuge with her mercenary crew as they head out to decommission living military hardware gone awry on a nearby continent. During one of these mercenary missions, Sylvie collapses and upon recovery her personality appears to have been replaced by that of long dead revolutionary leader Quellcrist Falconer herself. From here Kovacs goes on a thrilling journey which includes battling against government bio mechanical machines gone haywire, searching for three centuries old weapons systems, and battling the yakuza in a bitter blood feud over a member of their family that was killed by Kovacs.
As the journey goes on, Kovac's relationship with Sylvie Oshima/possibly the Quellcrist Falconer earns him a very deadly enemy that is on his trail - a younger, stronger, and straight out of hell version of himself. As Kovacs tries to figure out just who this Sylvie Oshima really is, he must stay one step ahead of his younger sleeved self as he attempts to sort this mess out.
My only qualm with this book was that it was a little hard to follow Morgans descriptions sometimes of all of the weather patterns, places, etc. Then again that could possibly be the ADD kicking in at times :). I found Woken Furies to be a throughouly enjoyable book and towards the end Morgan sets up the story well for a possible second set of books in the Takeshi Kovacs Series.
Kovacs ends up finally figuring himself out towards the end and what all of his adventures have led him to at this point and makes some decisions based on the books ending. There are some intriguing questions towards the end of Woken Furies. Will we ever figure out the Martians and be able to communicate with them/understand their technology? For that matter, why did they ever leave Harlan's World and are they still alive somewhere? Will the cortical stack of Kovac's lost love Sarah be retrievable one day? In addition, some very interesting information is made about the orbitals which ends up tying a lot of ends throughout the series together and ends up being a real eye-opener for the reader. Like others have mentioned here, I definitely hope Morgan decides to write another installment of the Kovacs Series soon. He's left himself plenty to work with based on the end of Woken Furies.
-Travis
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