Heading to Eurodisney!

In little more than 12 hours I will be on a plane heading to Newark, NJ.  But wait, there's more.  A few hours after arriving there, and hopefully a few slices of delicious NY pizza later, we will be on another plane heading to Berlin, Germany.  The wife and I will spend 3 nights in Berlin and then hop on a train and meet my dad in Munich.  In Munich we will partake in the 200th anniversary of Oktoberfest in grand style.  The next morning, probably way too early, too, we will board another train and make our way to Brussels, Belgium.  3 nights in Belgium in which we plan to visit the beautiful 14th century village of Brugge as well as the diamond capital of the world, Antwerp.  The old lady keeps envisioning the sack of diamonds she is going to come home with in celebration of our 10th anniversary.  We'll see.  Pictures and stories to follow when I return.

Altered Carbon

There has been a series of books that has caught my eye for some time now written by Richard K Morgan and set in the reasonably far future... say about 500 years or so.  The first book in the series is called Altered Carbon and it was more than good enough to convince me that I need to read the rest.  Now when I say this is a series, that is a bit of a misnomer, as Altered Carbon is a completely stand alone novel.  They are a series because they each feature the same protagonist, Takeshi Kovacs.  

In this distant future, death is an almost meaningless event as humans are now fitted with a device called a cortical stack that acts as a black box for the consciousness.  If you are killed, this device is removed and 'resleeved' into another body.  The only real way to truly die is to have this cortical stack get irrevocably damaged.  And even with that, there are still ways to cheat death if you have enough money to afford off-site back-ups of your 'stack'.

Richard K Morgan has presented a fascinating world.  One which in many way feels much like our own, yet in others is completely alien.  He manages to meld a wholly believable far future world around a story that would be right at home in a noir detective book.  The plot revolves around a murder victim who has hired Takeshi Kovacs to find out why he was murdered and by whom. This investigation of course opens up an entire anthill with multiple parties involved for various reasons of their own. 

This is a phenomenal opening book to a series.  Anyone interested in sci-fi / cyberpunk should definitely do themselves a favor and check it out.  There are similarities to William Gibson's Neuromancer, but with a more up to date feel to it.  Alongside Neuromancer, there is certainly a brushstroke or two of Blade Runner wafting around. Some bang-up action sequences along with vivid sex scenes will keep the reader on their toes wondering what's 

coming next.  I would personally give it a solid 4 1/2 stars if I were a professional reviewer.. but since I am not, I'll stick with 2 thumbs up instead!