Thirteen (by Richard K. Morgan)–My hiatus from gaming, these past 4 weeks, as resulted in another book on my 2008 Reading List completed. Earlier this week I finished the latest book from Richard K. Morgan, Thirteen.

If you are not familiar with Morgan, you should put his name in Amazon right now and order all his books right now. A co-worker of mine got me started on Morgan, with Altered Carbon (the first of the Kovacs trilogy) , which I would say is in my top 5 books. If you enjoy good sci-fi, in a post-cyberpunk setting, you will enjoy Morgan. Enough fanboy raving, and lets get to the review…

Thirteen is Morgan’s fifth book, and is a stand-alone book, with its own unique setting. Like, Altered Carbon, this book is also a mystery story, centered on a bounty hunter tracking down an escaped fugitive. I don’t want to tell you too much about the plot, because I personally hate reviews that give away the whole book. If you want to read more about the plot of the book, see the Amazon link.

What I really liked about this book, is that it is not only a good mystery and excellent science fiction, but it explores the very sensitive subject of racism. It does this through the use of genetically altered humans, who are the target of racism from mainstream humans. Morgan does an excellent job of exploring this topic, though different characters, who each have their own outlooks on these genetically altered humans. Morgan never preaches to the reader about the evils of racism, and is not apologetic with his most racist characters in the book. Rather he holds these characters up, to expose their flaws, their futility, and their own weakness.

Morgan does not spoon feed you his setting or technology. Rather the reader is required to glean the meaning of various technology through out the story. He does a good job of giving you enough context to understand what the technology is doing, but it requires some work on the readers part. Personally, I like this approach. It makes you feel as if you are inside the book, and that these pieces of technology are common place and everyone understands them.

One of Morgan’s other strong points would be his description of violence. There are a number of fights in the book, and you get a clear and vivid image of each one. His descriptions evoke movie-like imagery. As I read each fight in the book, I would catch myself reading faster and faster, caught up in the action, often having to go back and read a passage again. The violence is not for the faint of heart, but it is not gratutious or gory either.

I also fully enjoyed Morgan chapter and mid-chapter transitions. As a writing technique he often drops flashbacks in the middle of a chapter, that provide extra details about events leading up to the current scene. While it could be done in a linear fashion, I like the back and forth of the main story and the flashbacks.

All in all, I fully enjoyed this book, and thus far for 2008, I would say this is my favorite novel. I cannot say enough about Morgan, so if you are not yet a fan of his, do yourself a favor and pick up either Altered Carbon or Thirteen.