Altered Carbon

I rarely write about books or television shows but this one is too exciting not to.   Some years ago, I read Richard K. Morgan’s Altered Carbon novel based on a recommendation from a friend.  When I was done with the book I went straight back to page one and read it through a second time.   It’s dense.  That’s the only way I know how to describe it.   There is so much going on it’s intentional confusing for a good part of the first half and then you feel like you’re just hanging on for most of the remainder of the book.  But it’s a tremendous read if you like cyberpunk science fiction—which I do.

At the time I had read up on the author and found out the movie rights had been sold in 2003 but nothing had been done to make a movie.   Then, a few weeks ago I pulled up Netflix and saw a trailer for Altered Carbon, the series, starting on February 2nd.  My sister-in-law wrote a blog post about the series, mentioning how it’s confusing at first to figure out what’s happening.   I’ve read the book twice, I know what the ending is and what all the interleaved side stories are and I would agree with her.   But it’s so well done.

I’m not sure how the story could have been told in a single movie; the ten episodes are packed, there’s just no filler and if you’re not paying attention you’ll miss something important.   I know some of the actors in the series and they do a compelling job of playing their roles.   There’s a lot of nudity, but it plays well with the story.   And who am I kidding, I like looking at attractive naked people, so I don’t mind.

I’ve watched the series twice, starting over once I finished it, just like I did the book.   Richard K. Morgan wrote two more books in the series with the same main character.  Hopefully they’ll make a second on Netflix.

The Big Boy Update:  My husband and I try to back each other up on parenting decisions but sometimes we don’t realize something’s happened.    For instance I might come in and say, “it’s time to get pajamas on now.”   I could get an incensed outcry from the child saying, “but dad said we had ten more minutes!”   So now I try to remember.   I saw my son with the iPad the other day when we were supposed to be getting ready for guests to arrive.   I came up to him, tapped him on the shoulder and asked, “do you have an agreement with dad?”  He nodded and said, “five more minutes” very calmly.   And in five minutes he put his iPad away.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter is good at math.   She’s in kindergarten but she grasps a lot of the concepts very well.   She asked to be quizzed in the car last night on addition and subtraction problems.   She had gotten over a hundred correct with very little in the way of mistakes on the ride home from a birthday party.    She also seems to get fractions.  We told her she could get a stamp on her stamp chart for every four valentines cards she finished.   She worked with Mimi on Friday and completed ten cards.   She thought about it afterwards and told Mimi, “that means I get two-and-a-half stamps”.