Thirteen

by Richard K. Morgan

Book Overview

In Thirteen, Richard K. Morgan radically reshapes and recharges science fiction yet again, with a new and unforgettable hero in Carl Marsalis: hybrid, hired gun, and a man without a country . . . or a planet.

Marsalis is one of a new breed. Literally. Genetically engineered by the U.S. government to embody the naked aggression and primal survival skills that centuries of civilization have erased from humankind, Thirteens were...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0345480899
• ISBN13: 9780345480897
• Release Date: June 2008
• Publisher: Random House Worlds
• Length: 560 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 5.5" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Excellent Near-Future SciFi Thriller

THIRTEEN(2007) is Richard K. Morgan's fifth SciFi novel, and the 2nd book outside the Takeshi Kovacs universe. I've read all five, and this is the best of the bunch. It is a SciFi Thriller set 100 years in the future. "Thirteens" are genetrically-enhanced and specially-trained humans, designed to help outnumbered but cash-rich countries win the wars of the future. But Thirteens turn out to be Social Frankensteins, once they have helped win the wars they were created to help win... and the bulk of them end up getting shipped off to the new Mars Colony (or get internned in prison like colonies in out of the way locations)... but, strange things happen when thirteens get "loose" on Earth. This book is very exciting most of the time; but, there were a few dull moments (how couldn't there be in such a long buok - 544 Hardcover pages), and events leading up to the ending get a little far-fetched. Having said that - this book is really pretty close to being the perfect type of SciFi stories that I'm interested in reading these days (Near Future High-Tech Military/Action SciFi)... I give it 4-1/2 stars, rounded up to 5.

Spellbinding Post-Cyberpunk Novel From Richard K. Morgan That's Definitely His Best

In "Thirteen" acclaimed young British science fiction writer Richard K. Morgan has written one of the finest novels published not only this year, but among the best in recent memory in the realm of science fiction literature. Best known for his cyberpunk space operas devoted to his antihero Takeshi Kovacs in the novels "Altered Carbon", "Broken Angels" and "Woken Furies", Morgan returns once more to explore the nature of individuality and what it truly means to be human in his latest novel, adding to its spellbinding, compelling mix, a heavy dose of the gritty realism seen in his recent novel "Market Forces". Stylistically, Morgan's novel is his closest to those of William Gibson's early "Cyberspace" trilogy, and that is indeed high praise from me, since I have noted before Morgan's frequent expropriation of classic cyberpunk themes in his fiction, but also wondering whether he has used them effectively. In "Thirteen" he has most certainly breathed new life into "post-cyberpunk" literature, in a compelling tale that's as memorable as "Neuromancer" and "Count Zero" - Gibson's first two novels, which are still regarded as among the founding father of cyberpunk's very best. Furthermore he has crafted an antihero whom I regard as far more memorable than Takeshi Kovacs, Carl Marsalis, a soldier of fortune and bounty hunter who belongs to a unique, genetically-modified strain of humanity known as Thirteens. And, best of all, Morgan has written some of best realized, most vivid, descriptive prose, which demonstrates that he is truly a literary talent to be compared favorably alongside fellow British science fiction writer China Mieville, perhaps the finest science fiction writer currently working in Great Britain. Morgan's "Thirteen" can be viewed as a classic crime noir novel in a futuristic setting, a fast-paced piece of detective fiction in which Marsalis and his partner, Sevgi Ertekin, a young Turkish-American ex-NYPD detective, are hot on the trail of another Thirteen - a genetic variant of humanity designed to become the ultimate warrior - who has escaped from the Pacific Ocean crash landing of an Earth-bound shuttle from Mars, causing wanton death and destruction in his wake. Soon, however, both Marsalis and Ertekin stumble upon a tangled, almost Byzantine, web of political and criminal intrigue that spans the Americas and distant Mars too. Morgan expertly handles the suspense, and then, unexpectedly, introduces new elements of the tale nearly midway through the novel, as though they are billiard balls spinning out of control on a pool table. Marsalis proves he's an excellent detective, as well as bounty hunter, in his own right, tracing fragile leads across North America and the Andes of South America, that will lead inexorably to one final bloody showdown between a Peruvian crime lord and his half-brother, another Thirteen. Along the way Marsalis will question not only his own relationship with Sevgi, but also his sanity, as his obsessive p