Book of the week and Bibliography - Richard Morgan, The Steel Remains

So, after my quick world tour I return with another Book of the Week. I have been avidly reading Richard Morgan’s books since Altered Carbon was published in 2002 by Gollancz. A signed copy is now likely to cost £200 plus from a dealer, and he has subsequently kept up the same high standard. The books are exciting, innovative and at times deal with serious issues. The Steel Remains, which has just been published, represents a slight departure into fantasy rather than science fiction – I am currently awaiting my copy, and I suspect it will be just as good a read as his previous books.

Ringil, the hero of the bloody slaughter at Gallows Gap, is a legend to all who don't know him and a twisted degenerate to those that do. A veteren of the wars against the lizards he makes a living from telling credulous travellers of his exploits. Until one day he is pulled away from his life and into the depths of the Empire's slave trade. Where he will discover a secret infinitely more frightening than the trade in lives. Archeth - pragmatist, cynic and engineer, the last of her race - is called from her work at the whim of the most powerful man in the Empire and sent to its farthest reaches to investigate a demonic incursion against the Empire's borders. Egar Dragonbane, steppe-nomad, one-time fighter for the Empire finds himself entangled in a small-town battle between common sense and religious fervour. But out in the wider world there is something on the move far more alien than any of his tribe's petty gods. Anti-social, anti-heroic, and decidedly irritated, all three of them are about to be sent unwillingly forth into a vicious, vigorous and thoroughly unsuspecting fantasy world.


Bibliography

Altered Carbon (Gollancz, 2002)
Broken Angels (Gollancz, 2003)
Market Forces (Gollancz, 2004)
Woken Furies (Gollancz, 2005)
Black Man (Gollancz, 2007) – published in the US as Thirteen by Del Rey
The Steel Remains (Gollancz, 2008)


Graphic Novels

Black Widow – Homecoming (Marvel Comics, 2005; 6 parts)
Black Widow – The things they say about her (Marvel Comics, 2006; 6 parts)