Woken Furies

Woken Furies
Author Richard Morgan
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Series Takeshi Kovacs
Genre Science fiction
Publisher Victor Gollancz Ltd
Publication date
 17 March 2005
Media type Print (hardcover) & (Paperback)
Pages 436 (Hardback),
575 (Paperback)
ISBN 0-575-07325-X (Hardcover),
ISBN 0-575-07652-6 (Paperback)
OCLC 57354392
Preceded by Broken Angels

Woken Furies (2005) is a science fiction novel by British writer Richard Morgan. It is a sequel to Broken Angels, and features the anti-hero Takeshi Kovacs.

This addition to the series casts light upon Kovacs' early life providing information on his post-envoy activities.

Morgan's official website and interviews[1][2] suggest that Woken Furies could be the last Kovacs novel,[3] although recently Morgan has stated that the Netflix adaptation has "kind of woken it all up again" after all these years, making him possibly reconsider being done with Kovacs.[4]

Plot

Takeshi Kovacs finds himself back on his home planet of Harlan's World, on the run after making numerous attacks against the Knights of the New Revelation, an extremist religious order responsible for the death of his lost love and her daughter. Because she had violated tenets about resleeving, the executioners dropped the cortical stacks at sea, effectively preventing them from being resleeved.

While trying to secure passage after his most recent attack, he saves a woman named Sylvie from a group of religious zealots. In return, she allows him to take refuge with her mercenary "deCom" crew as they head out to decommission sentient military hardware that has run amok on the island of New Hok. Sylvie is the "command head" of her crew, co-ordinating their missions using embedded circuitry and software. During one of these missions, Sylvie collapses, and upon recovery her personality appears to have been replaced by that of long-dead revolutionary leader Quellcrist Falconer. Harlan's World is surrounded by automated "orbitals" that target flying objects with high-energy beam weapons known as "angelfire" and Falconer had died without a backup to her cortical stack when her aircraft was destroyed by angelfire 300 years prior.

When the crew returns from New Hok, they discover a younger version of Kovacs has been illegally duplicated and is hunting them on behalf of the Harlan family that rules the planet. Most of Sylvie's crew is killed and Sylvie/Quellcrist is captured. Kovacs schemes to rescue Sylvie by approaching old criminal associates of his, the Little Blue Bugs.

The Little Blue Bugs mount a semi-successful attack on a Harlan fortress and rescue Sylvie/Quellcrist. Hiding from Harlan forces in a floating base, the neo-Quellists are sold out by its owner and recaptured. An assault by Kovacs and a single UN Envoy on the base ends badly when Kovacs is betrayed by the Envoy who was actually embedded with several colleagues. However, Sylvie/Quellcrist has established a connection with the orbitals and calls down angelfire, eliminating their captors. The younger Kovacs is killed in the aftermath.

Sylvie explains that angelfire is a destructive recording device. Thus, in destroying Quellcrist and the helicopter carrying her, it copied her. When the technology of the deCom crews advanced far enough, her persona was able to insert itself into Sylvie's implants and co-exist in her body.

The novel ends with Kovacs, Vidaura, and Sylvie/Quellcrist waiting and see if they can use Sylvie/Quellcrist's newfound connection to the orbitals and the expansion of a long-dormant genetic virus to turn the population against the ruling oligarchy.

References

  1. ↑ Moira Gunn (16 August 2005). "Interview with Richard Morgan".
  2. ↑ Francesco Troccoli (February 2008). "Interview with Richard Morgan".
  3. ↑ www.richardkmorgan.com
  4. ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/feb/13/altered-carbon-author-richard-morgan-violence-netflix
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