Altered Carbon - By Richard Morgan
OK, this one’s WAY out there, but it’s the best book I’ve read in several years. Imagine the future about 200+ years from now when, if you can finance it, your entire mental being (your self awareness, thoughts, memories etc.) can be imprinted into a silicon chip. This chip can be placed into a socket located at the base of the skull of a so-equipped body. Therefore, you are now able to switch bodies (“sleeves” as they are now called) easily when they become damaged, don’t have the physical capabilities you need, or even just boring. Since your entire “self” is now data, the ultra rich can not only afford multiple sleeves, but can periodically create “backups” of themselves to be re-imprinted in a new sleeve if a catastrophic event happens. True physical death becomes irrelevant for the elite class of society.
Wrap the above description with a dark noir narrative crime story and you get “Altered Carbon”. I highly recommend it.
