Binged ‘Altered Carbon’ this weekend, Netflix’ latest and reportedly most expensive series to date. ($6-7 million per episode? whoa) A 10-part cyberpunk/noir piece based on Richard K. Morgan’s book of the same name, it’s a bloody, sensual, cynical look at the future. Designer clone bodies, digitized consciousness, virtual imprisonment and torture, galaxy-spanning Spec Ops/Secret Police, obscene wealth disparity, functional immortality… the future’s so dark, you gotta wear NODs.
A solid Sci Fi show with a gritty story and great effects, but if ‘Altered Carbon’ says anything about the future, it’s that science is really secondary; humanity’s progress is not and never will be linked to technology. The bottom line is we never advance beyond our morality. Period.
In fact push it as far as you want, technology remains just another function of old-fashioned human cruelty, conceit, greed, lust, and rage. Dub, sample, and remix – it’s still the same old song all over again. Hide behind chrome and smart glass and mirror-shades, dress it up in gene-spliced, supermodel customized sexiness with neurachem lethality, package it in alien alloys and complex algorithms, our depravity still shows.
When the end credits rolled on episode 10, I was brought full circle back to 2009 and the fundamental conviction I had when I decided to try and write a SF novel as a Christian: only a spiritual ethic that upholds life as sacred can restrain humanity from becoming inhumane. Lose the preciousness of life and you open the door to contempt and cruelty; commodify people and you end up committing atrocities.
That’s not to say I want my fiction to be sermonizing. No, I aim for entertainment, escapism, and action. Most of my stories have loads of firepower and a high body count. But I want to build the work on a solid foundation. I want substance, themes, meaning in there as well.
Despite the cool visuals, wicked action scenes, and great acting, I was disappointed when Altered Carbon was over. Not that it had ended but at the sordid sameness of it all. It was almost a relief. What was meant to be action-packed cyberpunk coolness and world-weary wisdom was just so uninspired, so sad.
There was a smack upside the head afterwards too: a call to confront the question of faith in spec-fiction once again. To respect the conventions of genre, the demands of the medium, and the expectations of the audience and aim for quality, and yet somehow portray spiritual realities organically in the plot, characters and fictional world.
Guess I’d better start praying about that again, eh?
Thanks and have a great day.
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BTW, that first novel, RUNNING BLACK, and the sequel SHIFT TENSE are available at Amazon. HERE and HERE
Hot Space Station Justice 
I had a similar feeling when watching Altered Carbon: Except for the hotel AI story arc, which I found quite entertaining, the story lacks depth. Elaborating on the neo-catholic point of view could have opened for some interesting philosophical/religious questions. Now, it’s basically a depressing tale of people with no hope running from death.
Heh… I liked the hotel AI too. The use and image of the NCs struck me as lazy; the ‘angry religious Luddite’ trope whose objection to cortical stacks exists simply as an obstacle, a fixed plot point. (it seems far more logical that religious conscientious objectors would simply abstain from cortical stack installation in the first place) I’m not surprised, given how dismissive RKM is of religion in his books. To be fair tho, philosophical/religious discussions would definitely move the story focus off sexy, murderous, vengeful, jaded sophisticates slaughtering their way through hi-tech depravity, the venal ultra-rich and mega-corporate avarice – which is what sells.