THIN AIR, by Richard Morgan @SciFiMonth

Closing this year’s SciFi Month with a book that pleasantly surprised me…

My reading history with Richard Morgan’s books is somewhat… troubled, since I remember reading first his cyberpunk novel Black Man (a.k.a. Thirteen) – which by the way is set in the same universe as Thin Air: I enjoyed the story of anti-hero genetically enhanced super-soldier Carl Marsalis, so when Morgan published his first fantasy novel The Steel Remains I was curious to see how he would fare in the genre, but while I did not dislike the story and the characters, I was put off by the author’s excessive propensity for goriness and profanity which seemed to be there only for their shock value, rather than for narrative purposes.  When Morgan’s more famous novel, Altered Carbon, was recently adapted for the small screen it did not manage to conquer me, even though many online comments tended to indicate that the book was far better. So, even though the synopsis for Thin Air sounded intriguing, I was a little hesitant in giving this author another chance: now that I have I’m glad to have “taken the plunge”, because his latest work shows a great deal of improvement both in writing and in characterization if compared with my previous reading experiences.

As I mentioned, there is a parallel between previously explored character Carl Marsalis and Thin Air’s protagonist Hakan Veil: they are both genetically engineered – but that’s all there is to it. Veil’s modifications started in his mother’s womb, when he was gifted with enhanced senses and reaction times, and an embedded AI circuitry named Osiris (Onboard Situational Insight and Resource Interface Support) which allows him to connect with other cybernetic systems and to hack them if needed, and which also works as an inner voice, often commenting sarcastically on his actions.  Veil used to be an overrider in the employ of the security firm Blond Vaisutis: planted in suspended animation on ships, he would be awakened in case of emergency to solve – through bloody violence – any situation that might have developed on board. Used to, because a failed mission caused him to be fired from Blond Vaisutis, stripped of some of his enhancements and exiled to Mars, where he’s been eking out an uneasy life as hired muscle for various shady enterprises and crime syndicates.

The novel opens with Veil freshly awakened from his four-month hibernation period – something made necessary by his modifications – and quickly employed in the assassination of a small-time gangster, ordered by the head of a criminal syndicate. Arrested by the local police, he’s offered a way out working as the bodyguard of a high-ranking Earth official, part of a team who just landed on Mars to investigate the disappearance of one of the Lottery winners, whose prize is a ticket back to Earth.  As Veil tries to fulfill his assignment, he and his charge travel all over the colony, from its most glamorous venues to the seediest quarters, and it soon becomes clear that the disappearance of the lottery winner is only the tip of a huge, convoluted iceberg made out of political maneuverings, corporate interests and shady dealings. And that a dark page of Mars’ grim history might be on the verge of repeating itself…

Hakan Veil is a very intriguing main character: on the surface he might simply look rude and cynical, and he is that of course, but there is a subtle veneer of world-weariness and self-mockery in his first person narrative which confers him an added depth that makes the reader feel invested in his story, one that moves at a breakneck speed with hardly any time for respite: the constant references to Veil’s “running hot” condition, which means he’s ready to mete out unstoppable violence and that he needs no sleep, make for a heightened pace that carries you throughout the novel knowing that new surprises and new dangers are lurking around the next corner.   

Thin Air is a hard-boiled noir placed in a science fiction setting and the combination of these two apparently disparate elements creates a fascinating story in which Veil’s movements across the planet create a picture of the background with no need for lengthy info-dumps; it’s a narrative choice that drops the readers in the middle of things with little or no explanations and at times makes them feel a bit lost (or at least that was my impression), but if one trusts the author and goes with the flow, they will soon learn that the colony’s history is a troubled one, that the tug-of-war between the various corporations bent on mining the planet’s resources left the population in a constant state of near-rebellion, and that politicians and police forces are not always looking for the best interests of the citizens. The descriptions make it easy to picture the various settlements with something of a Blade Runner appearance, complete with some drizzling mist that should imitate real rain under the atmospheric dome covering the cities. And despite the underlying bleakness there are some flashes of truly poetic beauty:

Outside the sandstorm raged on, tall dancing plumes of fine-grade regolith driven past like the lost souls of some massive alien race in exodus.

Thin Air’s Mars feels real and believable and it also drives home the concept that humanity, no matter where it chooses to reside, will always take with it both the best and the worst of its nature – especially the worst, maybe. It’s probably a cynical point of view, and the fact that it’s filtered through the eyes of a cynically disillusioned character enhances this sensation, and yet there are a few rays of light here, particularly where some more positive characters enter the mix, that drive home the hope that humanity’s future, even through its turmoils, might not turn out to be absolutely bleak. 

I’m glad I gave Richard Morgan’s work another chance, and this positive encounter might bring me to give the Altered Carbon series a look: I find that this cyberpunk dystopian background can be quite interesting…

My Rating:

Artwork by Yosua Bungaran Cahya Putra