If you play video games, you must read this series. Only two books long, but absolutely required reading for my fellow gaming geeks out there. It’s a highly plausible future with great characters, social commentary, and excellent integration of existing technology that drives the whole story forward. It’s fast-paced, an easy read, but isn’t hollow.
Daemon rocked my world when I first read it, and still holds up to this day. Action-packed story that intertwines a number of character arcs as things just go off the rails in the modern world. It’s a fun, easy read, even if it hits you over the head with the societal impacts of technology at times. It is one of my all-time favorites.
I can’t say enough good things about this series. Each book is distinct and different, yet the threads between them are strong enough to weave a greater narrative. Takeshi is the ultimate anti-hero who answers only to himself—even if his employers think otherwise. Every book is filled with far-future tech embedded in societies that makes sense in the context. That is, there is both cool Sci-Fi tech and believable impacts on humankind from it.
It’s hard to pick a favorite of this series. After I re-read each one, I decided that one was my favorite. Until I picked up the next one again.
Most trilogies wind down in the third book, often times with some quasi-religious, half-assed philosophy being espoused by the author taking up too much of the last book. Not Woken Furies. It’s still all-Takeshi bad-assery all the time. Still the flawed anti-hero out for his own personal agenda, but this time with his own scores to settle. This book slowly pieces together the Takeshi Kovacs story, providing context to many decisions he made throughout the series.
As much as I loved the far-future Earth, I welcomed the second book taking place on another planet in the far-flung universe of this series. The main character is still the flawed anti-hero, just in a different sleeve serving a different purpose. Like the first, the book has many layers and enough twists that even after the third time I read it I was still picking up on things I missed.