Woken Furies

Woken Furies

Woken Furies (2005) is the fourth published science fiction novel by Richard Morgan. It is a sequel to his two previous novels Altered Carbon and Broken Angels and features the anti-hero 'Takeshi Kovacs'.

This addition to the series casts light upon Takeshi's pre-Altered Carbon days and gives a lot of backstory to his post-envoy exploits. Fans of the series will recognise characters Virginia Vidaura (Kovacs' Envoy trainer) and the role of Sarah Sachilowska (who features in some capacity in Altered Carbon).

According to Morgan's official website, Woken Furies is most likely the last Kovacs novel.

Having survived the brutal military conflict on Sanction IV, and corporate conflict over discovered Martian artifacts in Broken Angels, Takeshi Kovacs finds himself back on his home planet of Harlan's World. Largely oceanic, Harlan's World is surrounded by Martian 'orbitals' that, for reasons known only to their creators who left long before human settlement of the planet, are programmed to destroy any object of sufficient technological level and flying altitude.

Kovacs is on the run after his numerous bloody attacks against an extremist religious order (Beards), upon which he has declared a personal vendetta with the express intent of killing every single member, for reasons which are revealed much later in the story.

While trying to secure passage after his most recent bloodbath, he saves a woman named Sylvie in a local bar from a group of religious zealots. In return, she allows him to take refuge with her mercenary crew as they head out to 'decommission' sentient military hardware that has run amok on a nearby Harlan's World continent. During one of these "decom" missions, Sylvie collapses, and upon recovery her personality appears to have been replaced by that of long dead revolutionary leader Quellcrist Falconer.

The crew return to base where they discover a younger version of Kovacs is looking for them on behalf of the Harlans, dictators of Harlans World. Sylvie's gang, Sylvie's Slipins, is killed and Sylvie/Quellcrist is captured. At this point, Takeshi is unaware that Jadwiga, one of the Slipins, survived the assassination. Kovacs schemes to rescue her by approaching old followers of Quellcrist Falconer, The Little Blue Bugs, whom he used to perpetrate high-grade criminality with.

The quellists mount a successful attack on a Harlan fortress and rescue Sylvie/Quellcrist. Hiding from Harlan forces in a floating mafia base, the quellists are sold out by its owner and recaptured. Another assault by Kovacs and a detachment of UN Envoys ends with Orbital weapon fire called down by Sylvie/Quellcrist killing their Envoy captors but sparing Takeshi and his former revolutionary comrade-in-arms Virginia Vidaura. Takeshi's younger self catches up with him at this point and after a brief struggle, Kovacs decides not to kill his younger self but instead allow him life and the chance to make the same decisions he himself had to make so many years ago. Unfortunately, Jadwiga torches him with a blaster, much to the annoyance of Kovacs.

The novel ends with Kovacs and Sylvie/Quellcrist planning to start a new revolution on Harlan's World using the power of the Orbitals, which she is learning to control.