Review: Never Get Crosswise of a 'Thirteen'

Guest blogger Star Lawrence reviews THIRTEEN (the audiobook) by Richard K. Morgan, as read by Simon Vance

Richard K. Morgan, I learned from Amazon, is an award-winning sci-fi guy (ALTERED CARBON, BROKEN ANGELS). My only claim to sci-fi knowledge comes from being acquainted with Bucky Fuller in The Wayback and from telling Paul Krassner about the word “grok” in STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND, so that the word then entered polite conversation. So you will soon see I know nothing to speak of about the genre. Of course, ignorance never stops me, so let’s proceed.

The book takes place at the end of this century. The reader gradually figures out that the UN has gained in stature, the American south has seceded again and is called Jesusland, and the Pac Rim countries are sort of a separate territory with lots of clout. Of course, shadowy corporations run everything (that’s not new) and some cars called Teardrops can drive themselves.

The anti-hero is Carl Marsalis, a Thirteen, which is a genetically altered human short on sympatico and long on belligerence. He’s also black and English. One of the shadowy corporations gets him out of jail in Jesusland to hunt down another Thirteen who is killing people the corporation doesn’t want killed.

Carl hooks up with a tasty former NYPD detective named Sevgi Ertekin and they have some smokin’ sex and then set off looking for the rogue Thirteen. As they flit around the world in their space-age fiber duds, a number of subplots start to tumble out and roll around. Many are kind of abandoned, so you have to make of them what you will.

Needless to say Carl gets a little more sympatico where Sevgi is concerned and it gets "personal." So, look out, bad Thirteens!

The reader Simon Vance has a light voice and an English accent. Vance sort of trips along a little too fast at first, but then settles in and does the various voices well without sounding like a blithering schizo.

This puppy is 18 disks, so pace yourself. Maybe for a cross-country trip in the car this summer, assuming you are not going to "the Rim." Just be sure to bring some "Sin," which as far as I could tell was some really cool, legal speed.