Like many other readers who loved Altered Carbon, I think that Broken Angels is an inferior book. That's not to say that it's bad — I still enjoyed it quite a lot.

In Broken Angels, we again join Morgan's anti-hero, Takeshi Kovacs, in an action-packed thriller/mystery. Here, the McGuffin is a Martian portal that leads to a valuable miltary/scientific artifact.

Morgan is at his strongest when Kovacs is actively solving problems and driving the action. Things bog down during the middle third (or so) of the novel, when the characters are waiting for external events to move things forward.

Perhaps this is a slight sophomore slump for Morgan, but I'm certainly interested in reading his third novel when he writes it.

[Update: Martin helpfully points out that Morgan's new book Market Forces is already available in the U.K. Alas, it won't be published in the U.S. until March 1, so I don't feel too bad not knowing about it!]