Adapting Richard K. Morgan’s Altered Carbon as a TV show was a tough ask. The series consists of three books that intricately detail a sci-fi future where technology has made immortality an everyday fact of life, and fitting the story of Takeshi Kovacs into a single 10-episode Netflix series represents several unique challenges.
In order to make the story work in a different medium, the show had to make a number of changes. While some are far more drastic than others, all of them end up setting the show apart from the books it’s based on. New characters were added or removed while others were reimagined to the point that they may as well be the show’s inventions entirely. Other plot elements were added or dropped, altering the story very mildly in some cases and enormously in others.
Here’s 18 of the ways Altered Carbon, the show, is different from Altered Carbon, the book.