Richard Morgan's Altered Carbon is deserving of the Philip K. Dick prize it was awarded. It deftly places a noir detective story in a sci-fi future where the futuristic technology always serves the plot. Here, the McGuffin is "cortical stack" technology, which allows a person's memories to be "resleeved" in a new body. This makes interplanetary travel more practical than sending meat across the cosmos, and it leads to major changes in society, many of which Morgan illustrates.

The novel serves several purposes equally well. It introduces a compelling protagonist and fleshes out a compelling universe, both of which will surely return in future novels. It provides a gripping mystery/suspense/thriller, with plenty of twists and lots of good action sequences, but also with good characterization and a strong sense of place.

I may be overselling here, but this is the first self-contained SF novel I've read in a long time that fulfills the promise of the genre.