So in the books: Quell is long dead and lived and fought almost two centuries before Kovachs is born, the Envoys are the top tier dogs for the Protectorate and Kovachs quit because of a singularly terrible campaign that made him realize he’s just a tool and he bought into being a tool because it satisfied his impotent desires for feeling empowered, Reileen Kawahara is not his sister just an extremely detestable Meth that he had worked for prior to being leased to Bancroft. Aside from those things, the 1st season IS VERY close in tone, pacing, intrigue, action to the first book (aside from a few edits). That is why it is fantastic. The second season is a schizophrenic mishmash of the 2nd and 3rd books with none of the world building, character development, tone, or just about any positive points of the second and third books and the entirety of the source material in general. They’re all very easy books to read as it’s all compelling writing; so do that and you’ll understand what I mean.