Rating: 
Summary: Pure intellectual stimulation.
Review: Immortality, the nature of conciousness, the nature of reality, and more. This book is hard science fiction at its very best. I cannot think of another book to rival this one in terms of pure intellectual stimulation. Egan takes a few simple ideas and runs with them as well as anyone writing today. The writing is wonderful, the characters are interesting, but oh! the ideas, the ideas are grand! This book took me forever to read; so many times I would read a paragraph then stare into space and think about the ramifications and possibillities. This book should appeal to anyone with an interest in physics, artificial intelligence, and philosophy, or anyone who enjoys thinking about about what it means to be, especially what it means to be YOU
Rating:
Summary: Self-aware copies on a rampage
Review: In Science Fiction we know you can scan a human brain. Run a simulation of this brain on a computer. Including a lifelike animation of the persons facial expressions, voice and body.
We know that the simulation will be able to carry on a conversation indistinguishable from a conversation with the real person. I.e. the simulation will pass the Turing test with ease. The self-aware Copy can then be uploaded to a virtual city, where it can live forever together with other copies.
We have heard it many times. Perhaps, so many times that many of us don't really doubt that it will come to pass some day..... But what is it really, really like to be self-aware in a software environment? I looked around for some good books on the subject. Books that would give some really thoroughly worked out explorations. Finally, I stumbled upon Greg Egans 1994 "Permutation City". And what a real treat this book is! In Greg Egans world it is not easy to be a copy. People react badly to walking up as copies. Sure, we expect most copies to be made from the very old or terminally ill. People for whom it is the last resort. Nevertheless, most can't face living like this. And end up muttering the password "Abulafia" to get out.
Only a few have the stomach for living as a copy.
Egan convinces us that copies will probably start out being made for the benefit of human survivors. But someday there will be no survivors left. Or worse, after a while the copy might become the original and terminate the original. So, In the end there will only be copies.
We better start pay attention!
And off we go. Following a logic that
seems inevitable as the copies prepare for eternity.
An eternity where resurrecting Adam and Eve in virtual Heaven for amusement - or starting a new Earth simulation from scratch, complete with little algae evolving under the laws of Darwin and billions of computer runtime years - seems the most natural
things in the world to be doing. A great book
-Simon
Rating:
Summary: The best sci-fi book I've ever read!
Review: Listen to me I've got an english degree... and I've read a lot of science fiction. I wasted my youth reading all the classics... H G Wells, Heinlein, Asimov, Herbert, Dick, Burrough, Ballard...and all that cyber-stuff too - I've read practically their entire output... I've watched all the films, read all the comics, played about with computers pointlessly... ...and this... ...this... ...is absolutely the best science fiction book I've ever read. Egan is the supreme science fiction writer living today, if not of the century. Permutation City goes BEYOND itself, beyond the known - it's a trip, man! Egan's other books - Axiomatic, Quarantine, Distress, Diaspora - are also worthy of superfluous praise such as this. In Permutation City he has given back science fiction its philosophical edge - lost in the rest of cyberpunk where we find just second hand images, stylised characters/dialogue/events, and a pretence at intellectual validity. Plus he's a virtuoso stylist, writing in bare, beautiful language... it's great! just read it.
Rating:
Summary: Upload your Mind!
Review: Mobius Dick writes songs about mind uploading, but not many people have successfully written books about it. Egan has, and this one is excellent. The opening paragraph is one of the best-written opening paragraphs in science fiction, and the book continues in that vein. It's just damned good.
Rating: 
Summary: Mind-bending
Review: My first Egan book and enough to make me go out and get some more. Be prepared to reread the first few chapters a few times before you've gotten to the end. But I have to admit, I liked _Distress_ better -- it's like _Permutation City_ squared.
Rating:
Summary: Mind-bending
Review: My first Egan book and enough to make me go out and get some more. Be prepared to reread the first few chapters a few times before you've gotten to the end. But I have to admit, I liked _Distress_ better -- it's like _Permutation City_ squared.
Rating:
Summary: Long term impact.
Review: Okay I'll admit it, two stars probably doesn't do this book justice. I say probably because despite the fact that I have my Masters and teach Advance History Courses in high school I didn't understand any of the science behind the book. For example the vaunted "dust theory" which seemed to be the lynchpin for all of the "hard science" in the book. Didn't get it. Not one bit. I think it meant something along the lines of "if somebody farts in Georgia, through a chain a reaction it MIGHT cause a heatwave in Tokoyo". In addition there was stuff about an Autoverse, TVR, dancing insects and a whole slew of scientific theories that I just couldn't quite grasp. .... The social science aspect of the book certainly was intriguing. How would human society, and on a micro level, individual humans cope if they could live for eternity? One of the characters in the novel spent 76 straight years shaping table legs out of wood only to suddenly give it up so that he could study beetles. I don't know about you but if I knew that I could live for eternity and could shape my own environment I can't imagine ever getting bored.... Nevertheless if somehow you can grasp the scientific theories of this novel I'm sure that you will get a lot more out of it than I did. You might even consider the book outstanding, but again it was way over my head. In fact I feel stupid giving it two stars,... So I rate this book with a simple caveat, if you are not a science whiz it is two stars at best, if on the other hand you are considerably smarter than I am it is probably excellent. ... I will now end this review with my signature haiku. Permutation City
some scientific hooey
I didn't quite grasp.
Rating: 
Summary: Hard Book to Understand if your IQ is below 140
Review: Okay I'll admit it, two stars probably doesn't do this book justice. I say probably because despite the fact that I have my Masters and teach Advance History Courses in high school I didn't understand any of the science behind the book. For example the vaunted "dust theory" which seemed to be the lynchpin for all of the "hard science" in the book. Didn't get it. Not one bit. I think it meant something along the lines of "if somebody farts in Georgia, through a chain a reaction it MIGHT cause a heatwave in Tokoyo". In addition there was stuff about an Autoverse, TVR, dancing insects and a whole slew of scientific theories that I just couldn't quite grasp. .... The social science aspect of the book certainly was intriguing. How would human society, and on a micro level, individual humans cope if they could live for eternity? One of the characters in the novel spent 76 straight years shaping table legs out of wood only to suddenly give it up so that he could study beetles. I don't know about you but if I knew that I could live for eternity and could shape my own environment I can't imagine ever getting bored.... Nevertheless if somehow you can grasp the scientific theories of this novel I'm sure that you will get a lot more out of it than I did. You might even consider the book outstanding, but again it was way over my head. In fact I feel stupid giving it two stars,... So I rate this book with a simple caveat, if you are not a science whiz it is two stars at best, if on the other hand you are considerably smarter than I am it is probably excellent. ... I will now end this review with my signature haiku. Permutation City
some scientific hooey
I didn't quite grasp.
Rating:
Summary: Egan's cusp book
Review: One of his last books that maintains some accessibility and entertainment value to balance off his increasingly abstract theses. After this, his books are quite difficult but this one is a lot of fun -- especially for CS people. Be warned however that it's definitely *hard* sf....
Rating:
Summary: Philosophy meets cyberpunk
Review: Permutation City at first seems like just another cyberpunk book having to do with copying one's self and the implications thereof. The book however deals with much more and by the middle of the book I was hooked. The book's themes touch on issues that are either present today or may soon be pressing issues in society. There is much description of technological workings in the book but Egan does a great job of explaining things so everyone can comprehend. The plot line of the book is weak but I think it is only there to hook the reader into the more important themes within the book. The society within the book feels that copies are some eccentric thing that millionaires do. Paul Durham goes and offers a sanctuary, based on the "Dust Theory" that Egan puts forth in the book, to copies at the cost of 2 million dollars a each. He manages to convince 15 people to copy themselves into this "TVC" universe. He even contracts someone to build an "Autoverse" planet in which Alien life will develop. What he promises them is immortality. Not the ability to live for a long time but just simple immortality, never dying. But this TVC universe is turned upside down once they make contact with the aliens from the Autoverse.
The main character Paul Durham is a 24th generation copy. This raises the question of what constitutes a human. Is a copy still considered a human even though he/she lacks a human body? One of the characters in the book, Francesca, doesn't want to be copied because she feels that since copies are different and not an extension of one's being it is not the same person. This is also a dilemma that presents itself. If a copy is different then would copying yourself be for yourself or your loved ones? The copy would act the same as the real person but it would not be a direct extension of consciousness so one could not directly achieve immortality. Another problem that presents itself is the needs of the living versus the needs of the copies. In the book there is a looming threat of diverting computing power to controlling the weather, meaning that copies would have further "slowdown". Slowdown is the factor in which real time is faster than perceived time in a VR environment. These are questions and issues that society needs to deal with although we may face them through cloning rather than copying. I think that this book is a great read. It is not for those that like the traditional cyberpunk novel where there is a structured plot line and the main character ends up saving the world. This novel makes one think about the issues brought up by Egan. I don't know how to classify it, possibly Philosophical Cyberpunk, but it is a good read none the less. And a must read for those tired of traditional Cyberpunk novels.
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