Justin Younger reviewed Permutation City by Greg Egan
Review of 'Permutation City (Subjective Cosmology #2)' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
Tough read but very prescient.
327 pages
French language
Published Sept. 12, 1999
La cité des permutants
by Greg Egan
4 stars
(75 reviews)
Permutation City is a 1994 science-fiction novel by Greg Egan that explores many concepts, including quantum ontology, through various philosophical aspects of artificial life and simulated reality. Sections of the story were adapted from Egan's 1992 short story "Dust", which dealt with many of the same philosophical themes. Permutation City won the John W. Campbell Award for the best science-fiction novel of the year in 1995 and was nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award the same year. The novel was also cited in a 2003 Scientific American article on multiverses by Max Tegmark.
loppear reviewed Permutation City by Greg Egan
I love the 90s scifi cover, "people on a chip" is not really what this is at all, although it is too.
5 stars
Speaking my language at 14 or 40, hard implications for immortality and self-redefinition in computationally simulated brain scans and artificially evolved life.
WiFlag reviewed Permutation City by Greg Egan
Review of 'Permutation city' on 'GoodReads'
4 stars
Interesting as a series of thought experiments in the philosophy of transhumanism
luxon reviewed Permutation City by Greg Egan
Best science fiction I've ever read
5 stars
It's hard sci-fi, with the basic conceit that fundamentally, physics literally is math, that everything mathematical literally exists. But what's most gripping is the description of consciousness and simulated or repeated consciousness, and slicing it, and duplicating it, and messing with it. Made me feel weird while reading it, and still does, and informs the way I think about the mind.
Spencer reviewed Permutation City by Greg Egan
Review of 'Permutation City (Subjective Cosmology #2)' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
Great book, could have been better.
flancian reviewed Permutation City by Greg Egan
Review of 'Permutation City (Subjective Cosmology #2)' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
Great succession of ideas about topics dear to my heart. It almost always went into the direction I personally found the most interesting, and skipped over most conflicts that would have been more "standard" for a narrative.
Sometimes the characters aren't fleshed out perfectly, but I mostly didn't care. It reminded me of PKD a bit, which is a good thing.
I felt like the ending was slightly underwhelming, but not a deal breaker. I'll probably read Diaspora from the same author next.
Pentapod reviewed Permutation City by Greg Egan
Review of 'Permutation City (Subjective Cosmology #2)' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
This is a tough book to review, and I am torn between 3 and 4 stars. It's full of fascinating ideas and discussion of virtual copies of real humans and the issues they might deal with; it's amazingly forward thinking (especially considering it was written in 1994) and I might have been more blown away had I read it back then instead of now. However the characters are unfortunately very flat and for the most part rather unlikable, and the writing is not particularly exciting. I found myself struggling to finish the last quarter of the book despite the interesting subject material because it's just not told in a way that grabs you, and I really found most of the characters dull to the point I had trouble telling some of them apart. So, a fascinating setting and a lot of interesting SF speculation but unfortunately let down a bit …
This is a tough book to review, and I am torn between 3 and 4 stars. It's full of fascinating ideas and discussion of virtual copies of real humans and the issues they might deal with; it's amazingly forward thinking (especially considering it was written in 1994) and I might have been more blown away had I read it back then instead of now. However the characters are unfortunately very flat and for the most part rather unlikable, and the writing is not particularly exciting. I found myself struggling to finish the last quarter of the book despite the interesting subject material because it's just not told in a way that grabs you, and I really found most of the characters dull to the point I had trouble telling some of them apart. So, a fascinating setting and a lot of interesting SF speculation but unfortunately let down a bit by the writing in my opinion.
