Permutation City: Amazon.ca: Greg Egan: Books

Product Description

Book Description

The tale of a man with a vision - how to create immortality - and how that vision becomes something way beyond his control.

About the Author

Greg Egan lives in Perth, Western Australia. He has won the John W. Campbell award for Best Novel and has been short listed for the Hugo three times.

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Customer Reviews

29 Reviews

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

Average Customer Review

4.0 out of 5 stars (29 customer reviews)

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Most helpful customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Shockingly Good, May 8 2002

By

Justin "E" (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This is perhaps the finest work of Computer Science based Science Fiction ever written. The most stunning thing here is that Greg Egan actually knows what he's talking about, and isn't afraid to stick to it, in exactly the way that so many "cyber" writers... don't. He actually understands recursion and virtualization, not just throwing words out to sound cool. He doesn't retreat into literary silliness or ridiculous anthropomorphic characterization in a feeble attempt to be some sort of artsy novelist. He keeps it believable, and extremely good.

This is the book I would have written, if I had time (and ability!) to write a novel about recursion and artificial life.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Mind Boggling, Jan 25 2002

By

Christopher Palmer "CMPalmer" (Huntsville, AL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

I'd have to rate this book as one of my all-time favorite SF books. I still freak out a bit if I think too hard about his dust hypothesis.

The best thing about this book is that I read it soon after I had read "The Minds I", a collection of essays about AI and human consciousnes. I suspect that Egan has read the same book, since many of the concepts of Permutation City are based on the thought experiements in The Minds I. This is not to say that Egan's book is not original, as the title suggests, the book is a riff or fugue on a number of concepts related to identity and consciousness.

Most of his wild extrapolations follow perfect logic if you accept the basic premise that a conscious software entity can be created. The idea that, if such an entity exists, maintaining the software state while shutting down the program, then restarting it later from the same state would be experienced by the entity as instantaneous, then following that a succession of these saved states in any chronological order should be perceived as the same experience is mind bending.

Amazon should bundle Permutation City and The Mind's I (and maybe Goedel, Escher, Bach) -- they make a great matched set.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Egan's cusp book, Jan 4 2002

By

Gordon Rios (Palo Alto, CA United States) - See all my reviews

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....

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Most recent customer reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Are you sure this is reality?
An excelent book. What would happen if you could be downloaded to a mainframe? And if your virtual self creates a virtual world that in time creates self consciounness?. Read more

Published on Jan 4 2002 by Juan Mikalef

1.0 out of 5 stars fascinating subject matter in a boring book.
The author has managed to make a fascinating subject somehow seem boring and predictable. At least that is what I thought of the characters and plot of this book. Read more

Published on Aug 19 2001 by richard gibble

4.0 out of 5 stars Highly thought provoking solid philosophical themes
The concept of mind uploading has been a common theme in fiction and science fiction for years. The concept of personality transferal and immortality has captivated mankind for... Read more

Published on Jan 17 2001 by altomic

5.0 out of 5 stars Upload your Mind!
Mobius Dick writes songs about mind uploading, but not many people have successfully written books about it. Egan has, and this one is excellent. Read more

Published on Dec 23 2000 by Glenn H. Reynolds

4.0 out of 5 stars Seemingly endless details, but still good...

Permutation City is a notable cyberpunk novel by Greg Egan, which is worth giving a try if you fancy this genre of literature. Read more

Published on Dec 4 2000 by krazen

3.0 out of 5 stars issues to think about

Greg Egan's Permutation City is a novel centered around computer "copies" of human beings. Egan takes these characters on quite an interesting journey. Read more

Published on Dec 4 2000 by Angela Hemme

3.0 out of 5 stars Permutation City
Greg Egan must have an incredible amount of intelligence when it comes to technology. Either that, or he has a masterful imagination. Read more

Published on Dec 4 2000 by tdwave

4.0 out of 5 stars Highly recommended look at brain sims and artificial life
Greg Egan is one of the most inventive and exciting current SF writers. His SF is distinctly "hard", rife with "cutting edge" speculations, and also... Read more

Published on Sep 6 2000 by Richard R. Horton

2.0 out of 5 stars Too much technical detail, too little plot
There are a lot of interesting ideas in this book, but unfortunately none are fully developed. There is very little plot and the characters, who were difficult to tell apart, are... Read more

Published on July 24 2000 by sbtier

3.0 out of 5 stars I AM STILL MIDWAY...
I haven't really finished the book & I find it very tempting to simply give up, close the pages & stuff the book in my shelf. Read more

Published on July 3 2000 by juj