Permutation City
Immortality can be yours... at a price Permutation city is the tale of a man with a vision - how to create immortality - and how that vision becomes grows beyond his control. Encompassing the lives and struggles of an artificial life junkie desperate to save her dying mother, a billionaire banker scarred by a terrible crime, the lovers for whom, in their timeless virtual world, love is not enough - and much more - Permutation city is filled with the sense of wonder and dread. Can what makes you human be distilled into data? And what happens if you can't afford to pay?
Stats for nerds
256recommend
542mentions
354people
2008–2026years
70% recommend27% neutral3% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- I always think of Conway's Game of Life in this regard. He (Conway) seems to not think that much of his invention, but to me it is THE understandable proof that nearly anything can emerge from simple rules. Even the Game of life itself [0]. It's the basis (or rather important theme) of Permutation city (Greg Egan) [1], from 1994 (!) That guy is so ahead of his time, him and Ted Chiang are my fav authors.
This stuff is like staring the universe into its soul.
- Imo Greg Egan's Permutation City is a far more interesting exploration of consciousness.
- Permutation City is one of my top favourites I've ever read. It's a bit nerdy (less so than other Greg Egan books), and it also spooked me in a weird way. For a summary what it is about, it's basically this comic: https://xkcd.com/505/
- Egan's dedication to going above and beyond justifying the worlds he creates still astounds me. I hope they make one of his books into a movie (Permutation City is my favorite and would be very topical given today's obsession with AGI).
- Meaty: Quarantine by Greg Egan. Easily my favorite book so far this year. It starts as a detective story, but then spirals into something much bigger. Forced beliefs, quantum super positions, and the existential dread of repeatedly facing your own non-existence. It's second only to Permutation City in my Egan tier list.
That book led me to Quantum Computing for Everyone. It's good so far, but more work than expected to follow along being that I'm dumb.
Since the question is what are you reading (not what have you read): Ant-Kind by Charlie Kaufman. It's too soon to say if it's good or not, but it has made me laugh out loud several times. I'm about 80 pages in, and it's only just now started to open up into Kaufman's recursive, meta story telling that makes his film stuff so cool.
- If this interests you, you may enjoy the book Permutation City by Egan.
