6 ms·
Would add Permutation City. Shades of the matrix, anticipation of public clouds/floating markets for compute(spot instances), interesting 'what is consciousness
by waterfowl 7y ago
Would add Permutation City. Shades of the matrix, anticipation of public clouds/floating markets for compute(spot instances), interesting 'what is consciousness' re: software copies of a person's mind, etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permutation_City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permutation_City
- stuxnet79 7y agoI read Permutation City a few years ago now. It's certainly a very interesting book that I'd highly recommend. Greg Egan is very much an "ideas" man though. I find that his narratives while intellectually stimulating sometimes don't translate well to a novel format. I find Egan's short stories to be a delight (check out Axiomatic if you haven't) but his novels can be a real slog if you are not a subject matter expert. Neal Stephenson writes in the same "genre" but he has a much more approachable style while not sacrificing on any "hard" elements. My recommendation for anybody who's never read Egan's stuff is to start with his short-stories first.
- teraflop 7y agoI'm a huge fan of Egan's work, but his writing definitely has its strengths and weaknesses. In addition to being an "ideas man", I think his prose is generally excellent. He has a real talent for crafting sentences that are clear, concise, descriptive, and often evocative. (He's mentioned that outside of his writing career, he's a programmer, and I get the sense that any technical documentation he produced would be a joy to read.) It's a testament to his skill that his work is as comprehensible as it is. The downside is that he has a tendency to write character dialogue the same way he writes everything else. Every sentence is carefully constructed to advance an argument, or to reveal a specific detail about a character's viewpoint. The characters end up feeling less like fully-realized people, and more like mouthpieces in a Socratic dialogue. I agree with the recommendation to start with his short stories. Of the ones that are legally available online, I'd suggest "Singleton" (http://www.gregegan.net/MISC/SINGLETON/Singleton.html http://www.gregegan.net/MISC/SINGLETON/Singleton.html) as a good starting point.
- DEADBEEFC0FFEE 7y agoI don't know why, I thought Egan was a physics teacher.
- gjm11 7y agoWell, he kind of is. (In the sense that a lot of his novels are, at heart, mostly physics exposition, whether of real or imaginary physics.)
- guskel 7y agoAlso surprised to not find Permutation City on the list.
- adaml_623 7y agoWas coming to add Greg Egan. A lot of his other novels and short stories would classify as well.
- frikk 7y agoI came here to recommend this because I learned about it from another HN thread. It was a great read and gave me tons to think about.
- squeaky-clean 7y agoI also learned about Permutation City from an HN thread years ago. It's my favorite book now, and I immediately ctrl+F'd this list for Permutation City because everyone else on HN should know it exists.
- bryanlarsen 7y agoAll of Greg Egan's books would be at the top of the list if I was creating it.
- defertoreptar 7y agoI also found it interesting how it considered the "clock speed" of simulations and how that impacts interactions with real world inhabitants.
- scrumper 7y agoDiaspora is a particularly good fit.
- twirlip 7y agoHear, hear. It starts with the birthing of a new AI, the proceeds to its education, its migration into a physical form, its migration into space, the migration into encoded form based on the geometry of a biological organism -- and all of this ancillary to the central plot.
- monday_ 7y ago'Permutation city' deserves a top spot on any list that has hard, comp and fi in the title. Although it's less about implementation details and more about theoretical CS. Here's an excerpt [1]. [1] https://www.gregegan.net/PERMUTATION/Excerpt/PermutationExcerpt.html https://www.gregegan.net/PERMUTATION/Excerpt/PermutationExce...
- sundarurfriend 7y agoAs someone who went into it with great expectations based on threads like these, I'll add my contrary opinion: it was a pretty disappointing read. The story is pretty lukewarm and doesn't particularly drag your interest into it, which would be fine if the point was the philosophical/metaphysical underpinnings were the point - but unfortunately those are pretty weak and superficial as well. Overall it felt like a half-baked mediocre work by a talented author.