I can't believe that it has taken me this long to read a Greg Egan novel, after all he is a fellow resident of Perth and has been writing quality science fiction for decades. Egan is notorious for never attending conventions, participating in book signings and has managed the near impossible feat of never having a picture of himself published on the web. For all I know I could have mingled with him at one of the many parties I went to in the 1990's around the University of Western Australia area (where Egan studied mathematics). Previously I have read Axiomatic (1995), Egan's collection of brilliant short stories, and Permutation City is just as amazing. The novel is conceptually brilliant; perhaps being the best depiction of what it would be like to be a self aware copied simulation of a human mind in cyberspace I have ever encountered.
Permutation City is endlessly fascinating and inventive, including a feasible depiction of what it would take to bootstrap a self perpetuating universe out of the nebulous reality of cyberspace itself. I came close to awarding Permutation City a sublime rating, however it was only let down by some stylistically flat sections and some slightly one-dimensional characters; however these are only minor quibbles when considering the mind-bending thematic scope of Permutation City. The novel is a total must read for science fiction devotees and I'm definitely going to read another of his novels' sooner rather than later.
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