HN Books @HNBooksMonth

Surprised to see Permutation City in that list. Given that the book is written in 1994, Gregg displays admirable prescience about how computing would develop. Honestly you would think it was written in the last 5 years or so. His vision of cloud computing is absolutely outstanding. It blew me away when I checked when the book was written after reading the first few chapters.

I'd read Schild's Ladder prior to reading Permutation city, which is also a good read. It does seem to get bogged down in the technical and descriptive side of things at times, however, it's a fantastic idea for a story. The main premise of the film would make a great movie.

Whilst I'm on the subject of good "Hard sci-fi" novels, Tau Zero is also worth reading.

Edit - I'll also throw this in: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0814703259

Magic :-)

⬐ Estragon

Read the Orthogonal trilogy. I think it may be Egan's best work.

Although it's more like Schild's Ladder than Permutation City, I suppose. (Physics ideas rather than computation.)

⬐ odbol_

Cloud computing isn't really anything new. Back in the day they just called them "servers". And clients were "dumb terminals".

⬐ jcrites

If you like Permutation City, you might also enjoy another of Egan's works, Diaspora. http://www.amazon.com/Diaspora-Novel-Greg-Egan/dp/1597805424...

"Since the Introdus in the twenty-first century, humanity has reconfigured itself drastically. Most chose immortality, joining the polises to become conscious software. Others opted for gleisners: disposable, renewable robotic bodies that remain in contact with the physical world of force and friction. Many of these have left the solar system forever in fusion-drive starships.

And there are the holdouts: the fleshers left behind in the muck and jungle of Earth—some devolved into dream apes, others cavorting in the seas or the air—while the statics and bridgers try to shape out a roughly human destiny."

Egan's books have been some of the most thought-provoking I've ever read as far as science fiction technology. A lot of the works were out of print until recently; I'm glad to see there's been a resurgence of interest in his writing, and the availability of his works.

⬐ ngoldbaum

Another Egan book well worth reading is Schild's Ladder, which reminds me a lot of Diaspora and was recently reissued in the US:

http://www.amazon.com/Schilds-Ladder-Novel-Greg-Egan/dp/1597...

⬐ ChrisClark

Those are all great, in fact I'd recommend reading pretty much all of his books. I've got a shelf full of them. :)