'Permutation City' by Greg Egan

Permutation City, Greg Egan (3.0)

I give this book a 3.0 rating due to its creative, thought provoking concepts. Unfortunately the plot, characters and general writing don’t boost it past that mid-level score. The story jumps between storylines in the future where people regularly spend time in a virtual reality construct and scientists are at the turning point of being able to digitize (i.e. make a Copy) of people. This brings up some of the interesting concepts – if you make a copy of yourself, which one is really you? How much does the Copy become its own entity, as it exists on its own, farther in time from when you made the Copy? Will there be a larger have/have not divide with those that can afford the computing power to have Copies? Unfortunately the first 30% of the book is pretty confusing. It eventually becomes clear that one man is courting rich people by promising them a type of immortality, though I didn’t buy-in to the premise that made this possible. Many good Sci-fi books push technology to the realm of the unbelievable, but the writing is good enough that you go along for the ride. For some reason, this book did not suspend belief for me. Only hard-core Sci-fi fans should try this book – and just for the thought provoking concepts – your scientific principles will need to be put on hold for this read.