Futurists & Big-Picture Thinkers
Permutation City
Greg Egan · 1994 · Millennium
A hard science-fiction novel about simulated people living as software copies, exploring artificial life, simulated reality and what makes a mind continuous. Won the 1995 John W. Campbell Memorial Award. Fiction, not nonfiction.
Cover image: Open Library.
Summary
Permutation City follows people who exist as software copies of themselves, and a plan to build a simulated world that keeps running without the computer it started on. Sections were adapted from Egan's 1992 short story "Dust," and the novel explores artificial life, simulated reality and what makes a mind continuous. It won the 1995 John W. Campbell Memorial Award and was nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award.
Summary based on the publisher's page ↗
Read it
The author's site has a free excerpt and a Dust Theory FAQ; borrow the full novel through WorldCat, Libby or Hoopla.
About the author
Greg Egan
Greg Egan is an Australian science fiction writer and mathematician, best known for his works of hard science fiction. Egan has won multiple awards including the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, the Hugo Award, and the Locus Award.
Source: Wikipedia ↗