Permutation City, by Greg Egan

I heard about Permutation City from H. C. Bonner's blog who contacted me about my Fourier Life website. Since I'm also interested in cellular automata and how they might be used to discover the origin of life, I downloaded the sample of Permutation City onto my Kindle.

The book started out well. It was well-written with a good style, a somewhat rare quality of science fiction. There was mystery and interesting characters, so when I got to the end of the sample I purchased the book (only $2.99).

With the Kindle sample, usually around 5% of the book, it is easy to judge character and style, but it's impossible to judge the structure since the first plot point--the central conflict--doesn't appear until around 25%. And if the book doesn't follow a standard structure, it's also impossible to tell from the sample.

In the case of Permutation City, the first plot point didn't come until 88% of the book! As a result, for most of the book I was wondering: Who are these people? What are they after? How do they fit together? Why should I care? Once I got the answers at the 88% mark, I was interested. But because the book was almost over, the development and resolution were rushed and quite unsatisfying. The central idea of the book was intriguing, but the flawed structure destroyed any chance of making it into an interesting story.