Permutation City Audiobook By Greg Egan cover art

Permutation City

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Permutation City

By: Greg Egan
Narrated by: Adam Epstein
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About this listen

The good news is that you have just awakened into Eternal Life. You are going to live forever. Immortality is a reality. A medical miracle? Not exactly.

The bad news is that you are a scrap of electronic code. The world you see around you, the you that is seeing it, has been digitized, scanned, and downloaded into a virtual reality program. You are a Copy that knows it is a copy.

The good news is that there is a way out. By law, every Copy has the option of terminating itself, and waking up to normal flesh-and-blood life again. The bail-out is on the utilities menu. You pull it down...The bad news is that it doesn't work. Someone has blocked the bail-out option. And you know who did it. You did. The other you. The real you. The one that wants to keep you here forever.

©2013 Greg Egan (P)2013 Audible, Inc.
Hard Science Fiction Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction Fiction
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Editorial reviews

Greg Egan concocts a fascinating and thought-provoking novel that explores the role of technology in creating alternate realities, blurring the lines between what is "real" and what isn't. In this future world of globalized economy and devastating climate change, Paul Durham has scanned multiple "Copies" of himself into his computer and becomes entangled with Maria, an Autoverse aficionado. Egan raises interesting questions about artificial intelligence and morality within a technological world, and it's a high concept that is brought to life by Adam Epstein, whose measured performance and faintly rumbling voice adds a palpable and dramatic intrigue to Permutation City.

What listeners say about Permutation City

Average customer ratings
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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Excellent Hard SciFi done right! AWFUL narration

Would you consider the audio edition of Permutation City to be better than the print version?

No, the narration was awful, about as bad as possible without causing me to stop listening or return the purchase to audible. His voice is nasal, and his style monotonous: A deadly combination. On top of this, his accents were awful

What other book might you compare Permutation City to and why?

Anything else by Greg Egan; The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick

What didn’t you like about Adam Epstein’s performance?

His voice is nasal, and his style monotonous: A deadly combination. On top of this, his accents were awful I don't recall listening to anything else by him, so maybe he just had a bad day.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Permutation City, the Movie: WTF, Hollywood Actually Made This?

Any additional comments?

Permutation City amounts to a compelling thought experiment on the nature of consciousness, self-identity, and the implications of artificial reality & existence. This is not SpaceOpera scifi; It's hard scifi and requires thinking about the ideas & concepts presented rather than passively enjoying a good story. One of my favorite books.

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12 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Felt like a story that couldn't decide

Felt like a story that couldn't decide what it wanted to be about. There are enough ideas here for several books but it felt like a Frankenstein conglomeration instead of one complete story. I also found the narrator really off putting. I know that criticism of the narrator is pretty vague but lots of reviewers express similar views so be warned.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Weird narration, good book

Poorly done accents (Germans that sound Russian, Australian that sounds... just bad, an uncomfortable Caribbean/Italian combo for no reason at one point), some obvious mispronounced words. The performance distracts from the content.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Great novel, middling reading.

Permutation City is, to me, still Egan's best novel. Though I don't buy the dust hypothesis, or implicit permutations of it which show up in Part 2, surely something resembling it (but a bit tamer) must be true.

The reading could have been better. Certain words were always mispronounced; other words were misread entirely.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

good book, bad narrator

I don't like to be negative in reviews but the narrator appears to have a single way of intonating sentences, so that he always puts an accent/stress on the last word. This was terrible to listen to for the first few hours until I got used to it.

But the book is great, although it seems to me it has a weak ending.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Epic hallucinatory trip

Great story blending fiction, science and bizarre. The plot and writing is very much in the Philip K Dick style. The universes are being created, recreated and reimagined at the characters' wbim. The audiobook is read in the manner of Napoleon Dynamite, which initially was utterly annoying, however, on reflection the robotic narration suits the story line. Worth persevering to the end.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

On Sale....for a reason

The story is great...the reader is terrible. Dante has a level in Hell where you are made to listen to this reader.

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Absolutely Amazing

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I would recommend this book to anyone.

Have you listened to any of Adam Epstein’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Adam Epstein did an excellent job. I can see some of the negative reviews on here about him and quite frankly I'm left scratching my head. I actually can't imagine a better narrator for this book, Adam Epstein did an excellent job I thought. He really breathed life into this book.

Any additional comments?

I was a bit concerned by the negative reviews regarding the narrator (Epstein) but I've found they were completely unfounded, he did a great job. Permutation City is one of the best books I've ever read (listened to). I've been contemplating the subject of mind uploading for quite a long time and Greg Egan did an excellent (!!!) job fleshing this topic out. What an amazing thinker. I especially loved the way he depicted how humans would modify themselves to live in isolated digital environments for thousands of years. One of the most fascinating books I've ever read, for sure.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Love the story, hate the performance

The book itself is great, however, the narrating makes it almost impossible to enjoy it. Monotonous nasal voice with the same exact intonation pattern for every sentence. Whenever he switches to female roles it is pure torture. After reading some reviews here I set the speed to 1.25x and it made it a little more tolerable, but still, I would suggest looking for a different version or just reading the book instead

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Listen at 1.4 speed.

I know the narration can be a struggle. But I promise it's much more tolerable and normal if you adjust the speed in your audible app.

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