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Comment by joshstrange | Hacker News Reader

If you like sci-fi about this topic I recommend The Bobiverse books (don't be put off but the silly-sounding name, it's a good series). Also "Fall; Or, Dodge in Hell" is a good one about brain simulation.

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In my opinion, the best fiction book about this subject is 'Permutation City' by Greg Egan.

Also, this one is pretty good:

https://sifter.org/~simon/AfterLife/index.html

And, in a very similar line to "Lena", this one by Vernor Vinge:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cookie_Monster_(novella)

Also The Quantum Thief trilogy by Hannu Rajaniemi. Excellent sci-fi, horrifying universe.

A second for this, and also one heckuvan engaging read if you like pure 'show, don't tell'. With a bit of software intuition, you'll probably pick up on the majority of what's going on, at least in the first book.

The second book runs truly wild - I have to give it a second reading sometime, because it really starts blurring some interesting lines.

I like much of Stephenson’s work, but Fall did not rank near the top for me. The parts in the virtual world get pretty boring, with little payoff.

I agree, the last third of the book veered off into stuff I didn't find very interesting. The first two thirds or so I found immensely interesting though which is why I still recommend it to people but you aren't wrong.

Stephenson went from “uncensorable machine gun schematics” in the 90s to “but what if someone posts fake news on Facebook?” in 2020. His newer books average a lot worse than his older books.

Having just finished that title, that's a bit of a poor reduction - that section is more one of his usual tangents, with some interesting consequences explored, but basically ends up being used to set up for the changes in technology required to support the rest of the book.

That said, he does spend a lot of time early on basically showing the transition his Shaftoe/Enoch/Dodge-verse must ultimately take; it's kind of an eschaton of many of his prior works.

There's definitely a trend of his at this point to cut forward to take a blurry look at future consequences of past decisions, but with a payoff that is basically opening the door on the real interesting possibilities, yet stops right at the threshold. Fun if you like musing about possibilities, but a bit frustrating if you're expecting a full arc from cause to conclusion.

Came here to recommend "Fall; Or, Dodge in Hell" as well. I recently finished it. While Stephenson can get long-winded, it was a thought provoking story around how brain simulation is received by the world.

Will check out Bobiverse. Thanks for the recommendation!

Seconding Bobiverse! Really fun set of books!

If you liked Bobiverse you should also check out the Expeditionary Force books by Craig Alanson. The most recent Bobiverse book (Book 4) make multiple references to ExForces.

I will warn you there are parts of the first 1-2 books that feel a little repetitive but it really gets better as the series goes on. The author was writing part-time at the start and then he went full time and the books improved IMHO.

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