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Comment by AlexDanger | Hacker News Reader

The author Greg Egan addresses these types of themes extremely well.

One of my favourite short stories is specifically related to the idea expressed in your post: http://ttapress.com/553/crystal-nights-by-greg-egan/

On a tangential note, he has another short story (Transition Dreams) that examines the process of 'uploading' a human brain from its natural substrate to a computer. He raises some thought-provoking points about this process.

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Thanks for posting Crystal Nights I really like it and now plan on reading more by Greg Egan. Do you know of any similar authors?

Alas no. I read a range of sci-fi but am not aware of other authors who write such amazing speculative fiction. He really takes sci-fi ideas to unpredictable yet believable conclusions. It is real hard sci-fi.

If you do discover similar authors, please let me know.

Recommended reading:

All his short stories are amazing. I'd highly recommend them:

http://www.amazon.com/Luminous-Greg-Egan-ebook/dp/B00E84BABW

http://www.amazon.com/Axiomatic-Greg-Egan-ebook/dp/B00FDWOBZ...

Some of his novels are hit and miss, but certainly worth checking out. This is probably my favourite:

http://www.amazon.com/Permutation-City-Greg-Egan-ebook/dp/B0...

Ted Chiang! He has some stories that deal with similar issues, like "The Lifecycle of Software Objects". But I enjoy his people-centered stories more, my favorite is "Liking What You See: A Documentary", you can read it online here: http://www.ibooksonline.com/88/Text/liking.html . Another great one is "Hell is the Absence of God".

Yeah, Ted Chiang is great. I really enjoyed "Stories of Your Life and Others" this winter. Thanks for the recommendations, they're on my list!

Yeah, that is great stuff. The language of our times capturing some very old themes, biblical even, under an interpretation. Primo betraying Sapphire's creator/god, the violent escape of the created from a realm governed by the creator for his benefit to another world of their own design.

Peter F . Hamilton and Charles Stross are the next two authors you want to check out. :)

Stanisław Lem

Do you know if Transition Dreams is available on Kindle? I couldn't seem to find it.

It's in this collection. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1857985737

Here for $2.99:

http://www.amazon.com/Luminous-Greg-Egan-ebook/dp/B00E84BABW...

Get this collection as well:

http://www.amazon.com/Axiomatic-Greg-Egan-ebook/dp/B00FDWOBZ...

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