jack

I reread Permutation City recently. I think it's probably an injustice to say it made more sense this time, but knowing what was going to happen let me follow a few of the events more easily, and consider the main idea better.

Can this be a spoiler? I've joked before about things like the Titanic sinking not being a spoiler for any story, as it's intendedly part of the background. However, if a story is based on a philosophical/mathematical fact/observation, that fact has to be true beforehand as well -- you might plead ignorance that no-one had told you that the titanic famously sunk, but the fact that, eg. travelling round the world, resetting your watch at each timezone, gains you an hour, is an inescapable consequence of how astronomy and calenders work.

However, I'm only teasing. Obviously most such facts can be true but not obvious, and it's a spoiler that they're important *here* whether you knew of them or not. And many are *not* obvious even if true. And some might be literally true, but only seem relevant with the appropriate emotional impact.

Thus, the rest of this post contains no spoilers for the plot as such, but rather for the underlying idea. In this case, I do think you benefit a bit from discovering what's going on as you go along, but if you don't mind, never mind.

( Spoilers )