Permutation City Blog

Roberts can have some interesting ideas but isn't so good at the execution. Here he wonders what judicial beheading would be like if criminals were given prosthetics afterwards. The head is thrown away and the body is given a prosthetic mind and senses afterwards. Appart from the treatment of headless as second class citizens the story doesn't really go anywhere.

The setting was the most interesting part of this book. People could fly planes through the interplanetary aether to visit nearby moons and take ballon rides to other planets. Rather than develop this fully it started asking questions about reality instead.

This book is set in a universe where nano-technology has transformed humanity. Bodyshape has become a matter of fashion and human necessities are taken care of. Crime is all but unknown except that the main character is a murder now being employed to commit a mass murder. A reasonable read, I might check out some of his other books.