Tangential plug for a great "hard" SF read, http://www.amazon.com/Diaspora-Greg-Egan-ebook/dp/B00E83YOEI... - your comment would make good liner notes..

For sci-fi readers that dig aperiodic tiling, Greg Egan wrote a great short story in his book 'Diaspora' about computational wang tiles. http://www.amazon.com/Diaspora-Greg-Egan-ebook/dp/B00E83YOEI (the short story is titled Wang's Carpets, available separately as well, but the whole book is worth buying or checking out from the library).

I hope this is considered on topic. I find fiction, particular that which inspires interest in math/code to always be particularly relevant.

IMO "The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect" is awful.

My main criticism is that it simply assumes the point it sets out to make (SPOILERS: basically that if you can't die and anything is possible, life would have no meaning). It really doesn't do anything to show why that'd be the case.

It also really fetishises extreme violence and, to a certain extent, incest. (My beef is not with the fact that it involves those things, but with the way that it handles them).

If you're looking for something with similar machine-intelligence, fairly limitless possibilities, and the like, I think Greg Egan's Diaspora is a far superior treatment. http://www.amazon.com/Diaspora-Greg-Egan/dp/0575082097

If you want a fictional account of a post-singularity world, you can do no better than Greg Egan's Disapora: http://www.amazon.com/Diaspora-Greg-Egan/dp/0061057983

Not only is it a highly detailed and well thought out vision of the possibilities and philosophical challenges of "living in a computer," but the plot is driven and defined by hard physics. Do not underestimate how literally I mean this last sentence :)

The opening chapter is available free as a short story. In fact I think I will submit it right now.

edit: here we are: http://gregegan.customer.netspace.net.au/DIASPORA/01/Orphano...