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
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