Update: I decided on Permutation City, and was unable to put it down until it was done. I am very happy with the book. I am a lot more convinced now that I will eventually read almost all of these, so the order doesn't matter as much.
I liked "Diaspora" more.
This is a thread where people can ask questions that they would ordinarily feel embarrassed for not knowing the answer to. The previous thread is at close to 500 comments.