This book set me off on CA: Cellular Automata A Discrete Universe. It's a great read and quite dense. I peruse it constantly for ideas and information.

https://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/4702#t...

The author, Andrew Ilachinski, also did work in combat simulation.

I like APL and J so seeing CA implemented in J was also a draw.