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Review: Kiln People, David Brin

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Ross TenEyck

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Jan 29, 2003, 2:27:40 PM1/29/03
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[This has been out for a while; but it just came out in paperback
this week, and I'm cheap.]

Kiln People
David Brin

Executive summary: this is pretty good Brin; vastly better than the most
recent Uplift books, but not at the level of _Startide Rising._

This is SF in the classic "what if" mode; in this case, the what-if is:
what if anyone could make temporary and expendable copies of themselves
any time they wanted?

The copies ("dits" or "dittos" or "roxes" or "golems") are made out of
a clay-based substance (why clay is suitable for this purpose receives
only the most glancing of handwaves; but it lets Brin hang several useful
metaphors and historical parallels off the process); your "Soul Standing
Wave" is scanned and impressed into the clay blank, which is then "baked"
(the kiln of the title), and voila, you have a copy of you.

The dittos have a lifespan of roughly twenty-four hours, at which time
the stored energy built into their body is expended, and they melt.
However, if your ditto makes it back home, it can "inload" its memories
into your brain; if it doesn't -- or if for some reason it or you chooses
not to inload -- then you can only speculate on what it experienced.

This technology is, at the time the story takes place, cheap and
ubiquitous enough that essentially everyone can take advantage of it,
and does. As the protagonist -- and his copies -- move through the
plot, we see several of the implications of this: thrill seekers,
for instance, who construct combat-specialized dittos and battle each
other to the "death," then inload memories from their ditto's head.
Why not? The ditto's body is expendable, and as long as the copy
of the person animating the ditto is reasonably assured of inloading,
they have nothing to lose by experiencing this "death."

The protagonist is one (or many) Albert Morris(es), a private investigator
specializing in copyright infringement -- which in this world, means
stealing someone's dittos and making copies of them. Albert is hired
to investigate the disappearance of Yosil Maharal, one of the inventors
of ditto technology. That is, the disappearance of the *real* Yosil;
a ditto of him is still around to assist -- or not -- in the investigation.

At this point, Albert makes a few dittos, and the story becomes multi-
threaded; even though each viewpoint character is still Albert Morris.
Then things get complicated.

Brin is very good at writing middles of stories, and the middle of this
one is mostly very good -- excitement, mystery, captures, escapes, the
whole Princess Bride list except gunfights instead of swords. It can
become tricky to keep track of which ditto has learned which pieces of
the puzzle, but Brin manages to keep everything in control as the various
threads unwind.

Unfortunately, Brin is historically not very good at writing ends of
stories, and this one is no exception. The ending achieves an eye-rolling
factor even greater than _Earth,_ which is no mean feat; and we encounter
some of Brin's characteristic tics, such as the villian who is not content
to explain his entire evil plot, but must also expound on philosophical
and quasi-scientific topics of interest to the author.

The last page is a cute twist, though.

So, overall, I quite enjoyed it. If you like Brin's earlier works, such
as _Earth_ or _Glory Season_ or the early Uplift books, then this is a
return to form after the highly disappointing recent Uplift trilogy.

--
================== http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~teneyck ==================
Ross TenEyck Seattle, WA \ Light, kindled in the furnace of hydrogen;
ten...@alumni.caltech.edu \ like smoke, sunlight carries the hot-metal
Are wa yume? Soretomo maboroshi? \ tang of Creation's forge.

EdLincoln

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Jan 30, 2003, 11:24:36 AM1/30/03
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Actually, I loved the beginning, and thought the end was rather neat. There
was a point in the middle when things got rather slow for me.

<< Subject: Review: Kiln People, David Brin
From: ten...@alumnae.caltech.edu (Ross TenEyck)
Date: Wed, Jan 29, 2003 2:27 PM
Message-id: <b199vc$k2b$1...@naig.caltech.edu>

Daniel Ban (Sharpe)

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Jan 30, 2003, 11:34:04 AM1/30/03
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"Ross TenEyck" <ten...@alumnae.caltech.edu> wrote in message
news:b199vc$k2b$1...@naig.caltech.edu...

> [This has been out for a while; but it just came out in paperback
> this week, and I'm cheap.]
>
> Kiln People
> David Brin

Ross, thanks for a good and informative (non-spoiler) review. I had been
holding off on this b/c I felt that Brin had entered a real slump with his
last few books but this sounds like a book that, although not perfect, goes
a long way at returning to form. But a bigger over-the-top ending than
Earth? Even MORE cheesy-villian fu? Hmm, might be bad, might be fun :).
I think I'll go buy it.

Dan


Dorothy J Heydt

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Jan 30, 2003, 11:40:54 AM1/30/03
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In article <20030130112436...@mb-da.aol.com>,

EdLincoln <edli...@aol.com> wrote:
>
>The copies ("dits" or "dittos" or "roxes" or "golems") are made out of
>a clay-based substance (why clay is suitable for this purpose receives
>only the most glancing of handwaves....

Possibly Brin had been reading Cairns-Smith's _Seven Clues to the
Origin of Life,_ which speculates that the first molecules of
life on Earth built up on clay layers?

Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djh...@kithrup.com
http://www.kithrup.com/~djheydt

Lori

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Jan 30, 2003, 12:31:59 PM1/30/03
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In article <b199vc$k2b$1...@naig.caltech.edu>, ten...@alumnae.caltech.edu
(Ross TenEyck) wrote:

> [This has been out for a while; but it just came out in paperback
> this week, and I'm cheap.]
>
> Kiln People
> David Brin
>
> Executive summary: this is pretty good Brin; vastly better than the most
> recent Uplift books, but not at the level of _Startide Rising._
>
> This is SF in the classic "what if" mode; in this case, the what-if is:
> what if anyone could make temporary and expendable copies of themselves
> any time they wanted?

Whoa, cool. I've sometimes imagined trying to write a story about a
device where people could make copies of themselves to play games.
Like, playing bridge with yourself as a partner, or one-on-one
volleyball or football, where you clone a team of yourself to play
against another person's cloned team.

Guess I'll have to check this out.

- Lori

Ross TenEyck

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Jan 30, 2003, 2:44:33 PM1/30/03
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djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) writes:

>>The copies ("dits" or "dittos" or "roxes" or "golems") are made out of
>>a clay-based substance (why clay is suitable for this purpose receives
>>only the most glancing of handwaves....

>Possibly Brin had been reading Cairns-Smith's _Seven Clues to the
>Origin of Life,_ which speculates that the first molecules of
>life on Earth built up on clay layers?

That is in fact the very glancing handwave I referred to.

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